Karen Hughes tells a story in her memoirs that down-ballot Republicans would do well to remember in 2020 ... 1/x https://twitter.com/tedcruz/status/1279657317315772417

Walking on a bench on holiday, she saw a small plane trailing an advertising flyer behind it. The flyer read, approximately, "Jill come back. I am miserable without you. Jack."

She thought: "Bad message, Jack. Too much about you, not enough about her." 2/x

By now, most Republican electeds realize that Trump has fatally mismanaged the pandemic.

By now, they must see that the economy will not "bounce back" or "rock" in the 3d quarter.

So the hunt is afoot for some other ballot issue that might save them from catastrophe. 3/x

The trouble is that even GOP electeds are now locked into a Fox-created bubble of unreality.

Outside that bubble, vandalism of statues looks like petty criminality, a minor local issue.

But *inside* the bubble, it's all statues 24/7. Exciting! 4/x

Lost your job? STATUES.

Your health insurance expiring? STATUES.

Mom's Florida friends heading to hospital? STATUES STATUES STATUES. 5/x

The hope behind the STATUES ALL THE TIME strategy is that maybe it can squeeze just a few more droplets of juice out of the angry non-college male demographic.

And maybe it will. But even here there's a problem. 6/x

Trump is the incumbent president. If he loves statues so much, why didn't he protect them at the time? If AntiFa has seized control of great American cities, why doesn't he do something about it NOW?

The more Trump magnifies protests into city-wrecking riots ... 7/x

The more he magnifies his own failure. You can't run as Nixon 1968 when you are already Lyndon Johnson 1968 - the incumbent president who has lost already lost control of the situation. 8/x

Meanwhile everybody OUTSIDE the crazy Fox bubble can see that the US is simultaneously

a) engaged in a profound historical reckoning that has inspired cities and states to retire Confederate memorials

and

b) beset by some criminal mischief best handled by local police 9/x

Nobody who is worried about pandemic disease, job loss, security of health insurance will consent to make a national presidential ballot issue out of (b). 10/x

And while I am sure a great many people are quietly seething about (a) - they are all voting for Trump already. 11/x

The irony of it all is that the very LAST thing Trump and people around him want is vigorous enforcement of criminal law. They hired Bob Barr to put a stop to that! 12/x

The great RNC chair Haley Barbour wisely advised, "The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing."

In 2020, the main thing is the VIRUS and the JOBS lost because of the virus.

Those issues have bored, baffled, and defeated Trump. 13/x

In face of Trump's failure, his co-partisans and their cable propaganda network are scavenging for ways to elevate something *other* than the "main thing" to be the "main thing." 14/x

The effort won't work. And the effort will actually make things *worse* by reminding key voters how little Trump Republicans care about - and how utterly they have failed to cope with - the most important issues in national life. END