Advice to EBGOP: Drop the crazy

If republicans ever want to win again in East Brunswick, they need to drop the crazy

They won't because their Dear Leader is running for president again. 2022 election cycle was not their rock bottom. They will only get worse. Given the past handful of election cycles, East Brunswick Republicans will double down on the crazy.

Note: by definition of what blog is, what follows is my observations and opinions, not statements of fact. You may or may not agree with me. Comments are open on this post and everyone is free to debate.

Though I have a whole write-up about how NJ GOP has gotten more looney since 2016, the recent three election cycles in East Brunswick demonstrate my observation a lot better. I will talk about the broader lunacy within the NJGOP in another post. All I will say for now is that since 2016 they double down on their Trumpism lunacy after each loss.

East Brunswick has a roughly two-to-one ratio of registered Democrats to registered Republicans. For Republicans to win elections, they must convince all registered Republicans, most of the unaffiliated, and some registered Democrats, to turn out for Republican candidates. Republicans in this town, this county, and the NJ-12 congressional district cannot win with their base alone. The more they focus on their base, the more they turn the majority of the voters off.

EB GOP - adjacent “Operation Flag Drop New Jersey” organized these obnoxious flag-waving rallies on private property on the corner of Rt 18 and Tices in East Brunswick. Did it win them any votes in any local elections?

In 2020 East Brunswick Republican activists felt that standing on a corner of Tices Lane and Route 18 waving Trump flags was somehow going to gain them the majority of the votes needed to win council seats and mayoral election. Inviting, or at least tolerating, a known crook to campaign for them was a cherry on top. After they got trounced in the 2020 Mayoral and council election, something like 65% to 35%, one would think they would have learned their lesson.

Instead, EB GOP decided to double down on the crazy.

Trump flag waving continued on Route 18 well into 2021, even after the January 6th, 2021 insurrection attempt. Some EB Republican activists went to the DC rally, and their eventual 2022 House candidate got tear gassed on the US Capitol steps.

Darius Mayfield was quite proud of getting tear gassed on Jan 6th. The screenshot was taken from his own Facebook feed in 2021.

EB Democrats didn't do themselves any favors by appointing one of the council members to State Assembly, thus vacating a council seat and triggering an off-cycle election. Still, given the thrashing EB GOP received in 2020, they still picked the Trumpiest, most flamboyantly MAGA alt-right candidate they could think of in 2021.

2021 was notable for obnoxious antimasking protests, drama at the board of ed meetings over non-existent Critical Race Theory, and a town council candidate who was bad at basic mathematics but good at flamboyance, drama, and performative outrage at council meetings. Even facing a rather weak Democratic council candidate, and buoyed by the public discontent over the pandemic school closures, he still lost. Performative outrage and the Trump flag-waving on street corners didn’t help.

The 2022 election cycle found East Brunswick Republicans grasping at straws. The town community already voted in 2018, 2020, and 2021 to keep the "Team Cohen" redevelopment initiatives on track, something EB GOP continued to deride and spread misinformation about for three election cycles. Moreover, the flag-waving on Route 18 epically failed to turn out the vote or convince anyone to vote for GOP candidates. Neither did scene-making and drama at town council and board of education meetings. Certainly, not having a January 6th insurrectionist at the top of their ticket who twisted himself into a pretzel trying to prove he is not an anti-Semite by comparing himself to an ancient Persian king who ruled over the Jews but was otherwise generous to them.

Now, it shouldn't be my job to advise Republican committee members. Maybe the Republican New Hampshire governor Chris Sununu can say it better:

"I got a great policy for the Republican Party," he continued. "Let's stop supporting crazy, unelectable candidates in our primaries and start getting behind winners that can close the deal in November."

And yet, East Brunswick Republicans have learned absolutely nothing. The voters haven't had a chance to get over the 2022 election cycle yet, and the band of losers on Route 18 is back waving Trump flags. Do they think returning to Route 18 to wave Trump flags like sore losers will earn them any fans? How did it work for them since 2016? Any local election they won in East Brunswick that was notable?

Not even two weeks after the 2022 election, the band of EBGOP-adjacent losers is back on Route 18 waving Trump flags.

I want more choices to vote for than simply between the incumbents and the drama queens. I believe there needs to be a healthy representation of all voices in our local government. I will never vote for a local Republican for as long as the lunatics run their asylum up and down the ballot.

I am hoping that maybe, just maybe, the EBGOP and Middlesex GOP at large will run the next campaign with dignity and devoid of lunacy and performative outrage. We need more tangible solutions to real problems and less drama.

If Republicans lost this bad in what was supposed to be a low turnout year for the Democrats, they have no hope to win in a presidential year 2024. Republicans either need to totally reinvent themselves, or demographics in town must change. New people moving into the newly built apartments may very well change the demographics and bring more voters sympathetic to Republicans. Then again, Republican candidates made it abundantly clear that apartments bring crime to town, so what do I know?

References

• I am not buying that GOP is ready to move on from Trump : Link

• Republicans died 2.5 times more than democrats due to vaccine denialism : Link

• "stop supporting crazy, unelectable candidates in our primaries and start getting behind winners that can close the deal in November": Link

• The crazy is on a losing streak : Link

• US remains a deeply stable society : Link

• This election was a little bit of everything. But overwhelming theme was that the voters had rejected the crazy. : Link

• If the last four election cycles have taught us anything, it is that Republicans always double down on the crazy : Link

• GOP is not at crossroads, and they don't have intersections. Trumpism is who they are and their future. : Link

• Republicans need to give Trump the Hoover treatment : Link