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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
I feel ya, but if we accept this, then we simply have already lost. It’s easier to be a progressive. That’s for sure. But half the country isn’t. And Georgia isn’t as weighted by the government-fed suburbs of Virginia. It’s its own place. And that place–per my judgement and at the moment–is center right.
Well, that’s not cool. Lawyers are lawyers, and no one should ever, ever, ever make it appear as if people can’t get representation, whatever one feels about the clients. This is, after all, a bedrock principle. Jones Day is also one of the best law firms in the country.
Please understand I was poking with good humor.
I will add my son to that rather storied list.
I raised a kid who is a lawyer. ;)
I don’t disagree that Loeffler was a poor candidate because she was a poor campaigner. Her appointment had a lot to do with the suburbs Trump lost and an understanding that those are required to have if Georgia Republicans will win future elections…. I’m not sure I feel the same about Purdue who was running for re-election. If he had run under rules that the Democrats had put in place when they were in power in the state, he would have won in November. (Republicans changed the rules to above 50%.)
I still think at least one of them would have won without Trump’s interference, and I think both were well positioned. But I could certainly be wrong.
But I will say that you are right on this. They have to share the blame. They were on the ballot.
And I’m not a Georgian, so this is a view from afar. I was shocked that an anti-Semite could win a Senatorial race.
You’re right about the Levin who clearly explicates the history, the Founders’ thinking, the Constitution, and the law. The Levin who whines on and on about “it’s not fair” and “the hypocrisy, the hypocrisy” should have stood in bed (just keeping it CoC compliant there.)
He wants fair? Was this fair?
The way of the Mensheviks?
I’m not a lawyer, either, but I have a law degree. It was partly my contempt for lawyers that kept me from practicing. Lawyers will argue any side of any issue with equal fervor.
If Trump had won the election, and they were certifying his victory yesterday, does anyone doubt that there would have been a small army surrounding the Capitol? After all, it would have been all Antifa/BLM all the time since November 3.
That’s why they weren’t prepared, and for that reason alone: no one expected Republicans to act like Antifa/BLM. I think it literally never even occurred to anyone.
Now that it’s happened, why doesn’t some Republican propose that a street in DC have its name changed to MAGA Blvd?
Fear of being called a racist is literally the source of all Democratic power.
I cannot disagree with this really. I am still surprised by how deep this goes. I went to graduate school to try to figure out this whole thing. I mean, the Democrats were the party of Jim Crow. I don’t understand how they flipped this so completely.
Um, that’s called an ethical obligation.
The Republican messiah is the person who can figure out how to take that power away from them. And even turn it against them.
The Republican messiah is the person who can figure out how to take that power away from them and then throw it out forever… no more race baiting.
Your premise may be true. But the issue is who has the power to decide? Did the framers really want a situation where based on no judicial process legislators would just make a guess about what had been done legally and what not? What we needed and still need is what Cruz wants: a forensic examination. I doubt we will get, so the Oligarchy will keep us divided.
Meghan and Harry are now fulfilling the role the Kennedy’s and Paris Hilton perform in the USA. They remind people that, just b/c one of your forebears had brains, it doesn’t mean you inherited any of them- hence why actual monarchies no longer exist.
Not true- they argue harder for the side with more money…
“And I’m not a Georgian, so this is a view from afar. I was shocked that an anti-Semite could win a Senatorial race.”
Charitably, it could be said that virtually all Democrats are in the same boat as some in MAGA world still are with regards to Lin Wood (I didn’t want to believe it until his batguano-ry became impossible to overlook…..aside from everything else, the successful lynching of Kyle Rittenhouse is now almost a certainty). Also, if the McKinney political family was any indication, anti-Semitism is not exactly uncommon within Georgia Democrat circles.
No it’s not. It’s an obligation lawyers invented to allow them to argue any position and get paid to do it.
That’s cynical BS. Go look at various canons of practice.
Lol. It may be cynical, but it’s not BS.
Remind me to pontificate on the ethics of your business some day without any idea of what I’m talking about.
My business doesn’t have a code of ethics, though we’re probably a lot more ethical than a lot of lawyers. And I do have an idea of what I’m talking about. It’s public knowledge.
Unfortunately, you are right about anti-Semitism. Obviously, there are examples that are tied to the Democrats historically in the early 20th century. (This was the state in which Leo Frank was notoriously lynched in 1915.)
But pointing to Cynthia McKinney and crew is much more recent.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with that nightmare of a woman, she was a Truther and crazy ranter of many rant, rant, rantings. Her biggest legislative accomplishment was considered getting a Tupac Shakur statue or museum in Atlanta; I can’t remember which. I’m not sure that was really helpful to the very poor Georgians that lived in her district, but I guess it was popular.
She also did not like voting machines and thought elections were “rigged.” Her father said she lost her district because “J-E-W-S” had bought everyone. That was during the Bush years to give you a timeframe.
Her old district is now represented by Hank Johnson, the guy who thought Guam could tip over if too many troops were there, and he was an improvement.
Trump made the GA election about himself, so instead of looking at the candidates, it became a vote against Trump
Is Cynthia still around or has the baton passed to the next generation? When she was in Congress in the 90’s and 00’s, she accused Bush of every crime under the sun, but……..at the State of the Union, she was always in an aisle seat so she could shake his hand as he walked in and get herself on TV.
Georgia is easy to explain:
Atlanta is generally prosperous, a growing creative community, and as such millenials who political identities were formed during the Iraq War (No Blood for Oil!), and the Financial Crisis (capitalism is bad) and a period of radical change in our social norms (hate for traditional values) are moving there. Millenials are also in their 30s and are moving to the suburbs as the studio downtown is no longer a reasonable life.
Georgia is a victim of its own success and florida and texas will follow for the same reasons:
My district here in VA flipped from red to blue for the same reasons.
Last I heard, she was apparently (and bizarrely) supporting Trump in his legal challenges, but as far as I know she’s irrelevant now, so I didn’t bother to look further into it.
Wow. You and I must have been separated at birth. I didn’t know about the Crenshaw piece. Thanks for the link. Before the election, I told people that I probably was going to vote ostensibly for Trump, but really for the Electoral College, which is in the crosshairs of the bien-pensant types. I feared another squeaking electoral victory for Trump, while losing the popular vote. It’s an important institution that needs defending.
Maybe it was for a quick getaway.