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Donald Trump may get even more dangerous after losing his GOP kingmaker status: columnist
Donald Trump may get even more dangerous after a humiliating string of losses in GOP primaries.
For the third week in a row, a Trump-endorsed candidate for governor lost a GOP primary when former Sen. David Perdue lost to Gov. Brian Kemp.
The Associated Press described the result as Trump's "biggest primary mistake."
It wasn't Trump's only statewide loss on Tuesday.
Attorney General Chris Carr defeated John Gordon, who was endorsed by Trump.
What happens next could be scary, Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank warned.
Milbank noted, "On Monday, the Trump-endorsed candidate for governor in Georgia, former senator David Perdue, closed out his failing campaign for the Republican nomination by stripping off the mask and letting fly a starkly racist finale: He said the (Black) Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Stacey Abrams, is 'demeaning her own race' and should 'go back where she came from.'"
"The back-to-back appeals to violence and white supremacy provide a caution to those celebrating Trump’s apparent loss of his kingmaker status in Republican politics: As ugly as things have been with Trump holding an iron grip over the GOP, they could actually get worse if he feels his grasp slipping and becomes even more incendiary in his provocations," he warned.
He noted the former president's talk of "civil war" on his Truth Social clone of Twitter.
"Trump, who has long idolized Robert E. Lee and championed memorials for Confederate leaders, wasn’t clear about whether his sharing of the message was meant to recommend, or merely to predict, a civil war. Neither did the aspiring Jefferson Davis share what he found enticing about the prospect," he wrote. "Was it the mass death? A repeat of the mortality of the Civil War would mean about 8 million deaths today. Or was it the Lost Cause mythology, which gave birth to Jim Crow and today’s white supremacy? But this much is perfectly clear: Trump was, once again, amplifying a favorite theme of the violent far right."
Read the full analysis.
Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott was blasted for his firearms policies as he began his general election campaign against Democrat Beto O'Rourke.
Abbott described the Uvalde gunman's actions as “Horrifically, incomprehensibly," which resulted in a harsh editorial from the Houston Chronicle, which took issue with the second word.
"But the second word Abbott used — 'incomprehensibly' — is just as much cowardice as it is a bald-faced lie," the editorial board wrote. "Of course it’s impossible to fathom why someone would shoot up an elementary school, or any school, but it’s hardly incomprehensible that it happened. It keeps happening, in Texas and across the nation. No one, especially not the governor of a state with some of the most inept, irresponsible and dangerous gun laws in the nation, should be confused, somehow unable to comprehend, the reasons for this never-ending tragedy of mass shootings in our country."
The newspaper said the state's permit-less carry legislation as moving the state in the wrong direction.
"Texas had 1 million registered weapons in 2021, more than second-place Florida and third-place Virginia combined. The United States leads all wealthy nations with its gun murder rate, and all nations in the rate of suicide by gun. And since September 2018, Texas has far more than its fair share of victims of mass shootings. Of the 2,000 such deaths recorded, 195 happened in Texas, far more than any other state," the newspaper noted.
The newspaper noted Abbott's comments after the 2018 school shooting in Sante Fe and the 2019 mass shootings in El Paso and then Odessa and Midland.
"As we speak, the National Rifle Association is excitedly gearing up for its annual meeting in Houston this Friday, May 27-29, at the George R. Brown Convention Center," the newspaper noted. "But also on hand this weekend, in a fierce, strong, protesting posture, should be every single Texan, including sensible gun owners, who want to stop the madness, stop the killing, and stop the NRA’s stranglehold over Texas’ elected leaders."
The newspaper suggested gun laws should be a major focus in the 2022 gubernatorial election.
"We call on Abbott, whose campaign war chest is comfortably overflowing in his reelection bid against Democrat Beto O’Rourke, to replenish his bankrupt conscience and do something, anything, to stop the blood of children and the tears of parents. We call on O’Rourke as well to demonstrate the kind of leadership, passion and gun reform policy ideas that we’ve lost faith Abbott can provide," the newspaper noted. "Go vote. Go fight."
Read the full editorial.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders is on track to be Donald Trump's vice president pick in 2024 after her Tuesday victory.
"Former White House press secretary Sarah Sanders won the Republican nomination for Arkansas governor on Tuesday after a campaign where she focused primarily on national issues and criticized President Joe Biden," the Associated Press reported Tuesday evening.
CNN also projected Sanders would win.
"Sanders was endorsed by her former boss, former President Donald Trump, and shattered fundraising records since entering the race last year," the AP noted. "Sanders, the daughter of former Gov. Mike Huckabee, blanketed the state with ads going after Biden on issues like inflation and vowing to fight the 'radical left.'"
With Sanders expected to win the Nov. general election, she will be a potential VP pick, according to New York Times correspondent Maggie Haberman.
"Among other things, Sanders' victory is going to quickly put her on a short list for VP if Trump becomes the nominee again," Haberman posted to Twitter.
Trump has endorsed her campaign.
"Sanders left the White House in 2019 as a controversial figure on the national stage after two-and-a-half years serving as one of Trump's most trusted and unwavering defenders," CNN reported. "Sanders came under fire personally when then-Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report was released. It revealed that as deputy press secretary, she had provided baseless information to reporters when she claimed in May of 2017, after the President had terminated FBI Director James Comey, that 'countless' FBI agents had lost confidence in Comey. Sanders acknowledged to investigators that her comments were 'not founded on anything,' the Mueller report said.
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