Note to the GOP

[NanceGreggs]

Allow me to point out the bleedin' obvious: The easily-led, just as the term spells out, are easily-led .

In other words (as though any other words should be necessary), the same voters who were easily-led to worship Trump could have just as easily been convinced to abandon him.

And God knows you had many, many opportunities to lead your sheep away from the wolf that is now devouring your party - but you puckered-up and kissed his fat ass instead.

There were so many times during Trump's tenure in office that you could have said, "This is a step too far. This is not what we stand for as a party. We need to get back to our core principles."

But you didn't. All you did was cower in the corner - terrified of losing the oh-so-easily-manipulated sheeple that you could have oh-so-easily-manipulated into doing the bidding of the party, rather than the bidding of an orange-faced buffoon.

Fate handed you two golden opportunities to save yourselves and turn things around. Simply by saying that blackmailing the president of Ukraine was unacceptable, or stating that attempting to overthrow the government was an obvious act of treason, you could have won back the easily-led without breaking a sweat - instead of drowning in your own flop-sweat trying to cover your own asses after the fact.

You PTB in the GOP could have stopped the madness you are now chained to. You could have pointed out your resolve not to defend the indefensible. You could have persuaded the easily-persuadable that Trump's vision of a divided nation was not your vision. You could have guided your sheep away from the slaughterhouse.

I'll say it again - slowly for your benefit: The easily-led are just as easily-led in one direction as they are in another. The voters who are distracted by one shiny object are just as easily distracted by another.

But the only shiny objects you chose to present were glossy 8 x 10 photos of your visits to Mara-Lago, smiling like spineless lunatics as you kissed the butt of the idiot who is destroying your party.

I'll say it one more time, for the OMG! If we turn on Trump, we'll lose all his supporters' votes crowd: The easily-led ARE easily-led.

And why you never figured that out speaks for itself.

[Walleye]

1. Nancy Pelosi's advice to a congressman who is wavering on a bill because

His constituents might not like it. Gave them two words of advice, “educate them”. You can’t lead if you’re behind all the time.

[NanceGreggs]

2. ...

[Eyeball_Kid]

3. Well done, Ms. Greggs.

The "easily-led" are also described as the "marginal voter." Marginal voters shifted their sentiments to Trump during 2016 and to a lesser extent, 2020. But a lot of troubling events occurred in recent years that makes the marginal voter more likely to turn away. And the wave of the marginal voter away from the GOP hasn't crested yet. That will come in the late summer, when the GOP's failures will come into full view, right on time for the campaigns for the mid-terms.

The "attempted coup" is still an abstract notion for the marginal voter. It won't hit home as a real, anti-American event, until indictments and the J6 hearings hit the marginal voter in full force. This is why, IMO, it's foolish to employ the conventional memes about mid-term gains by the minority party. The minority party attempted to overthrow the government of the United States. That's no ordinary event, nor should the national revulsion against the attempted coup, once the US public can witness what really happened without solely getting daily doses of right wing propaganda. The GOP will lose in November. Again.

[Achilleaze]

4. Republicans could have taken refuge in the teachings of Christ & Ten Commandments

But they pissed on all of that, and blamed Dems for their own corrupt failings.

[niyad]

5. The only thing which I question is the implication that the current qcp has any

core, positive principles.

[NanceGreggs]

7. Once upon a time, the GOP did.

But the current GOP chose to ignore the principles it once adhered to.

[niyad]

10. A very sad commentary indeed.

[nebby70]

6. AMEN...n/t

[brooklynite]

8. No, you're wrong...

They were easily led BY Trump because Trump played to their fears, biases and issues AND because he talked "like them" and encouraged them to publicly express the anger they felt about life.

Another Republican (singular) could not have criticized Trump for crossing the line and survived. The Republican Party IN AGGREGATE could have, but in the absence of a coordinated effort, "Prisoners Dilemma" kicks in.

1. If nobody attacks Trump, all Republicans lose.
2. If everyone attacks Trump, all Republicans win.
3. If * I * attack Trump and nobody else does, I lose and another Republican wins.
4. If * I * DON'T attack Trump and someone else does, I win and another Republican loses.

If you don't know what other Republicans will do, what will you do?

[NanceGreggs]

11. So you're admitting ...

... that the GOP "in aggregate" could have stopped Trump - which is exactly my point.

They could have, but chose not to - again directly to my point.

I'll say it again: Those who are easily-led in one direction are just as easily-led in another.

The GOP chose to BE LED instead of actually LEADING.

And the consequences of that decision might well be their undoing.

[brooklynite]

12. "Republicans in aggregate" is an abstract concept...

You could never convince all of them to act in the Party's (as opposed to their own) best interest.

[NanceGreggs]

13. Convincing "all of them" ...

... was never an option.

Convincing some of them is.

[NanceGreggs]

14. Convincing "all of them" ...

... was never an option.

Convincing enough of them is.

[louis-t]

9. I remember an old veteran approaching me after tfg 'won' in 2016.

He was wearing a black American Legion cap and wandered up to me while I was waiting for a client at a condo he had bought. He was so excited his guy 'won'. Without any provocation from me, he claimed it was the best thing that could ever happen to our country because "everyone is afraid of him." It seems to me that the only people afraid of him are Republican politicians. Most of the world is just disgusted.

[NullTuples]

15. Bold of you to assume they wanted to stop him

I mean, McConnell puts up some good theater, yet enabled/enables Trump without fail.

But the GOP enticed both the Tea Party and American Evangelicals. They invited them to the merge.

And let's not forget that so many key Republicans have been accepting Russian money for many, many years, long before Trump was foisted as a populist figurehead.

The GOP had endless chances to take Trump down and repeatedly chose not to do so. Continually repainting them as the victims rather than co-conspirators is part of why it's taken so long for anything to be done about all this.

[Kablooie]

16. They didn't respond because Trump took a load off their back.

Republicans must rely on lies, fear and prejudice in order to maintain power because they have few governance proposals that people want to vote for.

Since that's their MO anyway why not just sit back and let Trump do their job for them?
Once he's gone they will have to invent new scams to keep their base mollified which is a lot of work.
Trump gave them a nice big break from having keep the racket going.

[usaf-vet]

17. "And why you never figured that out speaks for itself." How about pure ignorance or 30 years of.....

.... purposely dumbing down your voters and party leaders. You want your voters dumb...dumber...dumbest with NO independent thinking skills.

I think one key factor was eliminating the High School Civics class.

I would also ask this of the "GQP leaders" what kompromat has Putin collected about each one of you that you have to FEAR standing up to an idiot like trump.

Maybe all those junkets to Russia were a Putin plan to put the temptations of your known weakness right in front of you for the taking and for him to gather the dirt.

[KS Toronado]

18. I've always enjoyed your articles NanceGreggs

but I feel we shouldn't be telling them what they're doing wrong, lots of repugs know they're going down
a rabbit hole they shouldn't be going down and they don't know how to stop The King of Babble-On's
influence on their party. IMHO we should encourage them to embrace him.

Truth be known the smarter Rs are waiting for the Jan 6th Committee or the DOJ to take him down so they
can move forward without him.

[11 Bravo]

19. Another Nance classic.

Eloquent and right on point.