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Last week, the Senate Leadership Fund, the most important Republican super PAC, froze its spending in North Carolina in order to fund a seven figure ad buy in … Kansas.
If you did a double take there, you are not alone. Democrats haven’t won a Senate seat in North Carolina in 18 years; abandoning the contest there is an embarrassment. But even more unsettling if you are a Republican is the fact the party is in serious trouble in Kansas, a state which hasn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1932 — 94 years ago.
How has Donald Trump led the GOP down this dark alley? Part of it is his massively unpopular war, and his relentless commitment to raising prices on average Americans is certainly playing a role too. But another aspect is that Republican politicians, especially complacent red state ones like Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall, are uniquely unsuited to withstanding competitive campaigns.
After decades of crawling further and further into the orifice of the right-wing media bubble, GOP candidates no longer know how to distinguish truth from propaganda, much less how to persuade skeptical voters.
Kansas will still be an uphill battle for Democrats. But it’s been a delight watching Republicans scurry around on their bellies like roaches when you turn on the bathroom light.
Except roaches, of course, know how and where to run for cover. Republicans scramble in circles — and even occasionally just flip over on their backs, wave their arms in the air, and wait to get stomped.
What’s the matter with Kansas?
As anyone paying attention to polls or election news is well aware, the big picture for the GOP right now looks bleak.
Trump’s average approval is hovering around 35 percent. That’s driven in large part by deep dissatisfaction with his illegal war of aggression in Iran and the resulting spike in gas and diesel prices. An AP-NORC poll last week found that only 17 percent of adults approve of Trump’s handling of the cost of living, and only 26 percent approve of his record on the overall economy. Those are stunningly bad, record low numbers.
Trump’s policies have been especially dire for farm states like Kansas. Thanks to the war, diesel has blasted past $6 a gallon nationally. Farmers rely on diesel for combines, tractors, and other farm equipment as they gather the fall harvest, and they are mostly unable to pass on elevated fuel prices to consumers.
But Trump isn’t satisfied with just one assault on Kansas’s economy. ICE has chosen this moment to ramp up enforcement in western Kansas, where the bulk of the state’s red-meat production is located. One city commissioner, Jose Lare, warned that “you will definitely see a massive economic slowdown … as people begin to hide at home, not travel, not go to work, not go to school.” Livestock associations in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas issued a joint statement trying to get the Trump administration to back down.
And that’s not all!
In order to try to lower beef prices for consumers, Trump declared he would allow 300,000 metric tons of low quality ground beef imports to come into the country tariff-free. But by making beef his one tariff exception, Trump inevitably threatened the livelihood of beef-producing states like Kansas. Kansas Farm Bureau president Glenn Brunkow called the plan “bad for consumers, destructive for ranchers and anti-American in principle.”
Democrats have responded to this perfect storm by fielding a candidate who seems as well positioned to capitalize on anti-Republican sentiment as any Kansas Democrat could be.
Adam Hamilton is the leader of United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Kansas City; the congregation has 25,000 members, making it the largest Methodist one in the US. Hamilton focused his campaign on the Iran war and high prices.
When Marshall and his allies attacked Hamilton and his congregation as radical for supporting Kansas City Pridefest, 120 pastors from the state signed a letter pushing back.
“When you attack Adam’s pastoral ministry, his home congregation, and our denomination as a whole, you sow seeds of division and dissent,” they wrote.
What’s the matter with Roger Marshall?
Hamilton has also received surprising Republican support. Two former GOP governors of the state, Bill Graves and Mike Hayden, have both endorsed him, with Graves noting that he supported Marshall during his initial run for Senate in 2020.
“His first votes were to not accept the results of the elections from Arizona and Pennsylvania,” Graves said. “That was very disappointing to me. Since his time in the Senate, he has been pretty much a yes-vote for anything the administration wants.”
Marshall, in short, believed that he was in a safe red seat, and that as long as he stapled himself to Trump’s orange carcass, he could win every primary, never lose his seat, and get fawning coverage whenever he trotted over to appear on Fox News.
It’s not hard to understand see why Marshall thought this was the best approach. Senators who defied Trump over his Big Lie, like John Cornyn of Texas and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, lost primaries against more enthusiastic dumbass dittoheads. Mainstream media largely doesn’t bother to hold senators in deep red states accountable, and when it does they often win anyway. So why not just keep your head buried wherever Trump tells you to bury it and stay a senator for the rest of your worthless but privileged existence?
Republicans are so unpopular now, though, that the usual rules have been upended — including ones about who the mainstream media will bother to investigate. Kansas started to look maybe purple-ish if you squinted, and so the New York Times invested in the major investigation of Marshall’s past conduct as an obstetrician which no one had bothered with on his first election in 2020.
What they found was not good.
Marshall, the NYT reported, had “filed lawsuits against more than 700 patients with outstanding bills during his decades-long career as an obstetrician-gynecologist.” He treated poor patients seeking pregnancy care like piggy banks and deadbeats; in 81 cases, patients who missed court dates were arrested. Those who could not pay bills immediately were charged an exorbitant 18 percent interest a year.
Hamilton quickly located one of Marshall’s patients willing to go on camera. The campaign filmed an ad in which she describes how Marshall had her arrested when she was eight months pregnant because she missed a $50 payment. (Watch below.)
“Roger Marshall preyed on the low-income families of Kansas,” his former patient says. “The healthcare system is broken. But not for Roger Marshall. He’s absolutely profiting from it.”
What’s the matter with Republicans?
Responding to a scandal is difficult for even talented politicians, and Marshall is not a talented politician. He doubled down and then doubled down again on self-righteous outrage designed to keep the story in the news as long as possible.
During a recent debate at the state fair, Marshall claimed it was “common business practices” to send debt collectors to harass pregnant patients and charge them usurious interest rates. He was enthusiastically booed. And that’s far from the only time Marshall has gone viral for getting jeered in public.
Instead of pivoting, Marshall turned around and sent Hamilton a cease-and-desist letter claiming his ad defamed him. Hamilton’s campaign said they were not taking the ad down, then giggled and rubbed their hands at the prospect of Marshall continuing to draw attention to the fact that he’s a greedy heartless freak.
Why is Roger Marshall so bad at this? Obviously part of the reason is that he is a fool and a bad person. But more broadly, political scientist Jonathan Bernstein argues that this kind of flagrant inability to do politics is in part the result of the extent to which the GOP has been eaten by its own propaganda machine.
“If Fox News will buy whatever GOP leaders are selling, and Fox News viewers will buy whatever Fox News tells them, why should GOP leaders work hard to devise intelligent justifications for their positions?” Bernstein asks.
Marshall knows he could go on Fox News and tell them it’s the industry standard to charge 18 percent interest, and the interviewers would nod and smile. So he tried the same thing at the state fair in front of his constituents and then was shocked when they were unconvinced.
Or to put it another way, candidates like Roger Marshall, and Ken Paxton, and Donald Trump all feel entitled to their seats. As the Republican Party becomes more and more authoritarian, its contempt for democracy and for its own voters becomes increasingly blatant. Marshall is genuinely outraged that the media, the Democrats, or average Kansans would dare to question his predatory treatment of his patients. Don’t they know who he is? Don’t they recognize that he is their rightful ruler, entitled to 18 percent interest, a Senate seat, and the obeisance of the press?
Insulated from challenge by right-wing media and structural advantages, the GOP has increasingly gotten high on its own fascist supply. Now, suddenly, accountability is here. May Roger Marshall, his party, and his president receive everything they deserve.
That’s it for today
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Thanks for reading.
The person on the excelent YouTube channel "Let's Talk Elections' states that for states like Kansas and Texas to be lost needs a combination of a very unfavourable national environment, a strong Democrat candidate and a weak Republican one. Marshall didn't see that all these boxes are being ticked. Anyone in touch with farmers (pretty important in Kansas) would know that if tariffs are brought in and trade wars started farmers are the first casualties because there's plenty of other places you can get agricultural imports as happened very rapidly with the big Chinese export market. But the former doctor clearly didn't know this,
A rational political party would look to put its best retail politicians in the swing states (and give these people a big say in political strategy) and look to put less flashy policy wonks that would make good cabinet members or leaders in the safe states. That is definitely not how things are working in the Republican party (I don't know the internal the Democrats). It seems that the most extreme and electorally unsuccessful policies come from 'safe' Republican districts and states. I'm pretty sure that explains why the Republicans embraced banning abortion which is an electoral stinkbomb....however beloved in the grass roots of Republican +20% branches.
Are arrogance and ignorance prerequisites to be considered for elected office in the Republican Party? Either party? Given the number of medical professionals who get involved with politics and then become embroiled in scandal, one could assume either the medical profession needs to strengthen its moral and ethical standards or political organizations need to do better vetting candidates. Wait. How naive. Of course.