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I’m Mercutio Now… Except for Dan Crenshaw. I Love Me Some Dan.
Perhaps I’m beating a broken drum here, but I will not be sad to see President Trump go even though I voted for him in November. For me, the final straw came before the riot. I was tired of him by mid-December actually, but the camel’s back broke when I saw him taking actions that I felt would sabotage the Georgia run-offs. My instincts weren’t wrong, and I absolutely blame him for losing the Senate. Then he just kept going by channeling Marc Antony at Caesar’s funeral and blowing up what remained of his legacy.
That said, I’ll beat a different broken drum because I finally listened to the President-elect on Thursday as well, and I’m afraid “Pop” either has no interest in unity or simply doesn’t understand the deep resentment Republicans feel for a Democratic Party that makes absolutely everything about racism. His speech actually made me nauseous.
There are many explanations for why the Capitol Police couldn’t adequately protect the building in their charge from frenzied rioters in Viking hats. Perhaps the staff charged with protecting Congress wasn’t adequately prepared with the appropriate riot gear to quell the crowd at first. Maybe they simply did not have an effective plan in place to counter a large-scale attack. When confronted with one, perhaps they did not want to fuel a problem they had not anticipated.
After all, they seem to have engaged in some of the thinking that has led riots in various cities in the past to be “contained” rather than “shut down” quickly. That approach goes all the way back to Baltimore, which was set on fire during the Obama administration.
In line with that theory, the now-ousted chief said that a decision was made to “prioritize lives over property,” which is a very familiar refrain at this point when it comes to violence in the streets. And an unarmed woman was still shot and killed in the melee. A police officer tragically died from his injuries today as well.
However, Joe Biden did not consider any of this. Instead, he chose to play to a Democrat-base grievance about disparate treatment of mobs based on race, which doesn’t even seem to be defendable upon examination, when there was just so much more he could have said that would have been better for the country at large.
I also don’t believe even for a second that he really thinks the biggest take away from this episode has something to do with Black Lives Matter. These wounds have been pressed so often now on the body politic that they are starting to go gangrene. Seeing him twist a race-baiting knife some more into what I believe can become a fatal fester, I can only conclude he has learned nothing good in his many decades in DC.
So this morning, I am Mercutio. A pox on both their houses! I don’t want to listen to anyone anymore.
Well … except Dan Crenshaw.
The congressman from Texas wrote a thoughtful critique in the Wall Street Journal today about how the Electoral College actually works and why the people who rioted were misled when thinking they were doing anything that could result in anything but anarchy. Crenshaw references to the Federalist Papers, basic civics, and history.
Good gosh, man!!!
He appeals to reason. He makes me want to move to Houston just so I could vote for him.
But I can’t, so I sit here in my house in a different district and think about how I’m turning into a grave woman, at least when talking about my dying interests in these same old politics. At least for the next two years. At least until there is someone out there who actually inspires me again.
Maybe I’ll read more Shakespeare.
Published in General
Indeed.
I voted for Trump in November, but I almost did not in no small part because he clearly had no interest in national unity either – always ready to blame and castigate others for not siding with him. Hell, he never had much interest in party unity, or party loyalty, only personal loyalty to himself. Georgia was proof of that, but so were the past 4 years too as he endorsed loonies and division in what should have been easy victories.
No surprise that “Plugs” Biden is already acting like he has bloody mandate – that’ll end well.
Crenshaw and Cruz represent me in Congress, so I am fortunate. Crenshaw is right that people were misled to believe Trump still had a real chance of winning.
But I side with Cruz and Levin on interpretation. The Framers assumed that the US Constitution would be obeyed in regard to state legislatures exclusively having the authority to determine election procedures. The 2020 procedures in swing states were clearly illegal and thus electors based on those illegal activities should be void.
The Framers intended for no one branch of the federal government to be sovereign. I doubt they would say in light of such illegal activities that only the Supreme Court and not Congress may respond.
But the election is over. Biden is the de facto, if illegitimate, winner. Now we will see if the GOP can hold together while Democrats seek to trample them.
I wonder if there will be any brave Republicans calling him out for that divisive race-baiting garbage. Democrats wouldn’t hesitate a second to take to the Senate Floor and denounce anything similar coming from a Republican.
But so far it seems Republicans have decided to bow their heads and declare themselves guilty of whatever sins the Democrats wish to lay upon them.
Ditto.
Not even him. I trust none of them. They’re all gloryhounds, and they’re all in it for themselves. Nobody in Washington has your back.
Nobody.
Yeah. He seems to me to be more of the same, pushing the divide between two houses.
I wonder the final cost of all these bloody-minded politicians. I wonder if there is a Prince Escalus…
Well, I’ve already put myself down as a constitutional monarchist at this point.
I do think that Cruz has his own strain of populism, though I’ve also voted for him, and I don’t hold the same animosity towards him. He clearly said that he did not think any objections on the 6th overturned the election. So I have to think more about Cruz. I don’t know how we restore faith in elections.
I like Crenshaw more and more and more all the time. And he definitely had the best campaign ad in 2020.
Nice ad.
He’s in the minority party — a party that’s great at talking. Talk is cheap. What’s he going to do?
Oh, trust me. I understand this feeling, too. I long ago stopped putting faith in politicians, even those I like. Any trust should be measured. But we still live in a society in which we’ve got politicians, so I guess I have to point to representatives of the few that I think are closer to what I’d like all of them to be.
Broken trust is nearly impossible to repair, especially when the GOP doesn’t seem interested in repairing it.
Here I totally hear ya again, and if you could see me, I am surrounded by a glowing halo of cynicism for all politicians now, unlike the young idealist who thought congressmen could storm into action and solve problems like Mr. Smith going to Washington or something.
But winning elections is the first part of the game. I’d have to ask @aaronmiller if Crenshaw has delivered for his district… kept his promises to people in Houston. He is not, after all, accountable to me.
“Put not your faith in Princes” comes to mind. We probably should extend it to all politicians. After all a certain “flexibility” with the truth is almost a job requirement.
Seems to me that would be exceptional on the left and in NT circles. On the right, not so much. Interesting that it excites you so.
I’ll match your Crenshaw with a Levin any time.
I have no idea where the party will go. I gave a lecture recently on Georgia history and politics before the run-off. It was apolitical, actually… truly just looking at the evolution of the state, which I’d argue many people who haven’t lived in Georgia for a long time probably don’t know a lot about.
Anyway, after the lecture, someone asked me about the health of the Republican Party in general… whether it will ever look like a unified party again that will be in power. And I said sure. Probably. For half a second until it isn’t again. Unless it falls apart completely because someone decided to resurrect the Whigs…..
Maybe I should have some Whig shirts printed up??? :)
Exactly.
I’m all for anyone making what should be boring, regular references to the workings of our government at any time, be he Crenshaw or Levin or the Tooth Fairy.
I teach history, and I can promise you that I have good reasons to be skeptical about American knowledge of civics/the past, though I do my best to help kids learn. I think our whole culture appeals more to emotion than reason. I think it’s impossible to say our politics in general haven’t been more infused with the passions in recent years than the intellect. Tocqueville would say this a hazard of democracy. I also will admit I don’t know how to fix it.
I have heard that the GA republican party is in disarray and bad shape. Is that your experience as well or it this a response with Trump’s pressure? Also what should I make of the Secretary of State, nominally a Republican. It seems like his consent decree with Stacey Abrams was a boneheaded move.
Glad it had nothing to do with McConnell and the $2,000 and his statement indicating what an idiot he is.
Glad it had nothing to do with a secretary of state who has made it so that Democrats can harvest ballots to their heart’s content.
Glad it had nothing to do with two candidates who were exactly the same corporatist types with limited cross-appeal. And their message: we aren’t socialists. What a dumb message.
I don’t for a moment say that Trump had no role in this, but the real problem was he was off the ballot and he has an ability to get votes that other Republicans don’t especially in a place like Georgia. The Republican vote in Republican areas collapsed while the Democrat vote in those same areas did not.
Every politician is a populist. Every politician says in campaigns:
Trump was uniquely “populist” only in that he merely rubbed shoulders with the political class all his life, rather than originated from their schools and their organizations to think as that social class of lawyers and lobbyists do. He was different in other ways, but being a boor doesn’t make him populist.
Populism is a bugaboo. Polished and controlled as he was, Obama was more dangerous as a leader.
Man Aaron, did you hit the ‘I’m represented by…” jackpot! I’ll trade you Gwen Moore for Crenshaw.
The Republican Party is in disarray for a lot of reasons, though I think Trump exacerbated all of it.
Ironically, Georgia has not been a “red state” all that long, though it has center right politics.
In the late ’90s a lot of politicians shifted from one party to the other simply to survive a shift away from the very progressive Clintons, and slowly the state turned red with control of the state legislature in the 2000s. (This was not that long ago, mind. Just 3-5 years before Obama was elected president.)
Ironically, the thing that booted Roy Barnes out of office–the last Democrat governor–was his stance towards teachers in the state. He threw them under the bus, and hell hath no fury like a bunch of educators scorned. (People will say the thing that booted him was a debate over changing the GA flag, but that’s really not true. Democrats are just GREAT at PR. It’s always been hilarious to me how good the Party of Jim Crow has been at turning the Party of Lincoln into “racists.”)
But I digress.
The suburbs were a real conservative stronghold where women play Bunco and eschew white shoes after Labor Day. Newt Gingrich had lines wrapped around buildings when signing books at Barnes and Noble.
Some of the shift in politics there is due to a growing population. (The Atlanta suburbs are a popular place for progressive types with families to live after fleeing high tax states they already ruined.) A lot of the flip in suburbia was directly related to Trump, however.
Then there’s a “reverse migration” of black voters from the North to the South, which “purples” Georgia without Stacy Abrams doing anything that we do have to consider.
So when you have a statewide election, you have to hold the rural areas if you want to win.
This is where state Republicans come into play.
Now, you should understand that holding power for almost 20 years can make a party atrophy and have some internal corruption. That is definitely there in GA, and I don’t have space to talk about that in detail. But after November, the party went into overdrive sniping at elected Republicans who have actually done a good job on the state level, thus demoralizing their natural base. There was an endless drumbeat about Trump and fraud and “it’s hopeless.” People were reminded that Kemp didn’t choose “Trump’s guy” (Collins).
They ended up with lower turnout in 2021 compared to 2020 in the heaviest Republican districts.
Not… uh… awesome.
I can’t disentangle that from Trump.
Hell, I’ll trade you Gwen Moore for a truckload of cowpies. At least I can put that on my garden.
Fair.
We need more words, I guess, so that we can talk about the differences between all of these people.
I agree that Obama was very dangerous, and I think he deserves heaps of scorn. Talk about wasted opportunities.
Well, he did leave one name off that would have lowered his average significantly.
No, we need fewer words. We need more blunt speech and less reliance on debateable terms that shift focus from the facts in front of us to abstract philosophy.
But of course I would say blunt speech is preferable, being a Texan. ;)
The $2,000 issue was created by Trump, and I disagree with your characterization of the secretary of state, though I concede many GA voters absolutely agree with you, which is one reason they didn’t need to bother voting.
I will say you have a very good point about the two candidates’ message, but I also think they got put into a box because they needed cross appeal, but they weren’t allowed to really have that. They were forced to walk a weird tightrope instead with the president running around attacking darn near everyone and making the election about how he was robbed. He wasn’t helpful to them at any period.
All of that said, I have no problem with people who disagree with my analysis. I’m just offering my opinion. I don’t know everything. (Ask my husband!!!!) :)
I also hope that Georgia goes in a different direction in two years. Then I guess we’ll see if Georgia Republicans have to have Trump on the ballot to reject a guy who… well… doesn’t like a whole bunch of them.
They did, after all, have two Republican senators before Donald Trump was ever on any ballot.
It’s a center-right state.
Hmmm…. I see your point, but I think the world is complicated. I don’t know. But I will say I do love Texas. It’s the only state in which I’ve lived that has students pledge allegiance to the state as well as the country. :)
I’ve lived in England. I loved the castles. But constitutional monarchies have to deal with their Meghans and Harrys, right?
Oi.
Though their son is as cute as a button. And I love, love, love looking at royal fashion. I think all our leaders should wear more hats. ;)
Well, he’s already helped push though bills increasing H1B visas. So there’s a major strike against him. He seems smart enough to know that the H1B visa program is routinely abused by companies to hold down wages.
Sure, you get idiots every once and a while. That’s why the monarchs should have several children – improves the odds that at least one of them is sane.
There’s a lot to be said for reading more Shakespeare.