Andrew McCarthy Right On Target Yet Again: "The Silver Lining Of A Dismal Performance" in the Midterms

Whether he's right about Liz Cheney and the Capitol riot hearings...well, I refrain from judging about that. I suspect he's right, but I'm too disgusted by that whole thing--on both sides--to make anything like a reasoned judgment about it. But, like others, McCarthy thinks the silver lining is the undermining of Trump's influence. And that, I think, is right. But the impressive bit is McCarthy quoting himself from a year and a half ago. This is the bit that's just exactly right IMO:

If Republicans are going to have any chance of stopping the ruinous Democratic reign by winning in 2022 and 2024, they must stop relitigating the lost presidential election of 2020. Trump will never let that go, but Republicans have to. Keep in mind: across the nation [in 2020], down-ballot conservative Republicans significantly outperformed Trump — whereas in Georgia, Trump single-handedly cost Republicans the Senate seats they needed to stop Biden’s demolition of the economy and conveyor-belt appointment of woke-progressive judges and bureaucrats.
Donald Trump cannot win the presidency again. He is popular in a number of places, but poison in most others. The former president will never again have what he’d need to win a national election: the reluctant support of doubters who, for the sake of stopping Democrats, were willing to take a chance on his flawed character. Had it not been for Trump’s bizarre post-election performance, culminating in the disgraceful Capitol riot, congressional Republicans would be in a position to stop Democrats right now. . . .
The reasons for Trump’s political rise and the many positive aspects of his presidency hold important lessons for Republicans. But those positive aspects mainly involved enabling conservative advisers and subordinates to implement policy — often against his instincts, which are not conservative. The future of the party has to be conservative. If the future is Trump, it will no longer be the conservative party, and it will be in the wilderness for a very long time.

Yes, I'm sick of the TDS crowd. Trump has never been nearly as bad as they think he is. But he was, IMO, never personally fit for the office. Supporting him was always a desperate gamble, forced on us by the catastrophic rise of Woke insanity, and its takeover of the Democrats--and its spread to all our institutions. The gamble almost worked. In fact, it did work in many ways. But, to quote Sowell, there are no solutions, only tradeoffs. The blue reavers succeeded in thwarting the democratic decision of the voters, largely neutralizing Trump's presidency, largely with the Russiagate farce. Which many on the left refuse to give up, despite the results of the Mueller investigation. Not only did they manage to largely neutralize Trump's election, they succeeded in driving him over the edge. Like many others, I'm sickened by the madness on the left. But Trump, always marginal, always a gamble, always a tradeoff, blew everything up after losing the 2020 election. He's now become near-pure liability. Now he's basically pure win for the blue team. I think our most likely future involves him trying to torpedo DeSantis or whoever gets the '24 nomination. He's already lost the red team the Senate once, and may have done so again. Like Bill Barr, it's hard for me to imagine not voting for the GOP candidate in '24, no matter who it is. But I pray to the powers that be that it isn't Trump. He had his shot. It's sickening what the left did to him and to the country. But what's done is done, and that's the hand we've been dealt.  

   And, yes, election denialism has been common among Democrats for decades. And they've fomented and supported terroristic riots that are at least as bad as the Capitol riot--which was almost universally denounced by Republicans. But, as is often the case, Trump took it to the next level. He didn't directly incite violence on January 6th, but that's not the right standard for a President. He laid the groundwork for it, and that's so far over the line that...well, I don't even know how to finish that sentence.

   Anyway.