CT Blue

At the dawn of 2020 I made some predictions about the coming year. Some of them have stood the test of time, others have come true, but not in the way I predicted. For instance I predicted that Chuck Shumer and Joe Biden would preserve the filibuster. I didn’t see Joe and Krysten coming. On the other hand, in the same paragraph I accurately predicted that the failure to deliver on a truly progressive agenda would wind up costing the Democrats.

But ever since January of 2021 I’ve felt the prediction I felt most confident about was precisely the one where I erred the most, to wit:

On January 21, 2020 Donald Trump will be consigned to the memory hole, like his most recent Republican predecessor, and the media will rush to proclaim that the Republican Party has been purged and is now, once again, the responsible party they knew and loved before the Trumpian aberration came along. Lindsay Graham won’t remember anything about the man. Both siderism, which has begun to be in a bit of a bad odor lately, will see a new rebirth.

Note that I committed a typo on the original quote, I meant January 21, 2021.

I couldn’t have been wronger, and I know that “wronger” is not a word. About the memory hole, that is, both siderism is running strong.

But today I read over at the Palmer Report that at least some Republicans are belatedly trying to shove Trump down that very memory hole.

While plenty of Republicans have embraced Donald Trump because they support his hateful agenda, others have gone along for the ride mainly because of political calculations. However, with the political climate changing and the midterms less than a year away, many from this latter group are desperate to figure out a way to distance themselves from Trump without drawing attention to the fact they have skated on the wrong side of history for years.

A new strategy taking hold is about looking toward the future. This sounds good if you say it fast. The problem is these Republicans who have closely associated themselves with Trump are now trying to have it both ways, requiring everyone to look forward with selective amnesia about the past, as if the recent horror show of the Trump administration and the continuing threat to democracy is of no consequence. How convenient.

“I think… people are in the present and want to vote on what they see going on now,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told attendees at an event in Kentucky on November 8. “So, I think the election will be about the future, not about the past,” he added.

I’ve seen rumblings about this elsewhere as well. The question is, can they shove him into the memory hole at this point? I’ve complained ad nauseum in these pages about the Democrats failure to learn from the Republicans ability to all sing from the same hymn book, but the fact is that when it comes to Trump, any Republican attempt to sing in harmony will be unsuccessful if that song ignores the genius. Had they shoved him into the hole in January of 2021, and for that matter had they made clear prior to that date that he was fated for that destination, it likely would have worked. But they chose instead to acquiesce, in one form or another, to his attempts to steal the election, and that carried with it the subsequent need to cater to the true believers.

So, it’s a bit late in the game now. They’re stuck with him. If people are actually allowed to vote he will likely be a liability, which is one of the many reasons Republicans are working so hard to suppress the vote. Still, the Republicans can’t distance themselves from the guy, for if they do, a lot of the true believers will just stay home. The real question is whether the Democrats will figure out a way to truly turn the situation to their advantage.

Alas, we all know the answer to that question.