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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
That’s the vote harvesting for which California has gone full Monty. It’s more or less legalized voter fraud. It’s certainly not democracy.
Singapore is not ethnically homogeneous at all.
True, but the Chinese might have been politically homogenous (I don’t remember).
The Chinese are the majority, about 60% of the population, I think. Then Malays and Indians. But Singapore is notably not really a democracy. It flourished under the benevolent Caesarism of Lee Kuan Yew.
Interestingly, Singapore has a complicated language regime that takes into account its ethnic diversity. But over time, English has become the primary language that everyone speaks at home.
Nonsense. Nonsense. Nonsense. Don’t blame it on the moon.
Blame it on the aliens.
Everybody is oppressed equally by a ‘colonial’ language rather than some being subjugated by a ‘native’ language; makes sense, especially in light of its utility. I suspect that was much of the reason that Dravidian India insisted on English remaining one of the official languages after independence.
Blame it on the rain.
Ahem. Blame it on the boogie.
The legal? Or the illegal.
I hate it when illegal aliens break into my home at night. Their green glow keeps me awake.
The legal aliens. The ones who keep coming in under the Treaty of Roswell.
Are those the scaly, lizard aliens, or one of the other ones?
He also twice pushed Martha McSally, throwing away the majority and all R Senate representation in Arizona because she would be a safe vote for him as Majority or Minority leader and a pliant tool of their mutual paymasters.
I voted to amend that to limit legal immigration last year when I came up for renewal, but as always the Earth Representatives promise one thing and do the other. I blame it on the Galactic reign.
If McConnell allows a vote and does not whip Republican Senators against Yes votes, then the current RepubliCan’t Party will become the Whig Party almost overnight. The new party will be a mix of current Republican, former blue collar Democrats, and independents, forming a new competitive party versus the Democratic Socialist party, with “Republican” falling to irrelevant minor party.
The quicker and more completely that happens the better.
That’s already happened. We’ve already gotten an email tonight in our inboxes at work to be alert for potential violence on Jan. 20th, that some critical business operations have moved to their alternate sites, etc. That warning came from the USG, in one form or another (Homeland Security being part of those notifications), and now it’s all because of Trump and a protest where DC police literally opened, and then held the door so “protestors” could enter the Capitol building.
They’re the invisible ones that I can see only with my third eye. That’s why I wear a toupee with bangs. And no one ever notices.
Yeah, but they’ll then have the best policy arguments. To shine on their desks, alone, at night, with policy shiner.
My guess is that any new party associated with Trump will be legally challenged in each State and each judge will disallow it.
From your keyboard to God’s ear.
You mean the party was relevant before?
Asking for a friend.
I’m pushing collaborato(R)
Something I’ve never gotten about this whole Trump incitement theory.
Trump has an ego bigger than any of his hotels. He’s masterful at self-promotion. These are facts that everyone can agree on, love the guy or hate the guy.
You mean to tell me Trump was stoking people to storm the Capitol, and he was not leading the charge? If charging the doors was his plan, then why was he not present for the photo op?
I think the only fair reading of the situation is that Trump wanted a big protest outside the Capitol, just like he normally gets people together in big rallies. What he said was not incitement, certainly not by the Brandenburg standard, and impeaching him for exercising his free speech rights is nothing a conservative, conservatarian, libertarian, classical liberal, or other right-leaning person should support.
Its a lot like the Charlotesville hoax; they (Democrats and GOPe alike) pretended to believe he was praising neo-Nazis because they wanted to use that event as a Reichstag fire too, but Trump stood in their way. Just like 200 tiki-torch jerks were not their real targets back then, the few hundred morons who stormed the capital (most in a misguided, desperate desire to simply make a statement) are not the real targets, but they are pretending to believe it was an insurrection, incited by Trump, bent on forcing congress to overturn the official results of an election because its an opportunity to kneecap the MAGA movement…..and they are willing to add years or decades to the prison sentences of hundreds of people, not to mention abet purgings and pogroms against millions, to make that happen. Its despicable.
I totally understand why the Dems are doing it – that’s what dems do. Slightly less clear is why the R’s are doing it. Oh right: they’re timid, incompetent, and false(TIF). By their own logic there is a boatload to impeach/censure all of the prominent Dems, but the TIF Republicans would never dream of it. TIF gotta TIF.
I could even be ok with impeaching President Trump if the rules were applied absolutely consistently and they would have been applied to many of the Dems years ago. I would disagree with it still, but at least it would be one set of rules for everybody.