There is a sad truth which is revealed to the weak and unprincipled all the time and that is, if you stand for nothing you will fall for anything. Kevin McCarthy has found out, as Mike Pence has hopefully also realized, that the reason they fell for Donald Trump is because they didn’t stand for anything better. They were used to going whichever way the weather vane pointed and when it was spinning around during Hurricane Trump, they spun with it. Now the wind has died down and they’re stuck with cleaning up the mess and neither one of them is up to it.
Kevin McCarthy’s flip flops on Trump have basically come back to haunt him. Sunday’s debacle with Chris Wallace, where McCarthy refused to answer basic questions about his conversation with Trump during the Capitol riot, were a bad way to start off the week and then the GOP’s annual policy retreat in Orlando has only made things worse.
REPORTER: Is Cheney still a good fit for your leadership team, do you believe?
MCCARTHY: That’s a question for the conference. pic.twitter.com/9RM53gt6o9
— JM Rieger (@RiegerReport) April 27, 2021
Over the past three days, House Republicans at the retreat have been buzzing about Cheney, who has generated headline after headline since her flight touched down.
“She’s the topic of every private conversation,” said one GOP lawmaker.
To be fair, Cheney made news responding to questions from reporters. But the spectacle, whether intentional or not, is an unwelcome distraction for her party.
Cheney also told the Post that she isn’t ruling out a presidential run. And at a press conference earlier that morning, Cheney — who was one of 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Trump — publicly broke with McCarthy over the scope of a commission investigating the Jan. 6 attack. […]
McCarthy and Cheney have insisted they have a good working relationship and there’s no bad blood. McCarthy also went to bat for Cheney when some of Trump’s acolytes tried unsuccessfully to oust her from her leadership job.
But there are clear signs the pair’s relationship is more frosty than ever. McCarthy has notably stopped appearing at GOP leadership’s weekly press conferences with Cheney ever since their awkward moment on Feb. 25, when they clashed over Trump’s role in the party. McCarthy also hasn’t committed to defending Cheney from her looming primary challenges, telling reporters in February: “Liz hasn’t asked me.”
Now here’s the kicker: While Cheney, when asked, reaffirmed that Mitch McConnell and McCarthy were the titular heads of the GOP, when the GOP Accountability Report Card came out, Cheney was awarded an “A” and McCarthy an “F.” This is grist for the rumor mill that the conference is going to choose Cheney over McCarthy. Maybe it will happen that way and maybe it won’t, but McCarthy is not in a good position right now. And he knows it.
Choosing Donald Trump over democracy was not a good idea. The right-wingnuts like Marjorie Taylor Greene claim that the only way forward for the party is Trumpism. McConnell wants to get away from Trump, so does Liz Cheney, so do a lot of people. And it will become evident before too long, the 2022 midterms, to be precise, whether the GOP is going to go forward without Trump or whether there is no more GOP, only the Cult of Trump.
Well, when the threats come from the Trump nuts to form their own party if they don’t get their way–or the saner folks in the GOP decide to reform as a new party (maybe just go ahead and adopt “Conservative Party” as the new moniker?)–the folks actually follow through and short-term electoral prospects be damned instead of the moderates/old guard caving as they did back in 2010 with the Teabaggers.
Those threats are coming, if they’re not already here. To my great detriment as a human being, I cannot see myself shedding a single tear over any of the fools who tried riding this tiger getting grievous bodily harm for failing to get off it in time.
Why not call themselves the 1%ERS. Their motto: white & rich, fuck you bitches.
I call ’em bullies myself.
The Trump supporters that I know don’t care what the leaders do. They automatically support Trump and will take his advice on who to vote for. Once again, the supporters are the problem. Low information voters “Just tell me what to do”.
And the GQP stupidly thinks they can harness these people for their own ends.
At this point, it’s an open question who takes McCarthy out first: Liz Cheney (by political or illegal means…remember who her dad is) or the Trump cult. But he’s got no way to survive this tsunami.
If anyone had told me five or six years ago that one day Liz Cheney would be the adult in the room in the Republican party … let’s just say I certainly would not have believed it.
I think with all the pointing fingers from the DOJ to the Southern District to the plain old City Fathers in New York City with bloody revenge on their minds for all the costly, unpaid bills that somehow Trump has avoided paying and his continued, “screw them all”, they never did anything for me attitude …
Trump has skittered in and out of court proceedings with nefarious misdeeds and cover-ups … but NOW, he is just a tired old man, with a list of appointments he HAS to make on the horizon … his money, that, that can be found, his properties, including high rise buildings with large brass, [TRUMP], letters, golf courses, etc.,.
It will ALL be gone, except for two books in the Congressional Library, a big heavy one with chapter tabs, the other book a couple sheets of paper stapled inside an old manila folder … guess which one recounts all his errors and failures and which one shows a daily schedule for him in the White House, and also how much time he spent golfing instead of being a REAL president …
Anything Trump does now, is on borrowed time, without one ounce of power left, caught on video in a rainstorm, hair all plastered down, the humiliation would rip him to pieces, because of his special suits, tailored down at the tent and awning company, special shoes to make him appear taller, all his tricks and ancient rhetoric, designed to make him THE MAN, will no longer matter in his bright orange jumpsuit …
Hey, anybody know where the ventriloquist puts their hand to make that dummy appear lifelike?
I still peg Ryan as a worse House leader…but to be honest the discussion of McCarthy vs him is like debating which M. Night Shamaylan movie is the worst.
The question has to be asked..is this invasion of the body snatchers? What nut hatch did these people escape from?