by Dan Burns

Sep 21, 2021, 7:30 AM

Trying to figure out MN Senate Party of Trumpers

Have they really decided they’d better move away from being so royally deserving of the “Party of Trump” moniker? Hard to say.

I’m referring to their having picked Sen. Jeremy Miller (R-Winona) as the new Senate Majority Leader. He’s considered to be about the least extreme, selfish, and deranged member of the GOP caucus, there. Hardly Trump’s kind of guy. And we’ll see if he really lives up to the reputation corporate media instantly moved to blanket him with. In the matter of keeping his caucus from torpedoing a special session to distribute frontline worker aid, for example.

I don’t think it was a matter of him being the only one who’d take the job. “Senate Majority Leader” presumably looks damn good on a resume, when going after sweetly remunerative post-lege lobbying gigs.

I frankly have no idea, as to the extent to which the American Legislative Exchange Council currently makes the calls for Minnesota Republican legislators. Sen. Miller doesn’t seem like he would be Charles Koch’s (ALEC’s main mover’s) pick, either. But there were indications that the reality of “President Trump” threw ol’ Charles for something of a loop.

There was strong turnout for Trump here, in 2020; that’s how the MN GOP managed to unfortunately hang on the the state Senate, and retain some power in governing at the state level. But he still got crushed in this state, overall. And court-drawn redistricting is going to be based on actual population shifts, as opposed to the Party of Trump preference for utterly shameless, anti-democratic, and most of all cowardly gerrymandering. That will mean a move of districts toward urban population centers, especially the metro, and therefore a tougher map for Republicans in this state. (Though believe me corporate media will do its darndest to spin this matter otherwise.) It appears to have got through to enough GOP senators that they had better appear to “moderate,” if they want any chance at all of retaining a majority. There’s no reason to believe we’ll see the same kind of Trumper turnout in 2022, without that vile, almost inconceivably stupid, asshole’s name anywhere on the ballot.

As you’ve likely noticed I’m just engaging in a bunch of speculation. I can’t claim to know the minutiae of what’s going on in the heads of Republicans in the MN lege. My take on the world and everything in it is markedly different from theirs, in plenty of ways. But it does seem clear that plenty, however belatedly, now have some idea that diehard Trumpism isn’t any kind of road to political glory, here.