Are many Capitol Hill Republicans fantasizing about Trump's defeat? You bet they are.

In a major site's comment section the other day, I wrote that after a Trump loss, "would most Republican pols decide they should stay with a recidivist loser? And further 'whiten' the GOP, which would gradually erode their minority rule? That, I cannot see. Another party-humiliating defeat should, or will, turn the Republican Party back to sanity. Otherwise it is doomed, and so its leading politicians will countenance no more of Trump and his ism. Republicans' next election autopsy will be quick. They'll just burn the corpse."  

In other words, party leaders would be just fine with a Trump loss. I added that many of the middle-ranked and backbenchers in Congress would agree. Anyone can know this because from leader to backbencher, they detest Trump, they see him as an unrelenting drag on Republicanism. Anonymously they say so to reporters. Their fantasizing has been no secret for years. 

Now comes Politico's Jonathan Martin, writing "the best possible outcome in November for the future of the Republican Party is for former President Donald Trump to lose and lose soundly. GOP leaders won’t tell you that on the record. I just did."

It was pleasant to see corroboration, because my fellow commenters suggested, politely but firmly, that I had lost my ever-lovin' mind. No way would GOP pols buck Trump and Trumpism even following another post-election defeat. They're too slavish, too dependent on Trump and his Trumpers, they said. I defended my fortress of thought, also politely but firmly. Few responded. Whether any joined my embattled opinion, I can't say.    

A major factor in Republicans' wish for a Trump loss is that their governing-through-obstruction would remain undiminished. If not a Senate majority, they'll have a minority to filibuster all sensible legislation. That alone "adds up to a recipe for gridlock," writes Martin, "and perhaps some deal- making to fund the government and avoid across-the-board tax hikes — but not a Scandinavian social welfare state." There's also the pestiferous Supreme Court, which now rules authentically supreme over the two other branches of government. The Congress and White House exist to be overruled.

Recruiting high-calibre Senate candidates would be more accomplishable with Trump out of the picture. Again, Martin: "Consider just the governors: Virginia’s Glenn Youngkin, Georgia’s Brian Kemp and New Hampshire’s Chris Sununu would all be prime targets for Senate Republicans." Regarding incumbents, "as one GOP senator put it to me in hoping for Trump’s defeat: Who do you think would have a tougher 2026 reelection, Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) under Harris or Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) under Trump?" And in gubernatorial contests, Martin ventures, correctly, that GOP candidates would fare better "if they were running against the so-called six-year-itch."

Politico's columnist makes his point most forcefully in this passage. "For most Republicans who’ve not converted to the Church of MAGA, this scenario is barely even provocative. In fact, asking around with Republicans last week, the most fervent private debate I came across in the party was how best to accelerate Trump’s exit to the 19th Hole." They entertain two options. A Harris presidency or a career-ending second term for Trump, in that he'd be barred from a third term "and be done for certain in 2028." For certain? If Republicans really believe that, they know shockingly little about the man. No constitution, no court would keep him from running.  

"One high-level Republican," as Martin puts it, is attracted to the idea of a Harris victory, after which President Biden pardons both Hunter and Trump. Gone would be the weighty legal headaches sure to burden President Harris, plus it would take the air out of Trump's blowhard accusations of being persecuted by Democrats. Moreover, rather than having to parrot his cretinous accusations for four years, Republicans could return to what politics is fundamentally all about: winning elections.

Martin asks if Republican activists would be as pleased as so many Republican politicians would be if the party, absent Trump, crawled back to the center-right. "Probably not," Martin answers. But he loaded his question by asking about "activists" rather than voters. Even in this election cycle a significant number of GOP voters wondered about the advisability of running a loser, according to polls. Their numbers would swell, I'm confident, once Trump declared his fourth attempt at occupying the White House. Political history can handle only so many Harold Stassens, the former Minnesota governor who ran for the presidency in 1944, 1948, 1952, 1964, 1968, 1980 1984, 1988 and 1992. 

Another reason businesslike Republican pols would be less than sorrowful in waving goodbye to Trump is his encumbering the party by endorsing and thus boosting so many flakes who never had a chance of winning. 2022's expected red wave was a blue one instead, thanks to Trump's knack for elevating such freaks only because they were flatterers as well. And 2024 could be a repeat. Martin notes two impending Republican disasters: "the Senate race in Arizona and governor’s race in North Carolina." 

Yet another reason behind the thinking of those businesslike Republicans, as Martin observes, is that the party would extinguish Democrats' "best force for unity, fundraising and enthusiasm." Trump in those ways has been Democrats' best friend. And, after all, the GOP would still have its best friends: the perpetual scandal of an Electoral College, an obstructionist Senate, or, if that should fail, a far-right Supreme Court that legislatively is more powerful than the presidency and Congress.  

Martin notes "the best case for Trump’s defeat," which quite a few of his soi-disant allies are hoping for. "[It's] Trump himself. He’s incoherent on abortion rights, unable even to appear at a cemetery without creating a political mess and is so bothered by those who’ve suffered the wounds of war that he slights Medal of Honor recipients. And, running against a female opponent, he's pushing blowjob jokes about her and his last female opponent. And that’s just the last two weeks." (My emphasis.)

There's also "Trump’s routine self-sabotage," writes Martin, which I thought he had already covered. At any rate, he adds to the list the former president's "mocking his advisers’ attempt to keep him on message, refusing to learn the basics of issues over nine years after he entered politics and making little effort to appeal to those in his own party who are uneasy with him."

Martin's conclusion comes in question form: "Republicans should ask themselves: Had Enough?" But that too he covered earlier in his column. Furthermore, I disbelieve in what they should ask themselves. Most already have, and the answer is a decided yes. 

Comments

[Anne J]

I'm trying to remember the last time republicans were sane. Was it when they were spending decades employing the racist southern strategy to bash their opponents?

Was it their obstructionism in congress that even pre-dates Obama? They wouldn't even pass a comprehensive immigration bill for their own party leader at the time, George W. Bush to sign. But even before that there was Newt Gingrich hypocrtically investigating Clinton, and unveiling his Contract on America.

Was it when idiots with tri-corner hats with tea bags hanging off of them, pretending they weren't racist against Obama, they just "disagreed with his policies"? Was it 2009 when the Oath Keepers first formed and later rioted on the Capitol in 2021 to support their republican presidential candidate? (Did they even bother to vote?) Was it when they sat back and let outside agitators cast racist aspersions on Obama's origin story? Trump did not start that he just eventually became its loudest megaphone.

Republicans in red states started their voter suppression efforts before Trump entered politics. Republicans in states started workarounds around Roe v. Wade by rolling back the number of weeks women had to get an abortion and in some states even mandating that women must undergo a vaginal ultra sound first (because they're a bunch of sick perverts) long before Trump appointed the justices who helped overturn Roe.

I remember both the 2016 and 2024 republican primaries and thinking they were actually worse than Trump, far more focused on their authoritarian goals than him.

And Trump is not democrats' best friend for fund raising and messaging. Right now democrats are fundraising off of project 2025. They are fundraising off of republicans, not just Trump. He's just the biggest target right now.

I just don't believe republicans can recover any sanity when they have not been sane for a very long time.

[Anne J]

Forgot to add:Trump is a problem of republicans' own making. He didn't just happen to them overnight.

[VoiceOfReason]

Anne, possibly back before Teddy Roosevelt led the progressives out of the party. One could argue that Ike was sane, but the GOP? Not so much. Red Scare, Duck-n-Cover...