What Should the GOP Learn from the Midterms?

Among other things? Making fun of Joe Biden isn't a platform, fascists can't win statewide races, and banning abortion is a loser.

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Christian nationalist youth guru Charlie Kirk with right-wing nutjob and Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake at the August 14, 2022, "Unite & Win Rally." Photo credit: Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons

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Former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich has a message for his party: making fun of Joe Biden isn’t a policy agenda.

That’s right: as it turns out, the “Let’s Go, Brandon” golf balls, viral tweets about the President’s latest speech flub, memes of Biden stumbling, and doctored photographs that make the President look like he is molesting little girls don’t inspire voters.

But let’s dig deeper. In a recent blog post, Gingrich even suggested that Biden’s genial, sometimes fumbling style might be a ruse that has allowed the President to have an unusually effective first two years by disguising what an excellent politician and dealmaker he is. Tricky!

Gingrich then posits that portraying Biden as a failure caused the GOP to lull itself into the false perception that Joe Biden was an inept president who couldn’t win another election. Yet Biden had a lot of successes in his first two years, and logically, that should have caused the GOP to bring their best game. But they didn’t, so persuaded was the party that the President was a loser. “The clarity of winning and losing creates a clarity of analysis about who is doing well and who isn’t,” Gingrich chided Republicans. “If you apply that simple model to Biden, you realize how well he is doing by his own definition of success.”