Poor John Kasich, he just blew his cover. He likes to come off as this calm, steady, measured, serious kind of blowhard. He was an early and frequent critic of Trump, and of the Republicans that enabled his nonsense. He has portrayed himself as “the adult in the room.” A true man of the people. Codswallop.
Kasich is no better than the rest of the GOP, nevermind his patrician distaste for the loutish Trump. And he just broadcast for the world an attitude that helps to explain exactly why the Republicans are going to take such a bloodbath in November. In speaking to Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC about the Kavanaugh hearing, he said something like, “I haven’t been following the hearings, but from what I just saw with you, it’s been high drama. But people have to remember Andrea, Washington is broken, and it has been for a long time now. But what you have to realize is that there’s not much you, or any one person can do about it. We just had a horrific shooting in Cincinnati today, with three people dead, along with the shooter. We need to look at what we can do locally.”
Really, John? Us little people are completely powerless to control the byzantine machinations of the behemoth that is Washington DC? Have you talked to one of your former House colleagues, Joe Crowley lately? Or maybe Mike Capuano from Massachusetts? Both of them are polishing up their resumes right now, and not because of Donald Trump. They’re polishing up their resumes because a whole bunch of “one persons” like Andrea Mitchell, and me, and the guy down the block told them to take a hike.
John, you dumb fuck. This is exactly the kind of arrogant, insular, condescending reasoning that is going to lead the GOP to a well deserved electoral Waterloo in about 60 days. “Don’t worry Andrea, you and the kiddies go on back in the kitchen and watch that roast, me and the boys will fix that washing machine.” This is the arrogance of today’s GOP in a nutshell. As conservative author PJ O’Rourke once wrote, tongue firmly in cheek, “First we had all the money. Then we bought all the votes. And now, we get all the fun!” And just like an idiot sitting on his stairs, watching the tide seep in under his door, the GOP is telling themselves, “I can survive this stupid hurricane, it’s just a little water.”
The same arrogant stupidity is on full display in the Senate hearing room where the Democrats are holding their pinata practice on Bret Kavanaugh. Chuck Grassley, stomping his foot on the floor and yelling, “I said NO, absolutely not, dammit!”, while the Democrats release salient documents for the public to see, andJohn Cornyn gets red in the face and yells, “You’re gonna GET it now, I’m telling Mommmyyyyy!” All while never bothering to take into account that there are times in life where the penalty that has to be paid is worth whatever punishment may come later, if only for the greater good.
Every kid who has ever walked through a schoolyard learns early that a bully is only a bully until the first kid with plastic frame glasses, and a pocket protector, bops the bully in the snoot with his lunchbox. For almost a decade now, the Republicans, even in the minority, have strutted around like the “Kid Sally” Palumbo gang, in Jimmy Breslin’s hysterical “The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight.” And just like the Palumbo family, even when the shopkeepers start screaming to the cops, the Republicans keep strutting around, sure that they’re invincible. Please guys, keep it up. Only 60 more days until the indictments come down, and the SWAT team shows up.
