Trump’s failure to acknowledge that he lost jeopardizes GOP chances in Georgia and risks handing control of the Senate over to Chuck Schumer and the Democrats.
President Trump lost his bid for reelection by being a weak and incompetent leader who failed to provide leadership when it mattered most, during the pandemic.
Now, by failing to show grace and magnanimity in defeat, he is in real danger of causing the Republican Party to lose two critical Senate seats in Georgia.
Catastrophe. As we have reported here at ResCon1, this would be a catastrophe for the United States.
That is because if the Democrats win these two Senate seats, they will control the Senate and thus have the ability to enact a host of radical legislative proposals that would effect an irreversible transformation of American politics and our very system of government.
Think D.C. statehood, the end of the filibuster, packing the courts, repeal of corporate tax reform, new tax hikes, “Medicare for All,” the “Green New Deal,” compulsory unionism, et al.
Indeed, the stakes could not be greater than they are right now in Georgia.
Yet, Trump seems not to care. Instead, his focus is on himself and his failed presidential bid.
Weak Leadership. Trump, of course, is too weak and insecure to admit that he lost. Consequently, he and his toadies are concocting ludicrous conspiracy theories to explain his defeat.
This wouldn’t matter except that Trump is consuming all of the political oxygen that otherwise would go to these two critical Georgia Senate races.
As Kimberley A. Strassel explains in the Wall Street Journal:
The biggest risk is that Republican base.
The GOP is optimistic it can win back suburban and older voters who feel conflicted about Mr. Trump but still want a check on progressives.
None of that will matter if GOP voters in rural and exurban areas stay home, angry or frustrated by the presidential election.
Adds the Washington Examiner:
At this point, Trump’s efforts are more likely to damage the Republican Party, and more specifically, undermine its chances of winning the Jan. 5 runoff elections in Georgia for the two Senate seats that remain undecided.
GOP control of the Senate rests on those races; the party must win at least one of them to retain its majority. And that majority is all that stands in the way of a Congress dramatically more capable of passing damaging and extreme left-wing legislation after Jan. 20.
The president’s efforts to reverse the election result and stay in office for a second term are not going to succeed. Without a chance of succeeding, they have become distractions from the really important task of keeping the Senate in Republican hands.
In Georgia, Trump is setting Republican against Republican.
“The largest shadow hanging over Republicans,” reports McClatchy’s David Catanese, “is what the outgoing president will do.
Trump, who has been almost entirely consumed with his campaign’s far-fetched legal challenges to his own election defeat, briefly praised [David] Perdue and [Kelly] Loeffler in a Tuesday evening tweet.
But GOP officials don’t expect Trump to get more directly involved—if he chooses to at all—until the presidential election result is finalized and his court battles are exhausted.
[Former Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss, a Republican], indicated that Trump likely wouldn’t be helpful to Perdue and Loeffler if he hasn’t conceded his own defeat.