With no disrespect meant to my conservative comrades, estranged as we are now, I am going to call BS on the idea that some GOPers should get a pass in the midterms. This is a wholly new innovation among partisans who never thought much of ticket-splitting - until now. /1
Many of the people saying "Well, yes, Trumpism is bad, but GOP Politician X should get your vote anyway" are from a party and movement that argued intensely that Democrats at all levels should pay for the sins of the Democratic Party, including its stance on abortion and guns. /2
Not only that, but this same argument - kill all levels of the party because of abortion, the ACA, gun rights, etc - was amazingly successful, and was part of the way the GOP picked off hundreds of Dem seats while the Dems flailed about. It was a great tactic. /3
The DNC was suicidally dumb to nationalize elections, but they did, and Dems paid the price. They seem to have learned; Conor Lamb, for example. But now DJT and the GOP have *explicitly* nationalized the election as a referendum on Trump and his policies. Fine by me. /4
It is thus utterly hypocritical for conservatives to argue now that "vote the party out at all levels" is too rigid, or too much of a blanket approach, when that was *the GOP strategy against the Dems for years.* The leader of the GOP says it's a referendum. Okay! So be it. /5
As Gerald Seib of the WSJ said last week, Trump won the battle for the soul of the GOP. He's right. Which means that no GOPers, with the tiny exception of openly anti-Trump govs like Baker and Hogan, can say: "Yes, Trump owns my party, but not me." That's not how it works. /6
The number of GOP officials who have repudiated Trump and Trumpism at this point could fit in a minivan. The rest have to go. That's how parties work. Trump and his cronies wanted the GOP? Okay. They got it. The rest of us should vote accordingly. /7x
