Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Consistently wrong since 2002

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

A Senator Walker would also be an insult to reason, rationality, and decency.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Why did Dr. Oz lose? well, according to the exit polls, it’s because Fetterman won.

Come on, man.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

T R E 4 5 O N

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

This fight is for everything.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

You are here: Home / Politics / GOP Death Cult / Wednesday Evening Open Thread: The GOP Circular Firing Squad Assembles

Wednesday Evening Open Thread: The GOP Circular Firing Squad Assembles

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Former President Donald Trump’s persistent false claims about the 2020 election were an obstacle for GOP candidates and a leading reason the party performed poorly in the midterms, two prominent Republicans said a day after the party suffered another stinging midterm defeat.

“I think his obsession with the 2020 election became an albatross and a real liability for people who were running, especially in swing states,” Senator John Thune, the No. 2 Senate Republican, told reporters in the wake of Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock’s victory Tuesday in a Georgia run-off with Trump-backed Herschel Walker…

Utah Republican Senator Mitt Romney, who has frequently sparred with Trump, said winning the backing of the former president has meant a candidate’s likely to win a party primary but lose a general election.

“For someone who actually wants to win an election, getting endorsed by President Trump is the kiss of death,” Romney said.

The remarks by Thune and Romney are the latest signal that many congressional Republicans are seeking to distance themselves from the former president. Thune said Trump’s insistence that candidates he endorsed back his claim that he won and Joe Biden lost in 2020 was a significant setback for the party.

LET THE WILD RUMPUS BEGIN!

Reader Interactions

120Comments

  6. 6.

    Westyny

    Just a reminder that Peter Baker is an asshole and an energy vampire.  Not that most here need to be reminded.

  7. 7.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    OT: AOC is apparently under investigation by the House Ethics Committee. For what, hasn’t been released

  8. 8.

    kindness

    I’ll do better than requested.  I’ll never visit the GD NY Times.  Not one thin dime will they ever get from me again.

  10. 10.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    Well, when it comes to Republicans in disarray, I continue to root for injuries (not physical injuries.. injuries to their political and financial well being).

  12. 12.

    MattF

    So, John Bolton sees himself as the man of the hour. Apparently everyone has forgotten that the ‘bombshell’ memoir he wrote turned out to be a tiny little fart. People need to recall the massacre of 2016, when Trump was the only GOP candidate with an actual personality. Yes, a narcissistic, psychopathic personality— but that was enough to make all the other candidates look ridiculous.

  13. 13.

    mrmoshpotato

    Georgia is a reminder that Rick Scott isn’t just awful at who he is, he’s awful at what he does

    Did Batboy go to Georgia to campaign for Dump dung candidates?

  16. 16.

    mrmoshpotato

    well ahh i was thinking we could try being ahhh more racist

    “Well,” suggested the fascist turtle, “we could be a bigger shitpile of bigots and imbeciles.  We can bring in Klansmen and Nazis too!  Ah yup.”

  17. 17.

    Qrop Non Sequitur

    @mrmoshpotato: We can bring in Klansmen and Nazis too!  Ah yup.”

    They could certainly stand to grow their coalition, but I thought those very fine people were already part of it.

  20. 20.

    mrmoshpotato

    NEW: Trump Called ‘Albatross’ on GOP by Senate No. 2 Republican John Thune @LauraLitvan via @bpolitics @SenJohnThune

    Boo fucking hoo!  🎶You built this!🎶🖕

  22. 22.

    Qrop Non Sequitur

    @mrmoshpotato: Trump Called ‘Albatross’ on GOP by Senate No. 2 Republican John Thune

    Samuel Taylor Coleridge needs to answer for 220 years of libel and  slander against a magnificent bird.

  25. 25.

    Qrop Non Sequitur

    @mrmoshpotato: I’m sorry, your artistic license expired on your last birthday. There will be a 60 dollar late fee in addition to the 40 renewal.

    Haha.  I see you let Iron Maiden off the hook. 😁

    No lo conozco

  26. 26.

    Kay

    Michael Hobbes
    @RottenInDenmark
    “Cancel culture” is now calling libraries, inviting yourself to be a guest speaker and throwing a tantrum when they decline.

    Michael Hobbes
    @RottenInDenmark
    I am not exaggerating. Literally cold-calling random libraries and demanding to be given a speaking slot.

    Lol. It’s really getting fun now, how ridiculous they are :)

  27. 27.

    mrmoshpotato

    When you challenge the Constitution itself, that is un-American. If the current GOP presidential candidates don’t repudiate Trump, I’m prepared to get in the race.

    Whem you have lost John Warboner Bolton…

     

  28. 28.

    ian

    Bolton published an article not long ago calling for (guess what else?) regime change in Iran.  In that same article, he bitterly complained that U.S. policy was too pro-Palestinian.

    Some leopards can’t change their spots.  It also says a lot about the contemporary Republican party that *John Bolton* is considered the voice of reason.

  29. 29.

    Barbara

    “Winning in the general” at least in some states requires Trump loyalists to consider it worth their while to show up and vote for Republican candidates. It’s still not clear to me whether a sufficient percentage of Trump voters will be reliable Republican voters, or voters at all, to swing elections in purple states.

  30. 30.

    Qrop Non Sequitur

    @mrmoshpotato: Republicans have been challenging the Constitution my whole life, just not verbally.

    With Republicans, words speak louder than actions.

  31. 31.

    David 🦃The Establishment🥧 Koch

    FTFNYT – today

     Walker’s loss will almost certainly lead to soul-searching for a Republican Party

    FTFNYT – Dec 21, 1924

    Berlin — Adolph Hitler, once the demi-god of the reactionary extremists, was released from imprisonment at Fortress Landsberg, Bavaria, today and immediately left in an auto for Munich. He looked a much sadder and wiser man today than last Spring when he, with Ludendorff and other radical extremists, appeared before a Munich court charged with conspiracy to overthrow the government.

    zebra can’t change its stripes

  34. 34.

    Qrop Non Sequitur

    @Barbara: It’s still not clear to me whether a significant percentage of Trump voters will be reliable Republican voters, or voters at all.

    Among the Trump-adherent voters I know, two were reliable D voters previously. One was writing Ron Paul in for every Presidential cycle. Two have been reliable R voters forever. One moved to Utah to hide from Democrats.

  35. 35.

    CaseyL

    So the GOP is turning on McConnell now? The one who turned the Federalist Society agenda into actual policy, and enabled stacking the courts with those fascist hairbrains? The one who made their dreams reality? That McConnell?

    Trying to figure out who is the scorpion here, and who is the frog. But mostly hoping for a matter-antimatter reaction, and mutual anhialation.

  37. 37.

    different-church-lady

    @Layer8Problem: ​
     

    We’re asking readers to stand with us on the digital picket line and not visit any NYT platforms tomorrow.

    Uhhh… no problem? No problem at all?

  38. 38.

    Kay

    Ugh. It’s so humiliating that Ohio got stuck with the low quality Trump Senator. Just about everyone else rejected Trump’s crap candidates except my awful state.

  40. 40.

    Anoniminous

    @MattF: ​
     
    I’m so old I remember 2015 and how the Republican Establishment was going to ensure JEB! would waltz through the primaries and skate right on into the White House.

  41. 41.

    David 🦃The Establishment🥧 Koch

     With Walker’s defeat tonight, Trump’s final record in these races is 2-14

    It won’t be too long before Dump says, “I don’t know Donald Trump. I’ve never heard of him. I wouldn’t recognize him if he was standing next to me.”

  42. 42.

    Dangerman

    So, what do the sane Republicans do when Trump is indicted? They want/need the MFer to go away (MAL is acceptable, but if its Supermax, that works, too). Coming to his defense only helps the Dude win the nomination in 2024.

    Damn, I don’t have enough popcorn.

  43. 43.

    Qrop Non Sequitur

    @Anoniminous: the Republican Establishment was going to ensure JEB! would waltz through the primaries and skate right on into the White House.

    JEB! is far past his prime and definitely not up to the task of waltzing on skates.

  44. 44.

    geg6

    For my entire political life, the story has always been “Democrats in disarray!”  We’re talking my first presidential vote was for Mondale, my first GOTV was for Carter before was even eligible to vote and my first interest in politics was sparked by the Kennedys in my childhood.  It’s really nice that the shoe is on the other foot.

  47. 47.

    Qrop Non Sequitur

    @Dangerman: So, what do the sane Republicans do when Trump is indicted?

    Whom are you referring to? Would a post it note be too long for the list or I have this scrap of confetti.

  53. 53.

    prostratedragon

    @Qrop Non Sequitur: ​ The mariner wore the albatross about his neck because he had shot it as it pointed the way to safety. I don’t think TFG is that to the party.
    @Kay: ​
    Hah-hah! //Muntz

  54. 54.

    Bill Arnold

    The replies in the referenced Greg Price thread ( https://twitter.com/greg_price11/status/1600336079860604928 ) made me smile. Republicans will continue to lose when  they are so detached from electoral reality, or even just basic everyday reality. Some of them seriously believe that un-electable/badly-flawed candidates were good candidates, and/or that Democrats like Fetterman are stupid.  (A glance at his educational history on wikipedia suggests not.)

  55. 55.

    David 🦃The Establishment🥧 Koch

     The author of Florida’s Don’t Say Gay bill, Republican state Rep. @JosephBHarding, has been indicted for wire fraud, money laundering, and making false statements.

    Only the best people

  56. 56.

    David 🦃The Establishment🥧 Koch

    Marjorie Taylor Greene said it is “extremely insulting” that the Herschel Walker campaign didn’t ask her to campaign statewide for him.

    I love the smell of circular firing squads in the morning. That smell, that disarray smell – smells like victory.

  61. 61.

    Kathleen

    @Kay: Weren’t 3 Dems elected to the School Board where their powers will now be handed over to the governor?

    Are you familiar with Blue Ohio, David Pepper’s newly formed organization?

  63. 63.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Kay:

    Tell me about it Kay. This fucking place is horrible. Recently, the R state legislature was drafting legislation to try to change the threshold for Yes votes on citizen-initiated ballot questions from a simple majority to 60%. But proposals placed on the ballot originating from the Statehouse only need 50% to pass of course still 🙄

  65. 65.

    TriassicSands

    @Another Scott: Maybe TFG will go on the ultrapouty warpath and demand to be selected Speaker.

    That would be entertaining, but unless he were assured of winning, I doubt the Loser would be willing to risk it. I don’t think the House Republicans would vote for him. I mean, they’re stupid, but are they dumb enough to put a complete incompetent in charge? Oh, wait, they’re may elect Trump’s Toady. Never mind. They’re definitely that stupid.

  68. 68.

    Dan B

    @Kay: Such karma.  But he wrote the law to make LGBTQ people invisible when it should have been making a boatload of youth pastors sent up the river.  Looks like he’ll be in Leavenwoth soon.

  69. 69.

    Mike in NC

    Republican state Rep. @JosephBHarding, author of the controversial parental rights in education bill, has been indicted for wire fraud, money laundering, and making false statements.

    That’s the infamous “Don’t Say Gay” bill. He even looks like a Nazi. Maybe let him open up an office in Trump Tower since he’s so qualified to work there.

  74. 74.

    Scout211

    Four Trump properties were searched and 2 more classified documents were found.

    CNN — 
    Two documents with classified markings were found in a Florida storage unit during a search by a team hired by former President Donald Trump’s lawyers, a person familiar with the situation told CNN.

    Those documents were handed over to the FBI. No other documents with classified markings were found during a search of four of Trump’s properties, the source said.

    The team of two searched Trump Tower in New York, the Bedminster golf club, an office location in Florida, and the storage unit where the two documents were found and where the General Services Administration had shipped Trump’s belongings after he left the White House.

    The four searches came amid lingering concerns from the Justice Department that not all documents had been returned to the federal government. Carried out in recent weeks, the searches were overseen by Trump’s legal team, another source familiar with the matter told CNN.

  75. 75.

    Geminid

    @geg6: Is Andy Biggs the twitchy one? The one whose family denounced him?

    I realize this might not narrow down the search much.

  77. 77.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @geg6:

    It’d be funnier if weren’t for things like the looming debt ceiling limit. Hopefully, Congress can push that back as far as possible with some kind of deal in the lame duck, probably the 2023 NDAA

  85. 85.

    Steeplejack

    * DVR Alert *

    Coming up at 2:45 a.m. EST on TCM: Wong Kar-Wai’s In the Mood for Love (2000). “A man (Tony Leung Chiu Wai) and a woman (Maggie Cheung Man-yuk) living in a Singapore building wonder about the frequent absences of their spouses.” Hard to describe, but an engrossing movie. Trailer here.

    Also streaming on HBO Max and the Criterion Collection.

  87. 87.

    Edmund Dantes

    The trump documents was a search by his own side again. It was not an fbi search. I don’t get why we are still at the stage where the DOJ is still at the stage of allowing trump’s side to do these searches on their own. But that is where we are at.

     

    Best part is Trump supposedly hired an outside group to do it. So chances more documents were seen by people that shouldn’t be looking at them. High.

  88. 88.

    Jeffro

    It’s going to be a hoot watching GOP “establishment” pols like Thune, Ryan, etc try very hard to get the party to moderate its views without coming out and just saying it:

    “guys, we have to be less obviously rac…we need to quit embracing Naz…er…um…oh hell I give up…parents’ rights!”

    brought to you by the Party That Offers Nothing But Tax Cuts for the Rich + Racism

  89. 89.

    Edmund Dantes

    I also love this notion like McConnell could have done anything different. GOP primary voters picked these candidates.

    this isn’t a case of Virginia where the party stepped in to pick a candidate (youngkin) to avoid this stuff.

  90. 90.

    BenCisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️

    Great googly moogly this quote:

     

    “Herschel was like a plane crash into a train wreck that rolled into a dumpster fire. And an orphanage. Then an animal shelter. You kind of had to watch it squinting through one eye between your fingers,” said Dan McLagan, an adviser to Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black, one of Walker’s defeated rivals in the GOP primary.”

    🤦🏾‍♂️

  91. 91.

    livewyre

    @Edmund Dantes: Hey, if he can’t seem to stop incriminating himself, and this gives him more rope to do it with (e.g. they know he’s holding out), then I say go wild.

  92. 92.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    @Jeffro: But wait! If you act now, the party will throw in misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia! That’s right… tax cuts, racism PLUS an amazing deal of misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia all for the low, low price of your immortal soul!

  93. 93.

    Another Scott

    @Scout211: Not Doral?  Where he had that Saudi golf tournament?  They didn’t search there??!??

    The FBI should get a warrant to search every place he has been since January 2017 until every molecule with classified markings has been found.

    Grr…,
    Scott.

  95. 95.

    Mike in NC

    @Edmund Dantes:  Been obvious for six years that Trump treats highly classified national security documents the way the rest of us would treat the used wrapper of a Big Mac.

  97. 97.

    TriassicSands

    @billcinsd:

    I wrote: Oh, wait, they may elect Trump’s Toady. Never mind.

    Trump’s Toady is McCarthy, so of course I don’t think he is competent.

  99. 99.

    TriassicSands

    @geg6:

    Ironically, we don’t want them to elect a competent speaker, not that there are a lot of competent candidates.* While chaos in the House is not good for the country, there is nothing I can think of that the GOP wants to do this IS good for the country.

    *Are there any? With more than 218 representatives, there must be at least one Republican representative who isn’t a complete idiot. I just can’t think of any offhand.

  100. 100.

    Geminid

    @Edmund Dantes: The way I saw it, Youngkin picked Youngkin.

    Last year, in the runup to the decision by the Virginia Republican Central Commitees on how to choose their candidates for statewide office, the political magazine Bearing Drift put up an interesting article about the process. The GOP rules in most state require primaries. A minority of states require caucuses followed by a state convention. Virginia was the only one where either route was an option.

    This, the writer pointed out, could potentially allow someone to shape the outcome by shaping the process. I think Glenn Youngkin noticed this and “worked” the Central Committee members.

    In the event, the Committee picked an odd “Disassembled Convention” process with short deadlines that played into the hands of the better funded and better networked candidate. That was Youngkin.

  103. 103.

    Qrop Non Sequitur

    @phdesmond: It was indirect, perhaps unintended. But Coleridge enabled this the moment the metaphor fell into misuse as illustrated beautifully by prostratedragon upthread.

    All to respond to Thune who, like me, likely never read that story since high school.

    An anchor would make a lovely metaphor. Not as in stability but more open ocean tethered to passengers instead of the ship. ⚓️

  104. 104.

    Shalimar

    • @billcinsd: What kind lf competence does it take to drive a clown car?  It’s not like House Republicans have any legislation they want passed.  McCarthy would be a disaster trying to do Pelosi’s job, but that isn’t what they want him to do.  His job is to point the shit-slingers towards the wall.  He will fail hilariously at that, but so will anyone else they pick instead.
  105. 105.

    phdesmond

    Caroline Randall Walker is on Lawrence’s msnbc show next.  she got this in the Atlantic:

     

    in the Atlantic:

    Walker’s candidacy is a fundamental assault by the Republican Party on the dignity of Black Americans. How dare they so cynically use this buffoon as a shield for their obvious failings to meet the needs and expectations of Black voters? They hold him up and say, “See, our voters don’t mind his race. We’re not a racist party. We have Black people on our side too.” Parading Walker at rallies like some kind of blue-ribbon livestock does not mean you have Black people on your side. What it means is that you are promoting a charlatan—a man morally and intellectually bereft enough, blithely egomaniacal enough, to sing and dance on the world stage against his own best interest. Is he in on the joke? Does he know they picked him to save money on boot black and burnt cork, this man who made his name by bringing the master glory on the master’s field, who got comfortable eating from the master’s table?

  106. 106.

    Shalimar

    @TriassicSands: A rumor was floated recently that Democrats and a handful of more moderate Republicans were trying to draft recently retired Fred Upton as a compromise choice.  He’s an unempathetic asshole just like every other Republican, but competent, and probably the best you could hope for from a current member of the party.

  108. 108.

    Geminid

    @Shalimar: Fred Upton was one of the 10 House Republican Impeachers. It would probably take the votes of the entire Democratic Caucus to get him to 218.

    I guess that could happen. I still think the Republicans will elect McCarthy or failing that, elect Scalise. But their meetings the days (and nights too) before the opening session could be “lit,” as the youngs say.

  109. 109.

    Ken

    @Scout211: I suppose we’re lucky he kept up the payments on the storage unit. Otherwise the documents might have ended up on Storage Wars.

    “Let’s see what’s in this box… Old Time magazines, junk. Original cast recording of Cats, might find a vinyl fan. Classified report on Israeli nuclear forces… might know someone….”

  113. 113.

    Shalimar

    @Geminid: Republicans are cowards.   The only way Upton or any other compromise candidate with Democrats gets elected is if more than half the Republican caucus agrees to them.  They need cover from numbers to protect themselves from the blowback.

    That won’t happen on the 1st ballot.  But it is possible after X failed votes, because I think it will be easier to get to 111 than to get those last 10 votes to 218.  There are dozens of nutcases in the House now who hate all attempts at authority.

  116. 116.

    Paul in KY

    @Kay: JD Vance, while a POS wanker, was a much, much better candidate than Walker. Also Se. Warnock was a better candidate than Ryan, IMO.

  118. 118.

    Kosh III

    @Kay: “Ugh. It’s so humiliating that Ohio got stuck with the low quality Trump Senator. Just about everyone else rejected Trump’s crap candidates except my awful state.’

    Don’t complain, you could be Tennessee with Sen. Marsha Fraking Blackburn.

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