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As you know, there are primary elections in a few states tonight. Virginia is one of them. And there’s one race I wanted to highlight because it’s a sign of the times, of the Trump era. Bob Good is currently the chair of the Freedom Caucus. If you’re assuming that because he’s in the Freedom Caucus he’s awful, well … good call. Because he’s completely awful. It also looks like his political career is going to end tonight. And couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. Because Bob Good is awful. The reason his career is coming to an end, though, goes back to his very bad decision to endorse Ron DeSantis. In other words, he crossed Trump, although in a pretty meager way. Once Trump was back in the driver’s seat he made very clear that while he was supporting DeSantis he’d obediently return to the Trump Train as soon as DeSantis officially bowed out.
The other factor in Good’s downfall is that a guy named John McGuire, a Trump superfan, announced that he was going to primary Good. As far as I can tell, at least the beginning this was McGuire’s idea. I don’t think Trump or someone acting on Trump’s behalf recruited him. But perhaps I’m wrong on that. In any case, he started going to Trump events, doing things to curry favor with Trump. Had his picture taken with Trump at a few events. You get the idea.
From this point, two factors had come together to end Good’s career. He crossed Trump. Trump gets mad when you cross him and he’s vindictive. (Except of course when he’s not. Or when it would take some work to get even.) Then, McGuire cued the thing up for Trump. He showed that he was ready to primary Good. He was developing his Trump super-fan brand and he was getting at least a little traction among the far right in his district running against Good as not totally, positively loyal to Lord Trump. Importantly, Trump said a few nice things about him without endorsing him. That helped McGuire get even more traction.
Point being: Trump probably wanted to crush a few people to make a point about the DeSantis rebellion. But he’s also lazy. So he didn’t want to put much time into it. But McGuire cued it up. All he had to do was give the public, ceremonial thumbs-down to Good and endorse McGuire. Which he did.
Another critical factor is that at no time over the last six months does Good appear to have been willing to prostrate himself before Trump and beg forgiveness. Maybe that wouldn’t have worked. But I don’t get the impression he was willing to do that.
Maybe Good will pull it out. It’s very hard to effectively poll a primary like this. But most observers think Good’s toast. And they’re probably right.