mollyfamwatEven Brooks admitted Monday that his campaign rally in Huntsville, Alabama, won’t be so hyper-predictable. But he built the foundations of his work on a proven falsehood, just like that.
According to Brooks, America suffered the greatest voter fraud and election theft in history in 2020. He says no other candidate for US Senate has campaigned as hard as Trump. His hero took on the weak RINOs, the fake media and the radical socialists.
Numerous courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, have rejected the former president’s allegations of voter fraud. Even Trump’s own Justice Department said there was no massive voter fraud last year.
Brooks, who thinks he has a good chance of winning the GOP nomination and a seat in Alabama if he gets Trump’s ardent support, has partnered with Stephen Miller, a former White House official who wrote many of the former president’s tough immigration policies.
No one has defeated President Trump more in the last four years than Mo Brooks, Miller told the crowd. But for now, I want you to cover it.
Brooks, who has long been a candidate for the seat of incumbent Republican Senator. Richard Shelby, a classic old school conservative, was not the only member of Trump’s army to attack the Senate on Monday.
Former Missouri Governor Eric Greitens, who also fueled false allegations of voter fraud and resigned amid allegations of sexual and electoral misconduct, has issued a call for candidates to succeed incumbent Senator Roy Blunt.
Greitens opened his campaign on Fox News saying he wanted to defend President Trump’s America First policy.
Recruits in Trump’s attempt to show his continued hold on the GOP have shown their proclivities now that the former president has made a parallel attempt to dismantle the Democratic guarantees that validated his defeat in Georgia last November.
On Monday, Trump endorsed Jody Hays for Georgia secretary of state after attacking Brad Raffensperger, who vehemently protested Trump’s pressure on local officials to falsify the vote count.
Hiss falsely claimed that there were numerous examples of fraud in Georgia, a key state that gave Democrats equal control of the Senate in the January election.
Other outspoken Republican candidates who are pro-Trump are considering Senate campaigns in states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, where a growing number of prominent incumbents are retiring, or have already done so. The former president’s protesters are attacking some of the 10 Republicans who voted for his impeachment, saying they incited an unprecedented and deadly uprising aimed at destroying America’s basic democratic principles.
The former president signaled the price of his support for potential GOP candidates when he appeared again this month at the Conservative Political Action Conference, where he warned that Republicans should reject absentee ballots and called on GOP lawmakers who voted for them to impeach him by name.
The former president’s shadow in 2022 will ensure that the next election will be dominated by his malicious claims that voting in America is corrupt – with all the implications for American democracy.
National attempts to suppress voting
Trump’s endless campaign of lies coincides with local Republicans’ attempt to suppress votes and reverse the voting patterns that led to record voter turnout and his apparent defeat in November.
The party’s commitment to Trump’s populist and nationalist credo, exemplified by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s visit to Mar-a-Lago earlier this year, helps explain efforts to keep Democrats and minority voters off the ballot.
The GOP could reject Trumpism and try to broaden its appeal to attract more voters. But he has doubled down on the Make America Great Again themes that lost the House, Senate and re-election races in Trump’s one term – so maybe he should try to drown out the voice of the majority of the nation that rejected the previous president.
While the strategy may make sense in a low-turnout election, it raises questions for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican who has criticized Trump’s behavior in the 6th Congressional District. Janvier objected strenuously.
The former president’s influence threatens to bring a range of radical candidates that could make it difficult for Republicans to win in swing states in some scenarios – a choice that history suggests will be difficult in Biden’s first term. Greitens’ statement was a dreaded creation of the GOP, which feared it would jeopardize a safe Republican seat in 2022. The former governor’s campaign reminds conservatives of the dark memories of Todd Akin’s loss against Democrat Claire McCaskill in Missouri in 2012.
Nevertheless, McConnell, as always with a keen eye for power, secured his vote to vindicate Trump in the Senate impeachment proceedings that followed the former commander-in-chief’s departure. And with typical transactional pragmatism, he signaled that in the midterm elections he would look for candidates who could win – regardless of party wing.
Trump’s performance test
Trump’s attempt to project his considerable and continuing power within the Republican Party via the beating of the primary race may help him build his own case for a new presidential campaign in 2024. He could also get the chance to play king with potential GOP candidates for the White House, making him the heir apparent to their loyal voters.
Potential candidates with ambitions for the White House, such as senators. Josh Hawley (Missouri) and Ted Cruz (Texas) are prominent Trump supporters. Others, like Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, have built bridges with the former president’s constituents. And the governor of Florida. Ron DeSantis is in the spotlight as Trump’s potential successor, holding the America First banner, after he recaptured his state before the pandemic ended.
The former president’s aggressive strategy will also test whether his aura is permanent – or if time away from the spotlight begins to weaken his influence.
At the same time, it remains to be seen whether there is any path in the GOP for Republican candidates to reject their false reality of 2020.
Brooks and Greitens aren’t the only Trump presidential candidates borrowing the former president’s aura to grace a new Senate campaign.
In Ohio, where another Republican, Sen. Rob Portman, is also retiring, former state treasurer Josh Mandel started his campaign for Senate last month, also reinforcing a big lie.
I think over time we will see studies that show widespread fraud, Mandel told WKYC-TV. But I think if we look at this election, we will see in large part that it was stolen by President Trump.
Trump is already inspiring like-minded people in House races.
His camp has vowed to depose the third Republican House leader, Liz Cheney of Wyoming, in the primary after she clung to her leadership role by voting for Trump’s impeachment.
Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, unlike most of his GOP colleagues, was highly critical of Trump’s attack on American democracy in January. He had already attracted a major competitor for his pain.
Catalina Lauf, a former Trump administration official, opened her campaign by denouncing Kinzinger’s impeachment vote and recalling the former president’s attacks on socialists, voter integrity and cultural abolition.
When she signed the video of her announcement, she made a statement that was much closer to the truth than most statements made by the ex-president’s foot soldiers.
Now it’s our party, it’s our movement and it’s America first, she said.
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