Days after a CNN report about racist and sexual comments posted on a pornography forum, all but a few of Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson’s campaign team quit their jobs on Sunday.
A campaign news release said that four top staffers have left the campaign: Conrad Pogorzelski, general consultant and senior advisor who’s worked for Robinson since his initial 2020 lieutenant governor campaign; Chris Rodriguez, campaign manager; Heather Whillier, finance director; and Jason Rizk, deputy campaign manager.
But WUNC has confirmed that other staffers have quit as well, leaving Robinson with just three people working on his campaign — two campaign spokesmen and a bodyguard. The list of departures also include longtime director of operations Patrick Riley and political directors John Kontoulas and Jackson Lohrer.
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This is an example of why I think it’s wrong that getting rid of Trump would just mean someone else takes his place. If this happened to Trump–and it basically has several times already–it would play out in the media for a few days, and then he’d do something incredibly stupid and headlines would forget about it.
However, when this happens to any other Republican, they’re quickly abandoned. Like what used to happen to all Republicans or Democrats when they become politically radioactive.
Trump is a special case. He hit just the right resonance with just the right number of people to have a base of support, and then also have a bunch of other people who passively go along with it. He is not so easy to replace. Oh, someone will try, probably several someones. They’ll eat each other in the attempt and go nowhere.
DeSantis took a good shot at being Trump 2.0. He had the media attention, truckloads of money, a bully pulpit he used to attack “Wokeism” 24/7 while implementing actual hard right policies. On paper, he should have attracted MAGA voters, at the very least as a possible successor to Trump. Instead, it just… didn’t work.
Trump captured lightning in a bottle in 2016. He was able to present himself as this John Galt-like figure while also leveraging his media savvy to control narratives and dominate coverage. Obviously, not everyone bought it, but enough did to win the election. No one on the right has those qualities now. It may not even be possible to duplicate. At this point, even the 2024 version of Trump is failing to live up to 2016 Trump.
Unless the other candidate satisfies Worthington’s Law: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Worthington’s_law
Not even kidding.
Donnie might not even have billions, but millions of people support him because they think he’s rich and they think he’s somehow worthy of that money. If some other racist loudmouth billionaire comes along, the qons will be lining up to give him a soft job, too.
