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Its like losing a loved one, or finding the family cat flattened by a stray road grader.

Actually, its way, way, way, totally way worse.

Did grandma rest her soul ever help you hit a four-team parlay, last-second style?

Did Patches pancaked into the afterlife ever strap on shoulder pads and run for a buck-forty-eight over the contemptible, foul-smelling Steelers?

Did either of them ever once give you the vicarious thrill of victory to temporarily offset the perpetual, suffocating sense of loss that you feel as each passing second takes you closer and closer to your inevitable demise and that moment when youll have to face the Grim Reaper, eyeball to skull-hole, and account for this thing that youve called a life?

Big fat negative there, chief.

But pro football sure has.

With the Super Bowl bringing the 2021 NFL season to an end last Sunday, this will be the first weekend since September with no linebackers de-cleating wideouts scampering across the middle; no Volvo-sized offensive and defensive lineman slapping bellies with seismic reverberations; no pouty-pussed Aaron Rodgers sulking on the sidelines as the Packers blow yet another chance at a title shot.

It will be seven (!!!) interminably long months before the next season kicks off. Thats three-and-a-half lifespans for your average housefly, which is exactly what that stretch of time feels like: three-and-a-half lifespans.

Yes, were in mourning. (In lieu of flowers, please send a donation to the charity of your choice by donation we mean Jagermeister and by charity of choice we mean yours truly.)

Guess the only course of action here is to begrudgingly find some other crap to do on Sundays to try to fill the Allegiant Stadium-sized void in our soul.

To this end: Here are 10 of the best options for the worst (ever) time of the year:

Karaoke After Dark w/Blaire DeWayne at Dawg House Saloon at Resorts World, 8 p.m.

Whatll it be, Bengals fans? Becks Loser or Jerry Garcias Loser? UFOs Im a Loser or The Beatles Im a Loser? Maybe Tom Pettys Even the Losers for the win? (Just kidding, winning is not your thing, obvs). Nevertheless, youll be well-suited to belt out any of the aforementioned classics at Karaoke After Dark at Resorts Worlds sports-friendly Dawg House Saloon. Host Blaire DeWayne, best known around these parts for fronting kick-arse indie rockers Rusty Maples, will most assuredly add some laughs to the evening. Hey, you cant lose for a change.

Sunday Funday open mic comedy night at Noreens Lounge, 8 p.m.

Like Gandhi once famously said, Laughter is the best medicine, especially when battling gangrene. Take dudes words of wisdom to heart, add your name to the sign-up sheet at Noreens Lounges Sunday Funday open mic comedy night, and get your Bill Hicks on. Noreens (2799 E. Tropicana Ave.) is an ideal spot for stand-up first-timers, a friendly, welcoming, dive-bar environment with a mix of newbies and local comedy up-and-comers. Fear not, nervous nellies, you wont get laughed off stage unless youre that good.

Southern Highlands Farmers Market, 9 a.m.-2 p.m.

Like Gandhi also once famously said, Real men sweat Crisco. To wit: Youve spent the last five months of Sundays gorging on deep-fried, well, everything during the games, cause salads and football go together like salads and football. So go get some fresh air, veggies and fruits all at once and give your cholesterol levels a break at the Southern Highlands Farmers Market (11411 Southern Highlands Parkway) then have your better half run a slant route and tight-spiral her an eggplant. (Dont worry, you can deep-fry that eggplant when you get home).

Tailgate in perpetuity at Raiders Tavern at M Resort

Just because the NFL season comes to an end doesnt mean you should have to stop tailgating, right? This was the argument that we recently made to the security staff at the Luxor parking garage, who remained stubbornly, party-poopingly unconvinced. And so were relocating to the Raiders Tavern at M Resort, where theres less pepper spray, more beer. The place is awash in Raiders memorabilia, theres a team gift shop, the 45 HDTVs are always tuned to sports and there are ample bar napkins to soak up the tears of Broncos fans still grieving after the hated Raiders rivals got schooled by the home team twice (!) this year.

Play Tecmo Bowl at the Pinball Hall of Fame

Nostalgia is a big part of sports. Say youre a Browns fan (put your dukes down, it wasnt meant as an insult). You remember those glory days when your team was a perennial playoff contender, right? Alf was on prime time; indoor plumbing had just become a thing. Reel in the years in similar fashion at the always awesome Pinball Hall of Fame (4925 Las Vegas Blvd. S.), where admission is free, and there are scads of arcade classics like gridiron staple Tecmo Bowl alongside games of skill that date all the way back to when your team was last relevant and your QB sported a leather helmet.

Dino a la Carte happy hour at The Golden Tiki, 4 p.m.-7 p.m.

Like the 2021 NFL season, Dean Martin is dead. But also like the 2021 NFL season, Dean Martin still lives on in our hearts (Who could ever forget Thats Amore or the Colts crapping the proverbial bed in Jacksonville in Week 18?). Celebrate the Rat Packer in finger-snapping style with crooner Dino a la Cartes swinging happy hour at the Golden Tiki (3939 Spring Mountain Road), which is always a cool hang with its legendary celebrity shrunken heads and even more legendary-ier Surfboard Pupu Platter. Bonus: The cocktails here are as stiff as you wish your squads run defense was.

See real-life rams up close at Hemenway Park in Boulder City

The Rams of Los Angeles didnt disappoint last weekend, and neither do their real-life counterparts in Boulder City.

Herds of the wooly, big-horned creatures come down to graze at the citys Hemenway Park (401 Ville Drive) throughout the day. Sit on a bench, take in the gorgeous views of Lake Mead, and theyll come within arms length of you as they serve as natures lawnmowers. Its as beautiful as taking the under was last Sunday.

Comedy Sportz at Art Square Theater, 7:30 p.m.

In a way, its kind of like watching the Texans take on the Jags: two teams competing to a chorus of laughs. Comedy Sportz at Art Square Theater (1025 S. First St.), though, is a vastly more entertaining way to spend a Sunday. How it works: Two teams of improv comedy pros go at it, while the audience helps keep score. Theres even a ref! Its an all-ages, kid-friendly show, meaning that much like sacking Tom Brady for a loss its fun for the whole family.

Drag Brunch at The Garden, noon

Whats better than topless eye-candy? Bottomless cocktails, easily. Yeah, football-free Sundays are a drag, but less of a drag thanks to the drag queens at The Garden (1017 S. First St. No. 180). Resident performers like Coco Montrese and Desree St. James bring the wow; the wait staff brings the drinks in endless supply. Piece of advice: Make reservations in advance, as this is one hot (and bothered) ticket.

Upside Down Tea Party at the Shag Room at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas, noon-3 p.m.

We know what youre thinking: Tea time is for British folk who daftly refer to soccer as football. Um, just like England learned about that whole democracy thing from the United States, and The Monkees totally paved the way for The Beatles, American football comes first, English soccer second. History lesson complete, the Upside Down Tea Party at the Shag Room at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas is a sweet place to nurse your post-Super Bowl football sads, with alcohol-enhanced teas delivered in your own tea pot alongside a tower of gourmet finger foods, while a damn good, female-fronted cover band performs. Request Queens We Are the Champions and lead a chant for the good ol U. S. of A.

Contact Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476. Follow @jbracelin76 on Instagram

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10 things to do on Sundays now that the NFL season is over - Las Vegas Review-Journal

WICHITA FALLS (KFDX/KJTL) Candidates for the Precinct Two County Commissioner seat are facing off yet again ahead of the March Primary.

Incumbent Mickey Fincannon and former Commissioner Lee Harvey took part in a candidate forum hosted by the Wichita Falls Tea Party.

Both candidates got to share their views on why theyd be the best man for the job and take questions from those in attendance. Many questions were along the lines of how theyd manage the county budget, what improvements theyd bring to the county and what changes they believe need to be made.

As far as representing the County, when I took office I ran on transparency, being a good steward of tax payers dollars and Im very much that, Fincannon said. Ive kept my words 100%.

In Electra, Iowa Park, in Wichita Falls, we as a team on the Commissioners Court make the decisions that impact our lives daily in the county, Harvey said.

Early voting is now underway in Wichita County. For information on when and where you can cast your vote just click here.

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Mickey Fincannon and Lee Harvey take part in Tea Party Candidate Forum - KFDX - Texomashomepage.com

MUM-OF-10 Alicia Dougherty went all out to ensure her kids enjoyed Valentine's Day this year - with a tea party stocked full of sweet treats for her brood.

The matriarch of the Dougherty Dozen took to TikTok to share a video of what her family ate on the romantic holiday.

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"For breakfast they had red heart-shaped waffles, bacon and heart-shaped strawberries," she began the video, showing off the breakfast spread.

As they were still at school, Alicia packed her kids some "leftover spaghetti and meatballs, corn and some yoghurt".

Then, when they were home from school, she held a cute Valentine's tea party "with plenty of snacks and desserts", including cupcakes, biscuits and popcorn.

To conclude their day's feast, they had "cheesy grits, shrimp, veggies and rice, southern biscuits, mashed potatoes and gravy", followed by "peach cobbler for dessert".

"Bon Appetit!" Alicia concluded the clip.

While the majority of comments on the video praised Alicia for doing such a good job with her kids, others were less than impressed with her decision to use red food dye to colour the breakfast waffles.

"I love you and your rad family!" one person wrote. "But please don't use red food dye, it's so bad for you!"

Someone else asked Alicia if she'd used beetroot food dye for the waffles, to which she answered: "I ran out of that, it does work though.

"This is the basic red food colouring."

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Others were more complimentary about Alicia's Valentine's setup, with one writing: "You were destined to be a mum, and what a brilliant one you are!"

"You are literally the best mom. Be mineeee," another person wrote.

"Oh my goodness all of this looks so yummy!!! Im so jealous!!!!" a third person commented.

In other family news, this man was left fuming after his brother-in-law stole his baby name for his own tot.

This woman named her daughter after her grandmother, but the nurse laughed when she revealed the moniker.

And this woman was left devastated after her husband said he wouldn't be in the delivery room when she gives birth unless his mum can be too.

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Im a mum-of-10 & held a Valentines tea party for my brood, trolls say my red foods bad for the kids but... - The US Sun

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell (center) looks toward President Donald Trump at the White House in 2020. Stefani Reynolds/CNP/Bloomberg via Getty Images hide caption

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell (center) looks toward President Donald Trump at the White House in 2020.

The Russian threat to Ukraine has Washington on edge. No one wants the heightened tensions in Eastern Europe to escalate into war. But there's at least one prominent Republican in the Capitol not complaining that the media spotlight has shifted overseas.

Last week, Mitch McConnell, the seven-term Republican senator from Kentucky who has been his party's leader in the Senate for the past 15 years, found himself locked in a high-profile confrontation with the former president, who insists he is still the party's leader.

It was not the first round of this long-running bout, but it was perhaps the most clarifying and the most consequential for the elections this fall and in 2024.

McConnell had felt compelled to respond when the Republican National Committee censured two Republican members of the House for serving on the special committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. The RNC had characterized the events on Jan. 6 as "ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse."

McConnell would have none of that. Unlike the members of the RNC, he actually witnessed what happened in the Capitol on that day. And he has always been clear about what he saw and what it meant.

"It was a violent insurrection for the purpose of trying to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after a legitimately certified election from one administration to the next," McConnell said last week.

That was no more than most of his party colleagues in the Senate or among the nation's governors would say. But he was saying it in plain English in public with reporters gathered to hear it. And he was saying it in the certain knowledge that his defense of the investigating committee and the legitimacy of the 2020 election would bring down the wrath of Donald Trump.

"Mitch McConnell does not speak for the Republican Party and does not represent the views of the vast majority of its voters," Trump shot back in a statement released by his Save America PAC. "He did nothing to fight for his constituents and stop the most fraudulent election in American history."

It is hard to find a comparable exchange between a president and a Senate leader of the same party anywhere in U.S. history.

To be sure, presidents have often crossed swords with the leaders of the opposition party and not infrequently disagreed with those of their own party. But the latter disputes are generally not put out for public consumption. The fratricidal nature and sharp wording of the Trump-McConnell feud are unprecedented.

Late in 2002, Republican President George W. Bush distanced himself from his own party's Senate leader, Trent Lott of Mississippi, after Lott made a stunning remark at a retirement party for Strom Thurmond. Lott had suggested the country "wouldn't have had all these problems over the years" if Thurmond had been elected president in 1948, when Thurmond was the segregationist nominee of the States Rights Party.

That led to Lott stepping down as leader, making way for another senator with closer ties with the White House. But Bush was the sitting president at the time, still riding a huge wave of public support in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and preparing the nation for an impending war with Iraq.

President Bush's criticism of Sen. Trent Lott's racially controversial statements in 2002 ended his time as majority leader. But Mitch McConnell holds greater sway than Lott did. Brooks Kraft/Corbis via Getty Images hide caption

President Bush's criticism of Sen. Trent Lott's racially controversial statements in 2002 ended his time as majority leader. But Mitch McConnell holds greater sway than Lott did.

Trump is scarcely in a comparable position, having lost his bid for reelection and deeply divided the country.

And McConnell is in no sense likely to step down. He has far more experience and far more achievements as leader than Lott. The crux is that he is backed by most of the GOP senators who are his most immediate and important "constituents."

That is why McConnell is well-positioned to break out to the upside on his current status as the minority leader in a 50-50 Senate. Republicans need just one more seat to make that happen, and it could happen any time a vacancy occurs, or it could come with the midterm elections in November. McConnell's colleagues know there is no one more likely to oversee a successful electoral season than McConnell.

In 2014, for example, while serving in the Senate minority leader role, McConnell helped recruit and raise money for that fall's strong lineup of challengers who defeated five Democratic incumbents and captured an additional four seats from Democrats who had retired. That gain of nine seats (no GOP seat went Democratic) set McConnell up with a clear majority to resist Barack Obama on nearly every front in his last two years as president.

But McConnell knows that a sweep of that kind is far from automatic. He was also the party leader for the Senate election cycle in 2012, when vulnerable Democrats in Missouri and Indiana escaped because the Republicans nominated weaker candidates. At that time, the surging influence of the Tea Party was being felt throughout the country and helping hard-line insurgents win primaries over more mainstream Republicans.

If something similar were to happen this year, one of two scenarios that McConnell wishes to avoid could play out in the next round of voting for party leader. In one, the pro-Trump rivals who beat McConnell's preferred candidates get to Washington and vote for someone other than McConnell for leader. Two have already pledged to do so.

In the alternative scenario, the pro-Trump rivals get the GOP nominations and lose to the Democrats in November. That might not only frustrate McConnell's drive for a clear majority but endanger his base of 50. Republican nominations are up for grabs in at least three states (Ohio, Pennsylvania and North Carolina) where Democrats have a shot at winning this fall.

Former President Donald Trump's role in the upcoming primaries runs the risk of creating a repeat of the Tea Party's influence in 2012, which left McConnell with a slate of general election candidates without broad appeal. Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images hide caption

Former President Donald Trump's role in the upcoming primaries runs the risk of creating a repeat of the Tea Party's influence in 2012, which left McConnell with a slate of general election candidates without broad appeal.

In that event, if his party were to lose ground when it expects to gain, McConnell would be less assured of keeping his job. This would be especially true assuming Republicans do take over in the House and Trump becomes an official candidate for 2024 and calls for McConnell's ouster.

McConnell's real problem is that the Republican primary voters this year may well resemble those of 2012 more than those of 2014. The party has continued to move in the direction once denoted in the phrase Tea Party and now symbolized by Trump.

That is the message in the RNC statement and in countless polls showing most Republicans say Trump actually won reelection in 2020 despite the mountains of evidence to the contrary.

The problem is that McConnell is not just dealing with Trump. He is dealing with the realities of the Republican Party that elevated Trump in 2016 and have most of the party's ranks following Trump's lead today.

Any lingering doubts about this can be dispelled by reading the new book by New York Times reporter Jeremy W. Peters, Insurgency: How The Republicans Lost Their Party and Got Everything They Ever Wanted. Peters has been following developments on the American right in the years since the original Tea Party demonstrations in 2009.

He has interviewed Trump, but most of his book is what he learned from interviewing several hundred others relevant to his overall subject over a period of years. Among them is Patrick Buchanan, the speechwriter for Ronald Reagan who became a columnist and TV commentator and three-time candidate for president. Peters argues that the "pitchfork Pat" ethos of Buchanan's campaigns in the 1990s kept right on marching through the first decades of the new century.

The movement was diverted but not derailed by the years of the War on Terror. Then, in 2008, its anger was back on a domestic track with the mortgage meltdown and Wall Street bailouts, then the elevation of the Obamas (Michelle almost as much as Barack). The movement found its next leading figure in Sarah Palin (whose 2008 speech as the vice presidential nominee has iconic status) and found its populist sweet spot with the rise of the Tea Party and opposition to Obamacare (the Affordable Care Act).

But the Tea Party could not get Obama out of office, and 2012 nominee Mitt Romney proved disappointing. The field of candidates for 2016 was huge, but the insurgents soon found their new voice in Trump, the celebrity wheeler-dealer and reality TV star. Trump fixated issues such as the birth certificate and the "Ground Zero Mosque" in New York City. He also savaged immigrants from Mexico and from Muslim countries. And he began denigrating the integrity of elections before he had even been a candidate.

Peters has a notebook full of other characters and campaigns, from the speechwriters who worked with Palin to the on-air personalities who labored for Roger Ailes, the legendary creator of Fox News. Peters seems to have been present and reporting at every significant turn in the Republican road, watching the party gradually shed its country club image in favor of pickup trucks and gun racks.

Along the way, we meet many media figures who will figure in Trump's eventual rise, including Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity but also the shadowy Andrew Breitbart and his buddy and successor Steve Bannon. We see the roles played by David Bossie at Citizens United and Stephen Miller as a Senate staffer, well before they become part of Trump's inner circle of hard-liners. Later, we see how they assume roles inside Trump's new regime, along with all those Fox personalities, one by one.

Peters conveys a keen sense of having been present, not at the creation of this new GOP but for a critical stage of its transformation. His conclusion is that Trump is less a cause of the toxic political climate than he is a product of it. One might add that if Trump is neither the fuel nor the fire, he has surely been a highly effective accelerant. Thanks to him, what had been smoldering in our political culture has burst forth with far greater reach and intensity.

Trump has brought the heat. To date, Mitch McConnell has managed to convert that heat in service of the conservative agenda he himself wanted to achieve. The results have included a paring back of federal regulations and taxes and the repopulating of the federal judiciary.

This year, with Trump out of office but never out of mind, McConnell has to harness his insurgent energy again to pursue his own goals. And that will be a special challenge given that this time much of the heat is now being directed at him.

More here:
Trump vs. McConnell: Latest round between GOP heavyweights has the highest stakes yet - NPR

Primaries are always fucked up to some degree, but its different now, said John Thomas, a Republican strategist who works on House campaigns across the country. Theres more self-hate than there was before. Ten years ago, wed argue about who was more pro-gun, who was more pro-life. Now, my clients are going RINO hunting, which is a level of disdain that was not there before in our party.

Much of the churn is due to forces unleashed by Trump. The defeated presidents iron grip on the party and level of involvement in midterm primaries is unprecedented in modern history, and he continues to advance his lie that the 2020 election was stolen. The Republican electorate overwhelmingly agrees with him, furious at Republican politicians who resisted overturning the election. Not only do Republican primary voters nearly uniformly believe that the country is heading in the wrong direction, a common sentiment for the out-of-power party, but they are seething about the last election, about Joe Bidens Washington, about two years of a pandemic.

The confluence of the pandemic, the manner in which Trump practiced his politics just pure, in your face you throw in a healthy dose around what is being taught in our schools, its just a cocktail of people being really just mad, beyond the pale of what I would say is traditional political discourse, said John Watson, a former chair of the Georgia Republican Party. Theres not another moment in my life that you just feel viscerally that the country is in many ways at its own throat.

Evidence of the partys unrest is everywhere. Nearly a half-dozen GOP governors are facing competitive primary challenges, ranging from Ohio, where Gov. Mike DeWine is facing a primary challenge from former Rep. Jim Renacci, to Idaho, where conservative Gov. Brad Little is being challenged by his lieutenant governor, Janice McGeachin, who is trying to outflank him on the right.

In the South, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey has eight Republicans running against her, including at least two with significant resources. Next door in Georgia, former Sen. David Perdue, with Trumps support, is running to unseat Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp. In Texas, Trumps endorsed candidate, Gov. Greg Abbott, faces multiple challengers from his right, including Allen West, the former Florida congressman and former chair of the Texas Republican Party.

In the South, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey has eight Republicans running against her.| Kim Chandler/AP Photo

Twenty twenty-two is a unique point in time, said Steve Stivers, the former congressman from Ohio and former chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee. Its the confluence of a redistricting year, its the precursor to a big presidential election. We have a president with pretty unpopular numbers, but a Republican Party that has some infighting.

As a prelude to the partys presidential nominating contest in 2024, he said, the midterms are where well sort of see where the partys heading.

Congressional incumbents arent immune to the convulsions, despite expectations the party will make big gains in November. In Alaska, state Republican Party leaders have endorsed a primary challenge to the states incumbent senator, Lisa Murkowski, while GOP officials in Wyoming have disowned their incumbent congresswoman, Rep. Liz Cheney.

This is a different midterm, said Kirk Adams, a Republican former Arizona state House speaker. From a Republican Party perspective, its what does a post-Trump presidency Republican Party look like?

Few Republicans have been spared from the unrest, even in some of the reddest states. In Oklahoma, the state Republican Party chair is endorsing a primary challenge to GOP Sen. James Lankford, who infuriated Trump by voting to uphold the results of the November election. In Arkansas, Dick Uihlein, one of the GOPs biggest donors, has put $1 million into a campaign to defeat incumbent Sen. John Boozman.

Were getting tons of people, tons of people who are running in primaries, said Juliana Bergeron, an RNC committee member from New Hampshire. People who have never run for anything before are running in primaries. And we go shooting ourselves in our foot because, with people [some Republicans] dont like, we go looking for primaries.

In some parts of the country, the decennial redistricting has made avoiding intra-party conflict all but impossible, pressing Republican lawmakers into one anothers districts in Illinois, Michigan and West Virginia, where Republican Reps. Alex Mooney and David McKinley are brutalizing each other on TV.

Then there are the open races, where traditional ideological divisions within the party arent the determinative factor. In Wisconsin, state Rep. Timothy Ramthun announced his candidacy for governor this past Saturday, running explicitly on an election conspiracy platform. In Arizona, the frontrunner in the Republican primary for governor, Kari Lake, falsely insists Trump won the state and has said she would not have certified the 2020 election.

Arizonas high noon for determining the future of the party, whether its a Trump brand of conservative or a more traditional brand of conservativism, said Rory McShane, a Republican strategist working on House and state races in the state.

In part, this years abundance of primary challenges is an exercise in opportunism. Trumps sudden and rapid rise in politics has encouraged other non-office holders to run for lower office, while a favorable midterm election climate this year for Republicans with historical trends and Bidens dismal public approval ratings on their side has made the chance of winning in a general election better than it has been since before Trump took office.

If youre smart, you know winning the nomination in this cycle is 90 percent of winning, said Dave Carney, the Republican strategist who advises Abbott.

Donald Trumps sudden and rapid rise in politics has encouraged other non-office holders to run for lower office.|Evan Vucci/AP Photo

For a Republican who wants to hold office, he said, a primary nomination is now worth fighting for.

The results of the primaries will be interpreted, most of all, as a measure of Trumps influence over the party. He has endorsed roughly 100 candidates so far in the current election cycle, ranging from Senate and gubernatorial contests to state legislative and local races.

But the primaries will also test the durability of the Republican coalition that Trump shaped as a candidate and as president a political legacy marked by significant losses for the GOP in Americas suburbs, but gains among white working-class voters and, to a lesser extent, Latino voters.

More than 253 women and 228 people of color are running as Republicans for Congress, according to the National Republican Congressional Campaign Committee more Republican women and Hispanic people running than in any previous cycle. How those candidates fare in primaries this year, in the first election cycle since 2016 without Trump running or in the White House, may solidify the demographic shifts of the Trump era or undo them.

Every time we go through a new decade, theres a realignment of the electorate, said Randy Evans, a Georgia lawyer who served as Trumps ambassador to Luxembourg. I can remember when the elites in the country clubs were principally Republicans, and when blue collar workers were principally Democrats, and now Trump has taken the party so that its the party of blue collar workers Weve yet to see how, as an electorate, where everything will land.

The outcome will put a stamp on the party regardless of how Trumps endorsed candidates perform in November or whether he runs for president again in 2024. Thats one lesson from the tumultuous 2010 midterms. While the tea party ultimately faded out, veterans of that class included Sens. Marco Rubio and Rand Paul, both of whom went on to run for president in 2016, as well as Kristi Noem, Tim Scott and Mike Pompeo, three politicians who may run for president or contend for vice president in 2024.

Twelve years after the 2010 election, said Jay Williams, a Georgia-based Republican strategist, I think youve got a bunch of these folks out there being more willing to just like be flamethrowers than they used to be, and you also have the dynamic of, theres not as much of these corporate Republicans anymore.

In the primary landscape of 2022, he said, You cant run one of these traditional campaigns where youre just, I want to close the border and lower taxes and stuff Youve got to focus on the anger election integrity, borders and Covid mandates And youve got to be very aggressive about it.

Originally posted here:
GOP plunges into season of 'self-hate' that will rewire the party - POLITICO