Source: The Washington Post / Getty
Megan McArdle at the Washington Post wrote a series of tweets arguing that former President Donald Trump is “bad for the [Republican] party’s electoral fortunes. The more he takes over the party, the harder it is for the party to actually wield power.”
The columnist went on to say:
The problem isn’t his issue set, it’s him. The party can win on a more immigration-restrictionist platform. It can win being more moderate on social security and Medicare reform. It can win on (some) culture war issues. But Trump makes it harder to win congressional majorities.
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This is why basically every professional in conservative politics is privately scathing about him, even some folks in his orbit. They know he’s bad for the party. They just don’t dare say so aloud because–see above!–his voters will not believe it.
This has led to a massive preference falsification cascade where virtually the entire party pretends, to varying degrees, to think Trump is doing a good job.
Now, any honest commentator should acknowledge his occasional successes. Brett Kavanaugh would not have become a Supreme Court justice under any other president. The Abraham Accords seem to be maybe doing okay? And yay, Operation Warp Speed!
But that’s different from pretending that on net, you think Trump is a good politician who can assemble a strong political coalition. Which a lot of Republicans have done for years, while privately saying he was a disaster.
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