A Sinking ship

Stuck on a Sinking Ship

Too many Wisconsin Republicans still feel the need to kiss the ring of the former president in order to see a path to electoral victory.

All of the GOP candidates for governor have made the public pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago, except Kevin Nicholson, so they can say they went. Some have embraced the “Big Lie” that the former occupant of the White House really won the 2020 election and none of the rest have publicly renounced the claim, except Nicholson, who agrees that President Biden won the election.

Further down the food chain, our GOP Assembly Speaker, Robin Vos, continues to bend to pressure from Florida. After Vos appeared to put the Gableman fiasco behind him, the King of Mar-a-Lago threatened to find Vos a primary challenger if he did not continue Gableman’s “investigation” into the 2020 presidential election. Vos did an about-face and announced that Gableman could continue his work to enforce subpoenas for documents and depositions currently tied up in litigation while taking an unspecified pay cut. Gableman’s work has drawn bipartisan criticism as a “witch hunt” that has yet to find and document any fraud in the last presidential election after spending hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars looking.

With national polling showing ever decreasing support for the “Big Lie” and those who perpetuate it, it is surprising that those in the GOP leadership still cling to it and seek the support of its main proponent.

Seeking support from Mar-a-Lago carries other risks. The continuing fallout from the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, both through criminal convictions and congressional investigations, casts a pall over the legitimacy and patriotism of the former president and his supporters. As more information emerges about the roles of former administration officials and GOP members in the House of Representatives in fomenting the insurrection and failing to call off or condemn the violence at the Capitol, more and more Americans are coming to recognize just how close we came to losing our democracy. We just do not use martial law to stay in power after losing an election.

Alt-right support for Russia’s President Putin and his democracy-destroying invasion of Ukraine has been whipped up by the former president. His ties, financial and political, to Putin and his oligarchy put him squarely on the wrong side of history. Authoritarianism is not a path to victory in American elections. Support for war criminals does not gain traction in our electorate. Polling clearly shows that a vast majority of the American public support President Biden’s support for the Ukrainian democracy and people, both militarily and diplomatically, as Biden unites Europe against the Russian invasion.

After being thrown off of social media platforms like Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, and Twitter, the former president backed another platform, Truth Social. It is run by former legislator Devin Nunes and has struggled to gain much traction. Its stock took a 44% hit after Elon Musk agreed to buy Twitter. Trump, having only posted once on the new platform, has not helped its cause.

The former president’s financial woes continue as the New York attorney general convinced a judge to hold him in contempt and fine him $10,000 per day for failing to produce documents for the state’s investigation into his business dealings there. We will see which hurts more, the payment of the fines or the disclosures that will be made if the documents are produced. It is already public knowledge that the businesses run by the family allegedly used two sets of figures, one inflated asset values to obtain loans and the other deflated those same values for tax purposes. You cannot have it both ways.

I cannot see why GOP politicians still think it important to have support or endorsements from such a loser. He has an ever-dwindling base of support which will wither away over time. His endorsement will be seen by more and more as the kiss of political death to be avoided at all costs.

Until the GOP finds a new course with a positive message and a bold leadership, the former president will still be able to command center stage. Fortunately, that stage will get smaller and smaller as we continue to restore our democracy.