The VSG's rally in Valdosta, Georgia made plain that he is not interested in shoring up a viable future for the Republican Party, much less anything resembling conservatism.
The obvious case to be made for electing Loeffler and Perdue to the Senate is that doing so provides that firewall against total Democrat control of the two elected branches of the federal government. At this late date, it requires a bit of hard swallowing, given those candidates' recent boneheaded call for Brad Raffensperger to resign as Secretary of State. Their zeal for Republican unity seems to be found wanting.
But a sitting president, if he's going to go to Georgia and hold a rally, ought to keep the emphasis on them, make what he can of their voting records, personal character and commitment to conservative principles. He shouldn't make it about himself, how the election was rigged, and how Georgia governor Kemp, like Secretary of State Raffensperger, voted for him and have taken the position that they are merely following Georgia law in how they deal with the election. It's not exactly a coherent sales pitch:
. . . mostly, Trump’s focus was on Trump - and all of the many people, circumstances, and events, real and imagined, that led to his defeat in November, especially Kemp.
“This election was rigged, and we can’t let it happen to two of the most respected people in Washington,” Trump said. “Your governor could stop it easily if he knew what the hell he was doing.”
Trump urged the crowd to vote in January, even though that election, he said, is likely to be corrupt, too.
The task of unifying Republicans has been made necessary by Trump himself, who has aggressively lashed out at leaders of states that he lost, including Kemp, who has refused repeated demands from Trump to intervene in the state’s results and overturn the election in the president’s favor.
As Kemp explained to the VSG earlier in the day when the VSG called him and implored him to do . . . um, something to reverse the Georgia presidential results, there is nothing he can do.
Then there's this outburst from My Pillow founder and CEO Mike Lindell:
“How do you not put people in prison?” Lindell asked in an interview at Trump’s Georgia rally Saturday night. “They will be going to prison,” he added, referring to the Georgia results giving a victory to Biden.
Lindell, known for his starring roles in MyPillow ads for the company he founded, laid out his — and Trump’s — plan to snatch the Georgia election from voters. It’s the same basic plan the president rolled out in a phone call to Republican Gov. Brian Kemp earlier Saturday. (Kemp explained to the president that he doesn’t have the power to overturn an election in a democracy).
Then they would grab the entire election, Lindell vowed. He was a bit fuzzy on details, though.
“We have to get this governor ... Brian Kemp has to give an order to have a Congress meeting, whatever they do, their legislators, and pull Georgia down and don’t give it to Biden,” Lindell shouted. “It doesn’t matter who they give it to; don’t give it to Biden and find out all your corruption.”
He added: “If you pull down Georgia, Pennsylvania and crooked Nevada, now nobody has 270 [electoral] votes, and on December 14 it goes to the [Electoral College] vote and Donald Trump wins the election!”
“Wow! I love your passion and your motivation,” responded the right wing interviewer.
Folks, this is why I have not a microsecond of regret about writing names in on the presidential line of my ballot in 2016 and 2020. The eternal record book shows that I have no ownership in this madness.
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