by John Aravosis

Always like a Republican to see the mass-shooting glass half-full.

A local GOP party chairman in Georgia, Brad Carver, says the recent attempt by a crazed gunman to kill several Republican members of Congress who were playing softball will be a boon for GOP candidates, especially Karen Handel in Georgia, who is running against Jon Ossoff.

“I’ll tell you what: I think the shooting is going to win this election for us,” Carver told a get-out-the-vote rally.

Carver explained:

“Because moderates and independents in this district are tired of left-wing extremism. I get that there’s extremists on both sides, but we are not seeing them. We’re seeing absolute resistance to everything this president does. Moderates and independents out there want to give him a chance. Democrats have never given this president a chance.”

“Left-wing extremism.” Really? How’s that work exactly? Most of the mass-carnage we’ve seen over the past several decades, from Oklahoma City to the murder of abortion providers and judges, has come from right-wingers. “Left-wing” extremism usually takes the form of a candlelight vigil follow a right-wing extremist’s attempt to shoot up a movie theater, college, or elementary school.

Then there’s that small thing about Republicans trying to take health insurance away from 24 million Americas, and lower the coverage for everyone else. No extremism there.

Or Paul Ryan’s plan to privatized Medicare — actually, let’s be more precise — Paul Ryan’s plan to eliminate Medicare, and give people vouchers to buy insurance from the private insurance market where they won’t get coverage because of pre-existing conditions and/or won’t be able to afford it.

In fact, moderates and independents are suffering from the worst buyer’s remorse in a generation. (Though to be fair, the majority of those who voted didn’t vote for Donald Trump, and Hillary Clinton beat Trump by 3 million votes.) And Trump has the worst approval rating of any president at this point in his presidency.