Today marks a year since Election Day 2020, which put then-president Donald Trump on a collision course towards, among other calamities, getting booted off Twitter and other such services. His, shall we say, erratic behavior became too much for social media overlords, forcing him to subsist on a quickly failed blog and, now, the occasional un-copy edited “press release.” (That’s to say nothing of his already beleaguered social media service.) But was booting him a good idea? Did perhaps silencing the GOP’s top dog make it easier for people to re-embrace the Republican party? That’s what one journalist thinks.
As per The Wrap, the AP’s Jonathan Lemire went on Morning Joe, hosted by conservative (but anti-Trumpist) Joe Scarborough, Wednesday morning. He was there to weigh in on the previous day’s election, which saw a number of Republicans making big gains. Among them was Glenn Younkin, who trounced Democratic incumbent Terry McAuliffe in Virginia’s gubernatorial race. And Lemire believes he won because Trump wasn’t constantly building him up on social media.
“As much as Trump looms, Democrats believe, as an existential threat to the democracy, we will see in 2024 that it was too much,” Lemire opined. “Voters were turned off. They didn’t buy the argument that Youngkin was Trump and Youngkin did a good job of keeping Trump at arm’s length. I was talking to a Republican strategist last night who said the best thing that can happen to any Republican who is paid to win an election, certainly in a moderate or swing district, is that Donald Trump is off Twitter.”
Lemire pointed out that the former president “doesn’t dominate the conversation like he used to” adding, “if you can keep him off stage, even a little, that can be a playbook for 2022 and beyond.”
Of course, Trump wouldn’t like to hear this. He’s still considered the head of the GOP, and he almost certainly plans to run again in 2024. (Unless, you know, he’s in jail.) But perhaps Lemire is right and not having Trump bloviate about everything from world politics to Kristen Stewart’s love life was ultimately good for Republicans, bad for Democrats.
(Via The Wrap)