Vice President Kamala Harris has chosen Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate for the 2024 presidential election, but the choice of J.D. Vance by Donald Trump is already causing major headaches for the GOP as the election draws closer by the day.
Why is Vance so unpopular? According to Sarah Longwell of Republican Voters Against Trump, it can be summed up with one word: Phony.
Speaking with MSNBC’s Jen Psaki Monday evening, Longwell remarked, “The thing that is killing J.D. Vance is that voters, and I have listened to tons of swing voters since he was picked, and they don’t like him at all. They think he seems like a phony.”
The two leading contenders to run with Harris, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Longwell added, “both seem pretty comfortable in their own skin and they feel authentic.”
.@sarahlongwell25: “The thing that is killing JD Vance is that voters — and I have listened to tons of swing voters since he was picked — they don’t like him at all. They think he seems like a phony… voters can smell inauthenticity, and that’s what JD Vance reeks of to them.” pic.twitter.com/RnlV4aeJYB
— Inside with Jen Psaki (@InsideWithPsaki) August 4, 2024
Longwell’s comments drew lots of agreement on Twitter.
JD Vance originally loathed Trump, called him, a con artist, America’s Hitler. When his billionaire benefactors negotiated his VP pick deal with Trump, he became weirder than Trump. He portrayed himself more extreme. He lacked charisma and fiery personality of a politician.
JD Vance is full of shit. Hillbilly Elegy was poverty porn exaggerated for dramatic effect; Vance went to Yale and didn’t have to pull himself up by his bootstraps to do it. His jobs have been gifts from rich Nazi creeps like Peter Thiel. He’s a fake populist, just like Trump.
In celebration of July 4th and American independence, the official Twitter account of the Republican Party decided to send out a happy birthday message to the United States.
But they used the flag of Liberia instead of the U.S. flag.
The GOP message read:
“247 years ago, our forefathers told Ol’ King George to get lost! Happy Independence Day from the GOP!”
You know, I try hard to warn organizations that their crack comms teams will inevitably mess something *~fundamental~* up, and nevertheless, they persist. From your dear friends at the Republican National Committee, Happy Independence Day, Liberia! https://t.co/cYWagrHJCShttps://t.co/NJXvOfbdcLpic.twitter.com/akfvm8wLu6
The predicted 2022 midterm election “red wave” we’ve been hearing about ever since President Joe Biden took the oath of office in January of 2021 fizzled out in humiliating fashion on Tuesday, with the Republicans still uncertain of whether or not they’ll control the House, and, even if they do, with a margin of just a few seats.
The Senate also appears headed for a 50-50 split or slim majority for Democrats once the race in Georgia between incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock (D) and his GOP challenger, Herschel Walker, is decided in a runoff on December 6.
Just how bad was the midterm for Republicans? So much that Fox News political commentator Marc Thiessen is declaring it “an absolute disaster” and an indictment of the GOP, their message, and their candidates.
Thiessen sounded a warning for Republicans, noting:
“We have the worst inflation in four decades, the worst collapse in real wages in 40 years, the worst crime wave since the 1990s, the worst border crisis in U.S. history. We have Joe Biden, who is the least popular president since Harry Truman — since presidential polling happened — and there wasn’t a red wave. That is a searing indictment of the Republican Party. That is a searing indictment of the message that we have been sending to the voters. They looked at all of that and looked at the Republican alternative and said ‘no thanks.'”
Despite some conservatives attempting to put a happy face on the election results, Thiessen made it clear 2022 will go down in history as a debacle for the Republican Party.
“The Republican Party needs to do a really deep introspection, look in the mirror right now, because this is an absolute disaster for the Republican Party, and we need to turn back. We need to look at who won today: Ron DeSantis, (Mike) DeWine. These governors. (Brian) Kemp, Abbott. Look at these governors. This is the path to the future. And electing these radical candidates who ran far behind them has put the Republican Party in a terrible position. And voters have indicted the Republican Party.”
Thiessen’s call for DeSantis, DeWine, Kemp, and Abbott to be the “path to the future” is also problematic for the GOP because all of them are far right extremists who want to jail women that have an abortion. If Republicans nominate any of them in 2024, they’re likely to lose again. That’s good news for the country but a political obituary for the GOP.
Here’s the video:
Fox News on the election results: “This is an absolute disaster for the Republican Party.” pic.twitter.com/lKq6QZPEaW
Mark Mitchell, a pollster who works for the conservative Rasmussen polling organization, warned Thursday that recent surveys show that American voters are “less likely” to vote for a Republican candidate than they were just a year ago.
During an appearance on former Trump administration adviser Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast, Mitchell noted that President Joe Biden’s poll numbers had risen considerably over the summer and Democrats have also made up significant ground in the generic congressional ballot. Once down by as much as 10 points, the two parties are almost even.
Mitchell also told Bannon:
“Look at the question. If the midterm elections were held today, would you vote for the Republican candidate or for the Democrat candidate for Congress? And, you know, when somebody loses a lead like that, it’s a referendum on the party. Right?
“So, people are very concerned about all these topics. They look around and they see a lot of problems with the economy and they’re worried about being able to make their rent payment or whatever.”
The pollster added:
“But they are less likely to vote for Republicans — I think that’s a very clear signal — than they were a year ago. Much less likely than they were a year ago.”
Remember that “red wave” the GOP was promising at the beginning of the year? The wave now seems to be turning blue and could be disastrous for Republicans because Americans know they cannot be trusted.
North Carolina GOP Congressman Madison Cawthorn’s life is in complete shambles, and it’s hard to feel sorry for him considering the bad shit he’s done over the past couple of years.
First and foremost, Cawthorn is broke and cannot pay his campaign debts, which, it just so happened, he incurred for illegal purposes, meaning that in addition to soon being unemployed, he’s also facing indictment and time in prison if found guilty.
Roger Sollenberger of The Daily Beast reports that everything that can go wrong for Cawthorn is doing exactly that
With two weeks to go until a primary election he was fated to lose, Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) was already underwater. His campaign held more than twice as much debt as it had cash on hand, the donor well was dry, and he and his staff were months into a madcap spending streak that one campaign source called “baffling.”
And now, after indeed losing that primary, there’s no money to pay the piper.
Specifically, there’s no money to repay the supporters who donated hundreds of thousands of dollars in advance to Cawthorn’s election efforts beyond the primary—to the general election he now won’t be competing in.
That shuffling of money is illegal, and that complicates matters considerably for the soon-to-be ex-congressman, who is going to be hard-pressed to find an attorney who will represent him without a retainer:
The breach of fiduciary obligations follows a string of personal and professional embarrassments that hounded the one-term congressman across the weeks and months leading up to his primary defeat—accusations of insider trading, multiple alleged ethics violations, unforced public gaffes, and photo and video leaks designed to humiliate him.
But the campaign’s financial washout is more than another embarrassment; it’s against the law.
To borrow a phrase from Homer Simpson, D’oh!
But perhaps most confounding and embarrassing for Cawthorn is the spending reports which show how he managed to burn through so much cash so quickly. The details in federal reports sound like something a college frat boy would have done:
This person pointed to a spree of frivolous charges over the last year that all accelerated into 2022, such as $1,500 in “egregiously” frequent trips to Chick-Fil-A, almost $3,000 at a place called Papa’s Beer, three separate charges at a high-end cigar shop, $21,000 for lodging in Florida and—the biggest drain—hundreds of thousands of dollars in sky-high consulting and fundraising fees, including for Cawthorn’s friend and campaign manager, Blake Harp, who was drawing a salary beyond federal limits.
Jordan Libowitz, communications director for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, says Cawthorn is screwed:
“There are few more ironclad rules in campaign finance than you can’t spend general election funds in a primary. There are strict limits on how much may be given and spent in each. If Cawthorn spent funds raised for the general during the primary and made no attempt to refund the general donations, he’ll likely be in a lot of trouble with the FEC.”
Beginning in January of next year, Cawthorn will no longer have his congressional salary, so he’s quite literally going to be jobless, penniless, and facing the prospect of legal action against him.
