The notion that Republicans this year lost heavily in the General
Assembly because President Donald Trump sank them is a bit too facile.
Mark Pazniokas, a writer for CTMirror, explores the notion
in a story titled CT
GOP had right message, but ‘Trump just trumped it.’
The quoted portion
in the title, “Trump just trumped it,” is taken from a remark made by former U.S.
Representative Chris Shays, the last Republican standing in Connecticut’s U.S.
Congressional Delegation. Shays, Connecticut’s U.S. Representative from the 4th
District from August 1987 through January 2009, lost to current U.S. Representative
Jim Himes long before Trump appeared menacingly on the presidential horizon,
and his loss, as well as the losses of longtime U.S. Reps. Nancy Johnson and
Rob Simmons, had nothing to do with Trump and much to do with changing political
dynamics in Connecticut campaigns.
“State legislative
leaders,” had in the past, CTMirror reported, “distanced their caucuses from
the national GOP, which has made opposition to abortion, gun control and
same-sex marriage part of its platform for the past decade.
“Despite losing
top-of-the-ticket races every two years, the Republicans staged a remarkable
comeback: In 2016, the GOP won an 18-18 tie in the state Senate and 72 seats in
the House, just four short of a 76-75 majority.”
Concerning the ten
foot pole Connecticut Republicans put between themselves and Trump, Shays remarked,
“I think that was a smart decision, which Trump just trumped… It began to be about God, guns and gays, and
the obscene image of Trump appeal to white nationalists. Donald Trump has very
harsh words about anybody who criticizes him. I never heard a harsh word from
him about the far right and white supremacists.”
And Larry Cafero remarked
that while Republicans had a sellable message, his own loss in a contest for probate
judge in Norwalk was wholly the result of Trump: “’With all due respect to my
opponent, it could have been a rock on the ballot and we wouldn’t have won,’
said Cafero, who had never lost an election before this year. ‘It all had to do
with Donald Trump.’”
Right – Trump the
scapegoat.
A few points should
be made, none of them in defense of Trump’s vulgarian tendencies. Asked to comment
on Trump, Bill Buckley remarked in Cigar
Afcionado, seven years before Trump ascended to the presidency, that Trump
was a narcissist. Presidents, and indeed all politicians, carry both their
vices and virtues with them into office. President Woodrow Wilson was a white
nationalist who viewed with approval in the White House a film, The Birth of a Nation, that celebrated
Klukluxery. President
of Princeton before ascending to the White House, Wilson was no vulgarian
in the manner of populist Democrat Governor of Louisiana Huey Long.
There is little
question that Trump was sufficiently demagogued during Connecticut’s recently
concluded campaigns, but GOP losses cannot be wholly attributed to Trump’s ghostly
non-presence on Connecticut ballots.
V. I. Lenin used to
say that if you label an opponent or his arguments rightly, you do not have to
argue with either, and there was no attempt – none at all – by the GOP collectively
to defend Trump’s more successful policies. Trump’s military procurements has increased both jobs and the state’s depleted coffers.
The collective determination
of Connecticut’s GOP never, ever to confront Democrats on social issues – the maladministration
of Connecticut cities by unopposed hegemonic Democrats, the ascendency of union
power in governmental affairs, the dangerous drift away from constitutional government
towards one-party autocracy, enfeebled campaign finance laws that favor
incumbents, the continual use of courts and a politicized Attorney General’s
office to advance the progressive politics of the Democrat Party, all issues that have profound
social repercussions – are continually left on the shelf in GOP campaigns. It
is one thing to shrink from discussing the use of birth control pills, quite
another to shrink from an honest discussion of partial birth abortion, which is
widely unpopular; its defense among pro-abortion extremists on spurious grounds
is indefensible, except in rare cases in which a late term birth may lead to
the death of the mother. Shay’s notion that Republicans face losses if they
rise to the defense of God might lend itself to a nifty bumper sticker: "Vote Shays, not God."
Bob Stefanowski lost
his campaign to Ned Lamont – the ONLY Democrat in Connecticut who can save his
state, even at the cost of losing face with traditional Democrat Party interests -- for reasons having little to do with Trump, who served Democrats as a
convenient target and Republicans as a useful post-election scapegoat. Lamont
was playing, as Democrats always do, the whole social-financial keyboard, while
Stefanowski was hammering only the economic note. That is why he lost. That is why there
are no Republicans in Connecticut’s all-Democrat U.S. Congressional Delegation.
It is why moderate Republicans, tottering left on social issues and focused chiefly
on economic issues, continually lose to progressive Democrats and the progressive
heralds in Connecticut’s media.
If you abandon half
the field to Democrats, you will have lost half the war before hostilities have
commenced – always, all the time.
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