Go Home, Walsh...You're Canceled

Joe Walsh speaking at CPAC by Gage Skidmore, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0/Original

My colleague Brad Slager asked earlier today – who exactly is Joe Walsh running for?

Walsh’s main selling point seems to be that he’s not Trump, but Hillary also ran on that selling point and spectacularly failed.

Walsh wants a border wall, tighter immigration laws and tougher foreign policy. All things Trump ran on. So truly all there is left is “I’m not Trump”, which Walsh should probably just go ahead and make his campaign slogan.

“80-90% of my audience supports this President,” says Walsh. This tracks with current polling, which places GOP support of Donald Trump near 90%. He even gives anecdotal evidence in a prior interview that extends this challenging position. “The people I talk to privately tell me, ‘I can’t stand him but the Democrats are Socialists.’ Or, ‘I can’t stand him, Joe, but I like my tax cuts.’”

This means that even that small percentage sitting in opposition are not so eager to be swayed away, based on conditions that still favor Trump. So where exactly then is Walsh’s mandate to run coming from? It would have to be rooted in a personal animus because he is not entering to correct unfavorable conditions seen by voters. The only reason then is for him to serve as a poison pill in the primary, and negatively impact a popular GOP candidate.

Brad Slager is right. Walsh is a poison pill. Anthony Scaramucci isn’t directly connected to Walsh’s campaign as far as I can tell, but he was seen at a Biden fundraiser in the Hamptons over the weekend and he’s made no bones about opposing Trump in 2020. Could Scaramucci be “consulting” for the Walsh campaign, trying to drum up some financial support for a guy who could bump Trump off the ticket?

And as for minority Trump voters on the right and left? What will Walsh bring to the table for them? So far his most thoughtful message on race was telling CNN that he does not consider himself a racist but has “tweeted racist things” in the past.

Sorry, Joe. We are not buying it. Trump does shockingly well with minority voters (relatively speaking, for a Republican) and it’s not because he’s running around weeping about how he’s a racist but like…not really a racist. Trump is a baller. He’s flashy, he’s braggadocious and unapologetic. He waded in to the most hostile of political arenas in 2016 and told Black voters to give him a shot, to try something different and give him a chance to turn things around. Not everyone was convinced, but many were impressed.

Joe’s “inspiring” racial message is, yet again, “I’m not Trump”.

Sorry Joe, but a lot of Black voters love Trump and they love he doesn’t infantilize them by patronizing and droning on about his “privilege”. We don’t want that. We want a guy we can look at and say, “I wanna be that guy. I wanna be rich. I want to be powerful”. We don’t want a sugar daddy. We want a seat at the same table. With Trump, that’s what is happening.

What is Walsh offering us in place of that?

This.

The Never Trump alternative:

"I wouldn't call myself a racist, but I've said racist things on Twitter…”

– Joe Walsh (@WalshFreedom)#GoHomeJoe #WashedUpWalsh https://t.co/EiXc3oY9tz

— Black Conservatives (@BlacksFund) August 27, 2019