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The GOP Have Lost Their Minds: Blame It on the Moon
It must be a perpetual full moon these days because the GOP has lost its ever lovin’ mind. First some facts.
Polling conducted January 4-5, 2021 before the January 6 House and Senate electoral vote count indicated fairly broad support for challenging the election. (Among more recognized polling names, Rasmussen did better with the 2020 election than many other pollsters.)
One of my favorite journalists, Mollie Hemingway, within the last 24 hours noted on social media that “Congressional approval at 15% according to Gallup. 60% in another poll say impeachment is a waste of money and time. In the same poll, 77% wish Congress were working on Coronavirus mitigation, not impeachment. And 80% of GOP voters in battleground states say they’d be less likely to vote GOP who support impeachment.”
Misthiocracy posted an article in The Link Library questioning how it was logistically possible for Trump speech attendees to reach the Capitol Building in time to participate in the riot. If the ones attending his speech were not the ones rioting, then it follows the speech was not the cause of the riot. Also interesting is Pelosi and McConnell’s high-level security people deflecting the Sergeant at Arms’ call for additional Guard help before January 6 because of bad “optics”.
The GOP at the state level is a mixed bag with the Arizona GOP chair moving to censure Gov Ducey for his lockdown policy (understandable to a point) and Cindy McCain and Jeff Flake for, among other things, opposing President Trump and in Flake’s case publicly coming out for Biden. DeSantis and company over in FL are much sharper tacks: their move to divest state funds from Apple/Facebook/Amazon/Google/Twitter will likely garner them great support among independent, center and right-leaning voters. They could grow the voter base beyond what Trump achieved with moves like that.
Now we arrive at the are-they-crazy national GOP moves: Liz Cheney and Mitch McConnell are moving (whipping?) House and Senate Republicans to join in impeaching a President whose term ends in 7 days, and House Minority Leader McCarthy is open to censure.
This is how Liam Donovan citing the New York Times on social media put it: “As stunning as Rs moving against Trump would be, the alternative is that he sticks around and makes their lives/careers hell for the next four years (at least.) If that’s going to happen anyway, a clean break looks pretty attractive. Now or never.”
Also from NYT’s Jonathan Martin:
“Biden called McConnell yesterday and asked if Senate could dual track impeachment trial and cabinet confirmations. Far from telling Biden he would not discuss the impeachment, McConnell said he would check with the parliamentarian and get back to Biden.
McConnell not only told Biden he’d be for Merrick Garland for AG, he reminded him he urged Trump to name Garland to succeed Comey at FBI.”
This is not just “how the sausage is made.” This is a craven ruling class unmoored from its citizenry. With a few exceptions, the GOP never acted as decisively to defend or assist the heartbeat of America – its working-class and small business citizens – as they are showing us they could have if they’d wanted to. Had these same Republicans thrown their weight behind demanding a swift, forensic examination of the election in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Georgia in particular led by someone Americans could trust (hard call these days, I know) with results made public, I doubt we would have seen protesters in great numbers outside the Capitol building.
Now for some commentary after the facts. The Rasmussen polling reference at the beginning of the post included quotes from an excellent Tucker Carlson editorial. At different points in the clip, he spoke important words to two groups.
To all Americans:
“You may have nothing in common with people on the other side of the country…but you’re stuck with them. The idea that groups of Americans will somehow break off into separate, peaceful nations of like minded citizens…that’s a fantasy…. There is no such thing as a peaceful separation…. The two separate hemispheres of this country are inseparably intertwined; neither can leave without killing the other.”
To US leaders:
“When thousands of your countrymen storm the Capitol building…if you don’t bother to pause and learn a single thing from it, then you’re a fool. You lack wisdom and self-awareness. You have no place running a country.”
It could not be clearer that the GOP is as focused on purging Donald Trump as the Democrats. They’ll say it’s for what he has done, but it’s really for what they are afraid he will do to influence US voters in the future. This means it’s not really Donald Trump that’s the problem to them, it’s tens of millions of US voters. So they will try to purge him for their own good, and the democratic republic known as the United States of America can fend for itself. If more Americans become too troublesome, just pass some laws making MAGA gatherings domestic terrorism and arrest and fine them. Put them on Schumer’s no-fly lists, kick them off planes for having private conversations about Trump, make them understand they are to be silent or they will become unemployable. No need to wait for a Biden term to officially start; these are all current or in the works.
Smart, capable leaders could have built on what the Trump presidency accomplished and put whatever personal aspects they didn’t like in the rearview mirror at little cost to themselves.
Borrowing from Tucker: these people have no place running a country. Too many of them have too little imagination, and would rather perpetuate their own careers than act to alleviate or even defend the election integrity concerns of so many millions of Americans. Shortsighted of them, I must say. I cannot think of one time that I’ve gone back for another bite after someone tried to make me swallow something I didn’t like ‘for my own good’.
Published in Elections
Absolutely spot on.
McConnell thought Covid relief should be $600 for desperate people and $15 Billion for opera houses. He sabotaged the GA Senate races and enraged the voters.
Compare McConnell’s self-serving actions now with his reaction to the BLM riots; that record is more disgraceful than anything Trump has done the last two months.
This is definitely true.
From a Democrat perspective, I would think impeachment will overshadow the start of the Biden administration. Maybe that is intentional too (forget him, at least he’s not Trump).
This post was so well done, I went back for seconds. Thank you for saying so well what has been simmering in my brain.
I heard an interesting opinion on woke culture. The Oligarchs promote wokism, to distract the Left from exploitation of the underclass and massive transfer of wealth from the underclass to the ruling class. Bernie Sanders and Occupy Wall Street and TEA parties were dangerous to them, but wokism distracts the underclass while costing the Oligarchs nothing. In fact it is one more tool to destroy small businesses and upstarts.
I donated more money than usual for me this cycle, and I get multiple texts per day and emails from Republicans with screaming headlines to alarm me about what the Democrats are going to do. We must act. I delete them all without emotion or interest. I’m burned out.
Indeed. I feel like an unwanted broken record repeating the same list of major issues that congressional Republicans never showed this much energy, focus, and intensity for.
Everyone around me might forget or let up on the outrage (I know not everyone). Not me. They’re cementing my outrage and turning it into opposition instead of grudging lesser-of-two-evils support.
Yes, more projection-type cover for an intensely corrupt Democrat.
Interesting. If true it’s a very dangerous game. Wokism is class/race factionalism with white capitalists cast as the villain … the root cause of everything evil in America. And the villains are irredeemable. There is only so long that this message can be preached before the alleged victims take action on the only logical conclusion.
The nearest historical analogue – Mao’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution – killed more than a million ‘reactionaries’ and destroyed the lives of millions more. And it turned on a dime, with persecutors becoming persecuted in a heartbeat. In The World Turned Upside Down, Chinese author Yang Jisheng describes a “repetitive process in which the different sides took turns enjoying the upper hand and losing power, being honored and imprisoned, and purging and being purged”. Is this what the Wokists want? Or are they just ignorant of the history?
This timeline is interesting, and it provides support for the position that the riot was independent of the speech.
I don’t think that it is conclusive. I haven’t checked, but I assume that the speech was broadcast live, so people at the Capitol could have been watching and listening on their phones.
The concept of “smart, capable Republican leadership” broke my oxymoron meter.
There’s only way this can end: Donald Trump leaves Washington and starts a new political party made up of people who share his concerns about Big Tech, Big Business, and the growing threat posed by the communist bloc led by China.
The nice thing is that this new party has a really good start–it won’t take years to get off the ground. The current Republican leadership has been consumed by their dislike of Donald Trump. It has prevented them from seeing what their constituents’ real fears and concerns are.
And that’s how this started: the Republicans’ constituents were concerned about immigration policy and the Iran Deal, and Trump was the only candidate who seemed to share those concerns.
The Republicans think they are putting an end to Donald Trump. In reality, they are putting an end to their own careers. Clearly, they don’t care about their careers. They have embraced martyrdom: “This is all the fault of Trump and his followers.”
In another post, @Ed G. Called them “timid, incompetent & false”. I’ve taken to using the acronym TI&F. I think it completely captures the most significant characteristics of the type.
Thanks Ekosj. For years I’ve been trying to come up with a better word to fill the third slot. Timid and incompetent were easy, but it sounds like “false” has won it’s place in the phrase. I had tried “beholden”, “disingenuous”, “duplicitous”. Those were always a bit unwieldy, but “false” fits.
Yes.
Tremendous article. I’m pleased it made the main feed. Hope you don’t mind. I’m sharing on my social media.
Emerald Robinson, white house reporter for OAN said Mitch McConnell’s goal is to restore GOP to pre-Trump era.
I see impeachment as an effort to further inflame MAGA base , hopefully get the splinter groups like Q turds to get violent again. After that, they can classify the whole MAGA movement as a domestic terrorists organization. In fact, democrats are already drafting a bill on it. FBI announcing violence possible in 50 states capitol buildings on Jan 20th, everyone in the country now assume it is going to be trump supporters. Democrats and Republicans are working really hard to destroy the MAGA movement. They are terrified of Trump 2 months after the election.
Steve Sailer has been saying this for years. The theory is that some corporate bigs cooked up wokism after Occupy Wall Street to deflect left wing populist anger.
The Dems are the party of those who want to expropriate the wealth of the 1%. It is also the party of the 1%. Wokism is the glue that holds them together.
I get so many that I spend an hour a day deleting the texts and emails by the thousands.
This is like a bolt out of the blue, for me. I can not agree more. President Trump absolutely needs to do this. This future party would almost instantly have the support of an intellectual locus (Hillsdale/Claremont), a media outlet in The Federalist, Talk Radio nation, and OAN, and lots of high dollar donors (Mercer Family and Trumps). The clarity of message and mission will allow both Parties grow without internal treachery.
The tech oligarchs are sure they are above the fray. They have personal security, private jets, second, third and fourth homes in various foreign countries. They are confident they are immune to the chaos they are creating.
Ahhhh. Then they are indeed ignorant of the history. They should read up on the “Lin Biao incident”. Eventually the revolution destroyed its own.
Brilliant. I hadn’t thought of this but it makes perfect sense.
Cute./
If Trump is determined enough then there are zero political tactics permitted by the US Constitution that can result in a “clean break”. The man isn’t “going away” no matter what Congress does. If he wants to continue throwing his own money and his donors’ money away on the time-honoured sport of windmill-tilting, that’s the prerogative of him and his donors.
Furthermore, even if they did go along with impeachment that doesn’t preclude the possibility that some prosecutor will manage to convince a judge that there’s enough evidence to try to pin some felony on Trump, creating a nice big celebrity trial to distract the nation from whatever disasters befall the Biden administration.
Only Donald Trump can rid the GOP of Donald Trump, and I don’t envision he’ll ever feel inclined to do the GOP any favours.
It’s almost as if the man is a lifelong Democrat.
I’m just saying.
As was Ronald Reagan until he had his own conversion.
Singapore’s expulsion from Malaysia. The dissolution of Czechoslovakia.
Sadly, those are the only examples I can think of.
And before we get into how Reagan’s conversion came after much spiritual and philosophical thought (it did), I believe Trump’s came from his love of country and the feeling that he, with the Republican party, could get it back on the right track.