Republican politics in a nutshell I’ve written this in various forms over the years, but I think JV Last distills it perfectly: Last week Amanda Carpenter made the point to me (on TNL) that Republican voters have simply decided that they like DeSantis. Period. And once voters decide they like a candidate, then all of the logic flows from there. In politics, Amanda argued, voters make their decisions first and then rationalize backwards. And that theory was on full display in The Focus Group podcast this weekend (listen to the show here) where Sarah talked with groups of evangelical Christians who voted for Trump in both 2016 and 2020. If you go by the numbers, then for these voters, Mike Pence should be The Guy. But to a man, they were all anti-Pence. Why? Their rationalizations were ridiculous: At the risk of playing armchair psychologist, there are only two possible explanations for such statements: -These people are dumb as a bag of hammers; or -After January 6th they decided that they no longer liked Pence. So they have now invented reasons to be against him. Option (2) seems more likely to me. Your mileage may vary. The same dynamic was on display in the The Focus Group with evangelicals who were rationalizing why they loved Trump. One woman told Sarah that she felt comfortable with Trump because Trump spends so much time with “his minister.” Please raise your hand if you think Trump has been to services more than a dozen times in the last 20 years.…