(3 minute read)
Bodings
The 2022 midterms are upon us. Republicans and Democrats have both put forth some questionable candidates on the ballot in years past. However, this year there are some astonishing Trump Republican MAGA Head candidates on the ballot in various states. I’m not real sure that all of them are literate. “Questionable” doesn’t begin to touch some of these candidates.
Half of the Republicans running for Senate[1] and Governors[2] are election deniers. Half! They along with 61% of MAGA Head Republicans don’t believe that Trump lost the election.[3],[4] (It was 70% back in June of this year.)[5] Couple this with the projection that over half the House is predicted to be election deniers after the midterms and it doesn’t bode well for our Republic.[6]
Eleven of the MAGA Republicans seeking the office of Secretary of State are election deniers.[7] These people will be in charge of elections if they win. So, people that don’t believe in our system of government will be in charge of counting the vote. (As a refresher point, I have stated previously that all three branches of our government upheld the validity of the 2020 election including state government officials in charge of the election.)
Oh yes, I should give an honorable mention to the wife of a Supreme Court Injustice being involved with the seditionists attempt to overthrow our government and says that she still believes the election was stolen. She says it with a big ‘ol smile too.[8] She testified before the January 6 Committee,[9] Supreme Court Injustice Clarence Thomas was the only dissenting vote against releasing White House documents to the January 6 Committee.[10]
What comprises the list of Trump MAGA heads that are seeking high office in our land along with, you know, just not believing in our form of government. Well, we have a former football player. A talking head snake oil salesman. A veteran that lied about where he served. Q Anon crazies. White Supremacist and Nationalist sympathizers. Great Replacement Theory believers.[11] You know, the theory that white people are being replaced by minorities and immigrants like the people that founded America. Incidentally, the theory is anti-Semitic.
Then there’s Dark MAGA.[12] They advocate a vengeful Trump rising to destroy his enemies. And they mean destroy in the very real physical sense. They want opposition to Trump hung. From the beginning there has been a pervasive theme of violence that emanates from MAGA Heads.
None of this bodes well for America.
Locked in
In general Democrats are locked in as to how they will vote as are Republicans. Trump Republicans don’t care who the candidate is. They have one qualification in their job description for those seeking office—be a Trump cult member and be loyal to Trump. In the 2022 election we saw that the never Trump Republicans still voted for other Republicans in the down ballot. Even though those very same people were the enablers of the MAGA movement. Trump just killed a few too many oldster friends and family because of how he handled the pandemic for them to vote for him.[13]
They’ll get over it.
Who’s being courted?
The hopes of the nation reside with the Independents that, even with all that has happened, don’t know who they’re going to vote for yet.[14] Hard to believe I know at this point but here we are. Indications are that they are breaking against the crazy train candidates that I mentioned previously by a couple of percentage points.[15]
But the crazies with their conspiracy driven beliefs are changing their positions now that they have won their Republican primaries. They’re scrubbing their campaign material and flipping positions in order to appear more normal.
They aren’t.
[1] https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/14/politics/fact-check-republican-senate-nominees-2020-election/index.html
[2] https://www.cbsnews.com/philadelphia/news/doug-mastriano-gop-governor-nominees-have-questioned-or-denied-the-legitimacy-of-the-2020-election/
[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/28/nearly-700-days-later-most-republicans-still-believe-trumps-big-lie/?lctg=75845185
[4] https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meetthepressblog/poll-61-republicans-still-believe-biden-didnt-win-fair-square-2020-rcna49630
[5] https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2022/70-percent-republicans-falsely-believe-stolen-election-trump/
[6] https://www.mediaite.com/politics/more-than-half-of-republican-house-members-in-next-congress-will-be-election-deniers-predicts-fivethirtyeight/
[7] https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/11/politics/fact-check-republican-secretary-of-state-nominees-2020-election/index.html
[8] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1na4WENZRM
[9] https://www.npr.org/2022/09/29/1125886442/ginni-thomas-wife-supreme-court-justice-testifies-jan-6
[10] https://www.vox.com/2022/3/29/22999755/supreme-court-clarence-thomas-voting-rights-democracy-elections-ginni
[11] https://www.britannica.com/topic/replacement-theory
[12] https://gnet-research.org/2022/04/05/from-orange-to-red-an-assessment-of-the-dark-maga-trend-in-far-right-online-spaces/
[13] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHxwn5Z5BCc
[14] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/05/15/facts-about-us-political-independents/
[15] https://scri.siena.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Custom-Crosstabs-Combine-Q4-and-Q5-combined.pdf