Over the weekend, failed GOP consultant and searcher-for-a-paycheck, Steve Schmidt, was holding forth to MSNBC’s audience on what needed to be done to save the world (video is available at this link):

STEVE SCHMIDT: That’s not to mention the baby internment camps, the indecency, the cruelty, the meanness, the lying, the complicit nature of this Republican majority with an attack on the country that’s launched by the Russian Federation. So the Republican party of Teddy Roosevelt and John McCain and Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush is dead. It’s over. It doesn’t exist anymore. It has been taken over, lock, stock, and barrel. For there to be any redemption of a right of center conservative party in the United States of America means the party of Trump must be destroyed politically.
…
It’s like a fire. Fires are a part of the ecosystem, part of the natural progress. And when the forest burns, it’s purified. There can be new growth. For there to be new growth of a conservative movement, of a right center party, the one that I joined in 1988, it needs to burn to the ground.

Forgive me as I express puzzlement why anyone is sad that the GOP of John McCain has gone the way to the dodo bird.

If you put aside for a moment that Schmidt’s permanent loyalty is to his bank account and saying stuff like this guarantees him a gig on MSNBC, this sounds utterly bonkers. Here I’ll turn to Jay Cost who despite his dislike of all things Trump hasn’t totally succumbed to TDS.

https://twitter.com/JayCostTWS/status/1028330313808797696

https://twitter.com/JayCostTWS/status/1028330561331507201

This is more than a little disingenuous. No one in the Tea Party ever associated “burn it down” with “gee, let’s elect Democrats.” We fought our fights in the primaries (see David Brat) and when we lost (Thad Cochran) we were good soldiers and fell in line. Where GOPe goofs like Schmidt have always been different from actual Republicans and actual conservatives of the non-Muh Principles variety, is that those people always take their ball and go home…or sometimes they actively support the other side to try to make the point that “irresponsible conservatives” chose the wrong guy and he lost.

https://twitter.com/JayCostTWS/status/1028330712561332224

The thing that is lost on a lot of pundits who are pushing the “vote Democrat to show Trump a lesson” is that their parents might not have even been married when Newt Gingrich broke a 40-year Democrat death grip on the House of Representatives. It is easy to be cavalier about losing the House to make a point. It is quite another thing to regain control of the House once it is lost.

https://twitter.com/JayCostTWS/status/1028330940806963205

https://twitter.com/JayCostTWS/status/1028331174580707329

https://twitter.com/JayCostTWS/status/1028331350733012992

https://twitter.com/JayCostTWS/status/1028331696427548673

https://twitter.com/JayCostTWS/status/1028332426706264064

https://twitter.com/JayCostTWS/status/1028335129373159425

Indeed it did. After the Gingrich Revolution, we were beset by GOPe drones, like Schmidt, that played parasite to our host. They hadn’t worked to win but they wanted a seat at the table when the spoils of victory were shared. And once they’d been given that seat at the table, they reverted to plantation house Republicans who were afraid of offending their Democrat masters. As much as I liked and respected George Bush, his administration allowed itself to be turned into a piñata by both the Democrats and the media. He started out a scrappy fighter and by 2006 he was a stump-broke happy loser.

https://twitter.com/JayCostTWS/status/1028336554488545281

I think this is simply bullsh** excuse-making and rationalization. There have been articles written on this, this is a good one and here’s a whiny one, and none of the rules convince me that Trump would have lost. In fact, Ted Cruz kicked Trump’s ass in corralling delegates he hadn’t won at the ballot box…hence the reason that Paul Manafort, a GOPe presidential campaign fixture since the Ford administration, was called to the rescue. Anyway you cut it, Trump got 45% of the GOP votes cast in a crowded field. Rules didn’t do that. Message and math did.

https://twitter.com/JayCostTWS/status/1028336726828351489

https://twitter.com/JayCostTWS/status/1028337394788061185

If the GOP had tried to manipulate the convention vote so that the candidate with the most votes did not win, then there would have been a rebellion by voters…even by non-Trump voters.

https://twitter.com/JayCostTWS/status/1028337604968828928

The other thing to keep in mind is that if there are a lot of GOP losses, leeches like Schmidt calculate that they will be in high demand. They will be the “adults in the room,” ensuring that only the very best candidates are selected. Never mind they wouldn’t know how to win if victory jumped out of the tall grass and bit them on the ass.

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