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ChrisWeigant

(951 posts) Fri Feb 5, 2021, 10:13 PM Feb 2021

Friday Talking Points -- Republicans In Disarray

This week we were treated to the spectacle of the Republican Party largely voting in support of an advocate of using deadly violence towards her political opponents. How the mighty have fallen -- since this used to be the party that dearly loved to sanctimoniously lecture everyone on how high morals were an absolute necessity in politics, and that even the concept of "moral relativism" was evil. That all went out the window when they nominated the most amoral man imaginable for president, of course, but it's still rather shocking to see this once-publicly-righteous party wallow in the filth of QAnon and flirt with ideas like advocacy for assassinating political opponents.

Next week, we'll be treated to the spectacle of the Republican Party explaining why they'll largely be voting (once again) to support deadly violence towards political opponents, except this time it'll be even more egregious, since the violence in question this time wasn't theoretical but actual -- and since the violence was directed against Congress itself. But not even this will stop Republicans from putting their stamp of approval on it, by voting to acquit the prime instigator of the violence of any responsibility. Republicans also (for younger readers who may never have come across the concept) used to be for "taking personal responsibility" (except when they said it they were always talking about minorities on welfare, unmarried mothers, gay people with AIDS, and others who were, to them, to be considered not only undesirable but morally lacking). Those were the days, eh?

These days morals and the Republican Party have completely parted ways. The two are now utterly separate. Morals simply don't matter a whit to them any more, because they've decided that "anything goes" should be their new motto instead. Anything at all -- even supporting political violence -- is to be considered allowable as long as either one of two conditions applies. Either it must please their Dear Leader Donald Trump, or it must make liberals cry with anguish. As long as at least one of those conditions is met, Republicans simply don't care about anything else -- morals, least of all. This is a sad and sorry state of affairs for a once-respectable American political party, obviously. But it doesn't seem likely to change any time soon.

Democrats should really resurrect a political label from the nineteenth century, and start calling pretty much everyone in the entire party "Radical Republicans." That shoe now undeniably fits, so make them wear it, every chance you get.

Some Democrats are already having fun linking the QAnon insanity to the Republican Party. To give the most amusing example of this, Speaker Nancy Pelosi put out the following snarky note before the House voted to strip Marjorie Taylor Greene of her committee assignments, which castigates Kevin McCarthy's weakness as a leader:

After several conversations and literally running away from reporters, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Q-CA) made clear that he is refusing to take action against conspiracy theorist Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. As a result, the House will continue with a vote to strip Greene of her seat on the esteemed House Committee on Education & Labor and House Committee on Budget. McCarthy's failure to lead his party effectively hands the keys over to Greene – an anti-Semite, QAnon adherent and 9/11 Truther.

McCarthy's cowardly refusal to deal with Greene breaks with calls from Senator Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Rep. Adam Kinzinger, the Republican Jewish Coalition and several prominent members of the party to take action against Greene.

As No 2. Senate Republican John Thune warned Tuesday, McCarthy has chosen to make House Republicans "the party of conspiracy theories and QAnon" and Rep. Greene is in the driver's seat.

Please note that "Kevin McCarthy (Q-CA)" in there. Others are wondering whether to rebrand the party "GQP" or perhaps "GOPQ." We'll have to see which meme wins out, in a few weeks or so.

Tying the anchor of lunatic conspiracy theories (and the political violence they espouse) to Republicans is pathetically easy for Democrats to do, since the Republicans are indeed terrified of bucking any of Trump's supporters who might sympathize with the QAnon lunacy or Trump's own cupboard of conspiracy theories and Big Lies. This could become a rather defining issue in the 2022 midterms, although it's a few political lifetimes between then and now, so perhaps we'll all have moved on to something else. Nothing is permanent, and that maxim is especially true in the world of politics.

Greene made an 11th-hour pitch to her fellow Republicans not to vote with the Democrats to strip her committee assignments. This non-apology apology actually got her a standing ovation from at least half of the GOP caucus. However, both in the private caucus meeting and on the House floor, while she did disavow (to some extent, her language still left a lot of wiggle room) most of the conspiracy theories she had previously supported, what was glaringly missing was any sort of apology about threatening Democrats like Pelosi with "a bullet in the head."

That is simply unacceptable. Republicans used to know this, but apparently they've now forgotten such a basic political tenet as "calls for assassinating your opponents are always to be condemned."

After she was unceremoniously stripped of her committee assignments, Greene tried to spin it as a positive, because without all that pesky legislating to fill her day, she could do what she really wanted to do, which is toot her own horn and build her own personal brand, apparently:

If I was on a committee, I'd be wasting my time, because my conservative values wouldn't be heard, and neither would my district's. Now, I have a lot of free time on my hands. which means I can talk to a whole lot more people all over this country, and I can talk to more people and make connections and build a huge amount of support.

She ended with an absolutely incomprehensible statement: "I'm grateful that I had the opportunity to say the things that I don't believe and I shouldn't have said in the first place." Say what?

The backlash over the attempted insurrection and the Big Lie that inspired it continues apace, as Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and Fox News were just sued by elections equipment manufacturer Smartmatic -- to the tune of $2.7 billion.

Trump's own legal team quit en masse this week, because they were tired of trying to explain to Trump that arguing the Big Lie in the Senate trail was a nonstarter. That, and they were tired of not getting paid, as well.

Speaking of quitting, Trump quit the Screen Actors Guild this week with a petulant letter (complete with a fake presidential seal on the top of it). Sad!

And speaking of crazy, Axios has a bonus article to their series on the final days of the Trump administration, all about the "craziest meeting ever" in the Oval Office with Trump. If you want to read the inside story about the lunatics Trump was listening to for advice after the election, this is the definitive read for you.

And finally, a post-mortem election report came out this week that concluded what everyone already instinctively knew anyway -- Donald Trump lost the election because he screwed up the response to the COVID-19 pandemic so badly and so spectacularly. After the voters had a whole year to see Trump attempt to grapple with a crisis he really didn't even ever want to admit was real, they all decided that giving Biden a chance to run things sounded like the better plan. What lefty or "fake news" organization put out this autopsy report? The Trump campaign's own pollster. Ouch.

Before we get to the main award, we have two Honorable Mention awards to hand out.

The first goes to Iowa state representative Beth Wessel-Kroeschell, who was annoyed that the speaker of the Iowa statehouse refused to mandate that masks be worn on the floor of the legislature. So Wessel-Kroeschell decided to make a point, and appeared on the floor wearing new blue jeans. The speaker refused to allow her to speak, since she was breaking the dress code rules by wearing jeans. This elegantly and effectively showed how the speaker did indeed have the power to mandate what was worn inside his chamber, which is why she deserves an Honorable Mention for her rather effective stunt.

House impeachment manager Jamie Raskin pulled a rather amusing stunt of his own -- one which will have bigger consequences, in the end. Raskin sent a letter to Donald Trump essentially defying him to testify at his own impeachment trial. With any normal politician, this wouldn't even be a news story, since they would reject the offer out of hand. But with Trump, you never know -- he might indeed be itching to be the star of his own trial, and showing up and testifying (and being subject to cross-examination) would definitely achieve that. Raskin's move was the equivalent of waving a red cape in front of a charging bull, in other words. But it was still a smart move (and not merely a stunt) because now that Trump's lawyers have declined the offer, the Democrats prosecuting the case can use that fact against him: "He was offered a chance to come here and tell his own story in his own words and he refused."

But this week we've got to hand the Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week to President Joe Biden once again, for his rather masterful tightrope walk on bipartisanship. Ten Senate Republicans, at the last minute, came up with a plan to head off the Senate Democrats from moving forward with reconciliation, which will allow them to pass Biden's preferred $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package with only 51 votes. The Republicans tried to present their plan as an alternative that could garner 60 votes, and therefore be truly bipartisan.

To put it bluntly, they were trying to trap Biden by his own campaign promises about unity and bipartisanship. What they really wanted to do was just have endless negotiations about the size and scope of the pandemic relief bill, without ever actually coming to a final version that 10 Republicans would indeed vote for. They've pulled this trick too many times to count in the past, including on Barack Obama's first stimulus package back in 2009.

Biden, thankfully, appears to have learned his lesson from 2009. He respectfully invited them to the White House, refused to even consider their paltry offer (which was less than one-third what Biden thought necessary), and then gave a big green light to Chuck Schumer to go right ahead with the reconciliation version.

By doing so, Biden avoided the trap completely, but politely. Biden is much more concerned with what is in the actual bill, and passing a bill as quickly as possible. So if Republicans can support something before the reconciliation bill is voted on, then bipartisanship will be possible -- but since they can't (there's no way 10 Republicans would vote for a $1.9 trillion bill), then they can just stand on the sidelines and watch Democrats get it done.

Bernie Sanders -- who now controls the budget committee in the Senate -- put it quite plainly:

I think the president has been very clear in saying what every Democrat believes. Of course we want Republican support. We want Republican support now and in the future. But the crises facing this country today are so extraordinary, so unprecedented, it is imperative that we move forward boldly and rapidly, right now. And if Republicans want to join us, that's great. If they don't, so be it.

In the last number of years, when Republicans had the majority, they used reconciliation to pass massive tax breaks for the rich and large corporations, used reconciliation to try to repeal the Affordable Care Act, used reconciliation to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wilderness Reserve. And all of those proposals were done on a 100 percent partisan basis. I didn't hear a whole lot of talk of bipartisanship then. So right now, yeah, if Republicans want to join us, that's great. But we have a proposal which is what the American people want -- poll after poll shows us that the vast majority of people understand that we have a major pandemic crisis that must be addressed, that we have a major economic crisis that must be addressed, we have a major educational crisis that must be addressed. And that's what we intend to do.

This is a good point, and one the White House has been making too. The bill does indeed have bipartisan support -- with the public. An overwhelming amount of the public, Democrats and Republicans and everyone else, would just like to see some results, fast. Nobody is really going to care at all who votes for it and who doesn't in the Senate. Nobody is going to care that Republicans are having a hissy fit over a parliamentary procedure they've used to the hilt in the past. All people are going to care about is what is in the bill, and whether it works or not.

Joe Biden is smart enough to realize this. And, what's more, he's smart enough to have realized this very early on in his presidency. Which is definitely a very good sign, because it could presage all sorts of other decisive action in the future.

For now, Biden has won yet another Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week award, for avoiding the endless trap of "bipartisan negotiations" with Republicans who are negotiating in bad faith. So Biden's first year in office could wind up being better than Obama's, but we'll have to wait and see. For now, it's a very good start.

[Congratulate President Joe Biden via the White House contact page, to let him know you appreciate his efforts.]

Senator Joe Manchin has become the new Joe Lieberman. He's the most conservative Senate Democrat, and his vote is going to be the critical one, since Chuck Schumer can't afford to lose any. So he's going to toy with Schumer and the rest of the party, making his own demands and watering down every good idea that comes along. Again, Manchin is the new Lieberman.

What's more, everyone knows it. When fellow Democrat Brian Schatz passed Manchin in the hallways this week (within earshot of a reporter), he greeted him by saying: "Your highness." Funny, but it's not going to be so funny when Manchin truly starts throwing his weight around.

And he's already feeling his oats in that regard. Which brings us to why he's this week's Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week award winner. Here's the story:

Sen. Joe Manchin has taken aim at fellow Democrat Vice President Kamala Harris over the administration's approach to pushing its Covid-19 relief plan.

The West Virginia moderate, a key swing vote in an evenly divided Senate, blasted Harris' appearance on a local TV station after she spoke about how the proposed relief is a "big issue" to his constituents.

"I saw [the interview], I couldn't believe it. No one called me," Manchin said Friday to WSAZ, the West Virginia station where Harris gave an interview Thursday. "We're going to try to find a bipartisan pathway forward, I think we need to do. But we need to work together. That's not a way of working together."

Harris appeared on WSAZ to speak about the massive relief package, saying: "To your point in West Virginia, one in seven families is describing their household as being hungry, one in six can't pay their rent, and one in four small businesses are closing permanently or have already closed, so it's a big issue in West Virginia and across the country."

Manchin needs to understand that Kamala Harris is vice president for all 50 states and President Joe Biden can send her wherever he likes without asking anyone's permission beforehand. Harris went to West Virginia and Arizona, where the other wavering centrist Senate Democrat hails from, to use the presidential bully pulpit to speak directly to the people and to make the administration's case for why we need to go big on pandemic relief right now.

In fact, Manchin's hissy fit actually became the story -- he would have been far better off politically to just have ignored the whole thing or dealt with it by complaining to the White House in private. He chose another route, and he wound up looking nothing short of petty. Which is why Joe Manchin is this week's Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week.

[Contact Senator Joe Manchin on his Senate contact page, to let him know what you think of his actions.]

Volume 605 (2/5/21)

Before we get to the talking points, we did have to agree with a rather astute tweet by Ezra Klein: "After four years of 'senior White House official says the president has lost his min[d],' it is sort of nice to fire up Twitter and the uproar is 'former senior White House official says the rescue package exceeds the size of the output gap, possibly raising inflationary pressures.'"

Moving right along... so far, Democrats are doing an admirable job of painting the entire Republican Party with the crazy QAnon brush, which they all fully deserve for not ridding their own ranks of such dangerous nonsense. This needs to continue -- Republicans must be seen as extremists, subversives, and radicals to fully expose how far they all have gone down the rabbit hole. So a lot of this week's talking points try to address this one key goal.

It does have bipartisan support

The White House came up with this particular spin, and it is downright brilliant.

"Republicans in the Senate are bemoaning the fact that the Democrats' pandemic relief bill will not be a bipartisan effort, but just because Republican politicians in Congress aren't willing to vote for it doesn't mean the effort doesn't have wide and deep bipartisan support. Just ask the people in the states these senators and representatives come from. Because even in red states, the people overwhelmingly support doing something big and doing something fast. Joe Biden can't be responsible for the fact that the Republicans in the Senate are ignoring the will of their own voters, but to say that this bill doesn't have wide bipartisan support is just false."

Officer Brian Sicknick

His name should be on every Democrat's lips, all next week.

"This week, the remains of the brave and heroic Officer Brian Sicknick lay in honor in the U.S. Capitol -- the building he died defending. This federal officer was murdered by a mob of Trump supporters one month ago. Let us never forget Brian Sicknick's name, because he gave his life to defend the very same Republicans who will dishonor his memory by allowing the man who raised and incited this mob to a murderous rage to escape scot-free. Republicans have been saying ever since his death that we all should just 'move on,' and 'put it behind us.' I'd like to see just one of them try to tell Officer Brian Sicknick's family to just move on and forgive and forget. The very suggestion is both dishonorable and disgusting."

Be consistent, Mitch

We wrote about the next two talking points yesterday, in more detail, in case anyone's interested.

Mitch McConnell and a handful of other Republicans actually came out and denounced Marjorie Taylor Greene's crazy beliefs in conspiracy theories. McConnell warned that the embrace of 'loony lies and conspiracy theories' were 'a cancer for the Republican Party.' But you know what? I won't believe he's being sincere until he denounces the dozens of conspiracy theories spouted by Donald Trump over the past five years. Because Trump is the one who led the Republican Party down this path, not Greene. She's merely a follower of the king of conspiracy theories himself. So until any Republican can bring themselves to consistently denounce all those in their party who promote baseless and dangerous conspiracy theories, their sanctimonious words now are entirely meaningless and should not be taken at face value at all."

What about the Big Lie?

As we wrote yesterday, we would dearly love to hear this question asked of any Republican appearing in any television interview anywhere for approximately the next six months (at least).

"If the Republican Party is against baseless conspiracy theories, then each and every one of them needs to publicly answer whether they think Joe Biden was freely and fairly elected president. Because that was Trump's Big Lie, that the election had been stolen. This was never true, there was no evidence at all, so Republicans can't just condemn Marjorie Taylor Greene for believing 9/11 was a hoax without also stating their own disavowal of the biggest conspiracy theory of them all. Until they all publicly admit that Joe Biden is the legitimate president who won in a free and fair election, then each and every one of them is just as deranged and deluded as Greene, period."

Radical Republicans

Time to dust this one off.

"Back in the buildup to the Civil War, there was a political faction who were adamantly anti-slavery and wanted to see it ended immediately and permanently. Because other Republicans -- including Abraham Lincoln -- were not so extreme in their viewpoints, these people became known as Radical Republicans. And you know what? We need to revive that label now, because the members of the Republican Party who traffic in conspiracy theories and refuse to admit reality and excuse and condone violence to achieve political goals are nothing short of radicals. So from now on, I will be calling each and every one of the Republicans who voted to support either Donald Trump or Marjorie Taylor Greene a Radical Republican. After all, if the shoe fits...."

GQP? Or GOPQ?

Or you could go a different route.

"I think we need to give Republicans a new nickname, because they are now either the 'Grand QAnon Party' or maybe the 'Grand Old Party of QAnon.' So which do you think rolls off the tongue better, 'GQP' or 'GOPQ'?"

Trump fails, again

Once again, the facts prove what an utter and complete failure Trump truly was.

"Donald Trump ran for president promising farmers and everyone else that he knew exactly what to do with countries like China to make our trade deficit disappear. He started slapping tariffs on everything under the sun, in his misguided effort to achieve this goal. Well, the final numbers are in. Over the four years he was president, the U.S. trade deficit soared to record heights. In 2016, before he took office, the trade deficit was $481 billion. In 2020, it had climbed to $679 billion. Which means that -- like just about everything else Trump falsely promised -- he actually had no idea what he was talking about and made the problem even worse. That's about par for the course, for Trump."

Chris Weigant blogs at: ChrisWeigant.com
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