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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
Neither was Illinois not too long ago. Yes there’s changing demographics, but there’s also surrendering Republicans and there’s uniparty Republicans. With as many problems as IL has it should have been easy to mount effective opposition and make gains. Never happened. Not even close. It’s been a thirty year rout.
Well, that’s a choice. Georgia has some strong Republicans who are capable leaders. I mean, it doesn’t help that President Trump kept beating up Brian Kemp over and over and over and over and over and ovvvvveeerrrr, but he is actually a very good governor.
Democrats are not selling what is in the best interest of a lot of people in the state either. I, actually, think that applies to middle class black voters as well, who can be won over. The reverse migration that is taking place at the moment has a lot to do with the fact that people who are finally on a good ladder can afford property in the South and want to live in a place where they can create wealth for their own families. Republicans simply have to do a better job at selling their agenda to the people who would want to buy it, and Donald Trump was ultimately not the answer. He did some good things. He did some bad things. He was never unifying, yet he managed to pull some more minority votes in 2020. That should tell people something. Even if they have to call themselves Whigs and make a new pitch.
State Republicans have to also deal with internal corruption and atrophy, which have definitely settled into the local party as well… in all local parties where voters are taken for granted.
I understand the challenges, and I have no idea where the country goes from here because a lot of politicians seem too self-interested, too focused on the divisions that keep them in power, to actually improve life.
What’s the other choice?
You can embrace the Democrats’ brand of division. It’s certainly easier. Especially now.
The thing is, the Republican idea of ‘unity’ and ‘healing’ consist of stabbing conservative supporters in the back and throwing them to the wolves. Every. Single. Time.
We’ll have to agree to disagree about Kemp, he seems exactly like his predecessor, to me.
Was Loeffler the obvious candidate to be appointed by Kemp?
No, that would have been Doug Collins. Loeffler was appointed to appeal to squishy suburban women who hated Trump and liked getting along with progressive neighbors. That said, it might even have been a smart move, given that Georgia is now a purple state, but it generated a lot of ill will.
I was baffled from afar that anyone could lose to Warnock. And who knows what the state will be like in six years when he’s up again. I may never visit Savannah again.
My experience seeing the rout in IL is that it is not a smart move. The once solid “collar counties” of Chicago suburbs are not solid. Haven’t been for a long time. There is never enough you can do to satisfy someone who isn’t reasoning their way into their position or someone who has accepted progressive premises, and you also end up abandoning those who might still want clear and direct conservatism. Perhaps both strategies will lose in the end – the question is which is more ethical? Which offers better odds of success? Which provides better support to remaining constituents?
I think its just two years (It was a special election). But yeah, upper middle-class neighborhoods throughout Atlanta are inundated with BLM and Warnock signs-its 1915 all over again, except conservatives and unwoke Southerners are the new targets.
Edit: Try visiting the North Georgia wine country, it should be safe until Atlanta’s numbers finally overwhelm the Republican advantage in the state legislature.
Unifying depends on what or whom you’re bringing together as one. I agree that he’s not unifying for the Republican/ Democrat divide, but he unified a lot of people under his banner.
Are you presuming that the run-off election was on the up and up?
I’m sure significant fraud occurred, but Georgia is indeed a purple state.
It’s been an interesting conversation.
I think you need the suburbs for Republicans to win in any state. The suburbs were the key to turning Georgia from blue to red!
Still, that’s not where the runoff elections were really lost. Republicans or Trump voters—or whatever you want to call them—who voted in November did not show up in January. You can form your own theories as to why.
More Democrats—especially in heavily black counties—showed up at a slightly higher number, though neither Warnock nor Ossoff got a lot higher number than they did in the original race.
The Republicans got less though.
Warnock must definitely run again to retain the seat in the midterm because this was a special election.
I like that we can disagree about the analysis of what happened but still talk about it.
I love Georgia, personally, so I hope the trends reverse.
I love Georgia too, but I foresee a day when I will have to flee the state. I agree that people refusing to vote because of the perceived likelihood of fraud were idiots (there is always a chance in purple states to beat the margin of fraud to a sufficient extent that plausible deniability becomes impossible), and Trump’s team should have emphasized that point, rather than make unsubstantiated claims that they were cheated out of a ‘landslide’ victory. I also think that the Georgia Republicans did you-know-what to the proverbial pooch with regards of how they handled both elections. Both deserve substantial blame for what happened, IMO.