Thoughts on the 2019 Pennsylvania Primary Election

           Most of the results of the 2019 Pennsylvania Primary Election have now been tallied and published.  The election also doubled as a special federal and state election in certain districts where there were vacant legislative seats. 

The Republican candidates for United States Representative and state legislative seats in those special elections won the most votes, thereby holding their safe GOP seats, as expected. 

Many incumbents for countywide, municipal or school district elections were defeated for re-nomination in both parties across Pennsylvania. 

One result that demonstrated relatively clearly the Trumpification of the Republican Party was the defeat of a Philadelphia City Councilman for two reasons: 1) he had questioned hundreds of millions of dollars of wasteful expenditures by the Philadelphia Parking Authority, which is the lone patronage-rich entity controlled by Republicans in Philadelphia County, and 2) the Asian-American Councilman had voted, in accordance with federalist principles, to not obligate the City to enforce federal immigration laws and he had endured insults about his citizenship status based upon racial prejudice. 

Trumpism is populism, protectionism, isolationism and nativism.  The last state and local general elections in 2017 trended toward the Democrats because of Donald Trump and the failure of the Republican Party to stand up to him, but the GOP has since been increasingly Trumpified, in terms both of defending Trump and adopting Trumpism and Trumpy behavior (insults, crudity, dishonesty, conspiracy-theory peddling, self-interest).  This trend will likely lead to similar results in the General Election in November, which will continue to motivate Democrats to vote and to force non-Trumpist conservatives, moderates and libertarians look beyond the Republican Party for center-right leadership.