Virginia Beach voting sticker
Yesterday, Republicans suffered stunning election losses in Kentucky and Virginia. In Kentucky, Democratic state Attorney General Andy Beshear defeated incumbent Republican Governor Matt Bevin to become the new Governor-elect (Bevin thus far has refused to concede the election). Bevin’s defeat is a major embarrassment for Donald Trump, who, on Monday night, held a rally in Kentucky’s second-largest city, Lexington, and pleaded with the audience to prevent a Democratic win in the state, saying, “You can’t let that happen to me!”
In Virginia, Democrats won the majority in the State House of Delegates and the State Senate, to go along with their Democratic Governor. This marks the first time in 26 years that Virginia has had a unified Democratic state government, which may well be a continuation of the “Blue Wave” that swept Democrats into the majority in the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2018 midterm elections. One of the issues for Virginia voters yesterday was gun violence, after 12 people were killed in a mass shooting in Virginia Beach last May. Republican lawmakers in Virginia, as well as nationally, have dragged their feet on or even blocked taking common-sense steps proposed by Democrats to reduce gun violence. The voters may have signaled that they have had enough.
The question now becomes whether Republican elected officials will abandon Donald Trump, who faces an impeachment inquiry by the U.S. House on top of these election defeats. Many politicians have a strong self-preservation instinct. Thus far, however, Republican movement against Trump has been limited. A growing number of Republican members of Congress, for example, have retired or plan to retire after 2020, which lets them avoid direct involvement in voting on Trump’s impeachment or removal. In some cases, these retiring Republicans, some of whom have even left the Republican Party, now feel free to criticize Trump. One such former GOP Congressman, David Jolly, caused quite a stir two days ago when he stated in an interview, regarding the Trump impeachment inquiry:
You just got to be honest, these are, in today’s Republican Party, spineless politicians, rotten to the core. Without virtue, without any level of human integrity. Devoid of self respect, self reflection. Without courage and without the moral compass to recognize their own malevolence. One day maybe they will have the recognition of how they failed the country and themselves in this moment. But that would be giving them credit that somewhere down deep they have the goodness to recognize how to reconcile their own failings with what is right and just in American politics and frankly what is right and wrong in the eyes of adults and children alike.
A few other Republican politicians, such as U.S. Senators Willard Mitt Romney and Susan Collins, have tried to play a double game, by repeatedly expressing “concern” over various actions by Trump, but then voting with Trump on his judicial nominations and other matters anyway. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham sometimes flip-flops on his Trump concern within just a few days or weeks. As to how well these tactics work, Collins is running for re-election in 2020, and her approval rating is upside-down according to a recent poll in her home state of Maine. As the 2020 elections approach, and the possibility of Trump’s impeachment grows, we will see whether the relative trickle of Republican statements of concern about Trump turns into a river of abandonment.
Photo by Bill Smith, used under Creative Commons license. https://is.gd/9xdk6C
