A number of thoughts bouncing around today. One of them is, “Is the GOP feeling suicidal?” That’s followed by, “Can they be this out of touch?”
And then it goes from there to Lindsey Graham, from whose mouth this edict of the nationwide abortion ban falls.
Then the dialogue switches to “Does Joe Biden have more dirt on Graham than Putin does and now he’s blacking mailing Graham?”
Reporter: You stated that the repeal would let every state decide if abortion is legal and you said that was the most constitutionally sound way of dealing with this and here you are..
Graham: I thought it would be nice to introduce a bill to define who we are pic.twitter.com/tZuOuRVTng— Acyn (@Acyn) September 13, 2022
Oh, you have defined who you are. If that was your goal, Senator Graham, you have admirably succeeded.
Karine Jean-Pierre: "I'm going to quote Lindsey Graham from August 7, 2022, and he said, 'I've been consistent. I think states should decide the issue of marriage and states should decide the issue of abortion.' That's from his own mouth and now he wants to do a national ban." pic.twitter.com/V9W7nWXvVF
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 13, 2022
Lindsey Graham's abortion ban news conference ended with a devastating question from a woman who experienced complications during pregnancy pic.twitter.com/UHi0XtmA2R
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 13, 2022
Can we get Lindsey on the road to campaign in PA, OH, WI, GA, AK, AZ, FL? Can we pay for his travel expenses? Never thought I’d say this, but more Lindsey Graham please!
— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) September 13, 2022
Also, the big tell here is how *little* coverage Graham's proposed ban is getting from Fox and other conservative media. Hannity teased it last night, but there's currently no coverage of it to be found on the front page of Fox's website. They know it's toxic.
— Langdon Grant (@langdongrant2) September 13, 2022
If it’s toxic, why oh why in the world are the Republicans doing this?
And how did Graham become the spokesman for this madness?
Does Joe Biden have blackmail on Lindsey now? Is he intentionally trying to help us win? Lindsey and Rick Scott along with Trump’s endorsements are working hard to self-sabotage their efforts to retake the Senate. https://t.co/RgYxuiLi0F
— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) September 13, 2022
Usually I can parse through Republican logic, however deranged, and see what they’re trying to accomplish but this is the closest I can come:
- They know they’re not taking back the Senate and they’re paranoid they might not take back the House either;
- Ergo, they feel they need to do something extreme, hoping that extremism will get out the GOP/MAGA vote;
- If that fails, and the Democrats retain the House and Senate, then their modus operandi for the next two years will be to set up the Democrats as baby torturers, because tortured babies make better adrenachrome cocktails and Satan approves. And that will be the 2024 GOP platform that Donald Trump will preside over. You think I’m joking?
This is political sepukku time, from what I can see. Graham might as well get a sword and a pillow and fall to his knees. Sheer madness.
In all seriousness, the only thing I can think of with respect to Graham is that being trolled at Reagan Airport by MAGA after he said, “Count me out. Enough is enough,” the day Trump incited the Capitol riot, was too much for him. A woman wearing a QAnon T-shirt, shouted, “One day you will not be able to walk down the street. It is today!” Maybe he’s just scared to death of his own constituents. Maybe it really is that simple.
In response to your numbered points, Ursula:
1) Yeah, for the GOP, the Senate is now a lost cause for a number of reasons and I’d bet internal polling of House races is just as bad.
2) Any hopes of getting the MAGA to show up somewhere public in ways that don’t involve a mass shooting is delusional.
3) While that might be the current Plan B, be interesting to see if it survives those two years and multiple indictments.
Remember that we are dealing with a death cult here. As such, they want to die too.
LOL on #2
Yertle the Turtle poked his head out of his shell earlier to mumble some “it should be left to the states” platitudes. As for the what if the GOP retakes the Senate type of questions today and in the days and weeks to come, his head will set records for how few milliseconds it takes to yank his head back into the shell!
This is some weird thinking I admit, but bear with me. There might, just might be a “bat-shit crazy enough it might work” strategy behind Graham’s action. (Keep in mind he’s facing legal exposure on his own in GA) Graham is by nature a lamprey, and when his former host John McCain got sick and it became clear McCain wouldn’t be one of the few who beat the odds with glioblastoma Graham, who never was made of the stuff to be a major player on his own looked around. And gambled (correctly as it turned out) that if he latched on to Trump, sunk those ugly rows of tiny teeth into Trump’s ass that he’d be even more of a player than he was attached to McCain. Only too late did he realize his new host was toxic, and while his “feeding” kept him alive he was being poisoned. So much so that no other host would let him get anywhere close enough for him to detach from Trump and latch on to them! He tried oh so briefly at times, including that memorable 24 hours (more like 12 actually) in which he went from I’m done to seemingly running for his life screaming “The MAGAs are after me!” in the airport.
So he’s been stuck feeding on Trump and growing ever more poisoned in the process. His only hope is to take a dose of just the right, only one time in one special moment that it will work medicine that will allow him to detach from Trump and survive long enough for enough of the poison to leach out of him and he can survive, albeit in diminished fashion. Because let’s face it, his colleagues know what he is and will never give him a chance to latch on!
That brings me to what possibly he’s up to. Make a fuss about this Bill knowing it will help Democrats keep control of Congress. At best we will hold the House as it is, with maybe a few more seat. And while I dream of running the table in the Senate and winding up with 53 or even 54 Democratic Senators we might have to settle for the status quo there too, although I don’t think say 52 seats is crazy talk.
And he might figure in two years, by the GOP doing what you suggest things will be close enough that the GOP can take over again. Call it a way of engineering a tactical retreat and coldly sacrificing some of his own people to make sure he and the bulk of them (but especially him) lives to fight another day, two years from now.
Here’s the kicker. Although the number of cracks in Trump’s armor are growing, and some maybe opening wider he’s still formidable. But, to the GOP’s (most of it at least) utter dismay he’s injected himself right into the middle of things. Probably, he’s going to do so even more with each passing week! And, as happened in 2018 it will cost the GOP, and with Roe part of the mix hurt them at the state level as well. Even under normal conditions and with a halfway ok economy with little inflation and other stuff things were set for a GOP takeover of Congress and a big night at the state level too. Then SCOTUS pissed in the punchbowl. And THEN Trump tossed his dinosaur sized spoor into the same punchbowl.
Now we have Graham adding more overturning of Roe piss in the punchbowl. And if my admittedly rather wild theory is correct costing the GOP “bigly” in November, Dreams dashed, and all the way down the ballot!
All but a few conservatives will, with big business (and those huge donations that have dried up quite a bit) forcing them to treat it like a business matter will link 2018 and 2022 and it will finally get through that they will never win again with Trump having a role. Yes, they might have to suffer the bitter pill of losing in 2024 and not doing as well as they’d like in 2026 midterms but it’s damned tough for a President to serve two terms, and even do well & leave things on a strong note to be succeeded by a member of his (only guys so far) Party.
Graham, in a twisted double-secret-probation move might be trying to force the GOP’s hand. If his Party crashes and burns in November the Trump reckoning is far more likely to happen, especially if some sealed indictments are unsealed. Or simply are obtained because the day after the election prosecutors start asking grand juries for them.
If OTHERS in the GOP take Trump down then Graham might be able to detach himself without major blowback from MAGA land. Let’s face it, most of them don’t have the ability to follow the reasoning I’ve laid out if this is in fact what Graham is up to.
Denis…for the second time today, I’m going to have to say “no” to one of your ideas. It involves the kind of strategic skills this dummy hasn’t shown in EVER. Treat him like you would a sycophant like Mike Pence…another desperate fool who’s trying to dodge the avalanche.
Hey leningrad lindseypoo. Just because you have ZERO risk of pregnancy when you’re in the back room of gay bars, doesn’t give you the right to open your mouth about abortion. Thanks for the fuel on the proverbial fire however. I hope the DA in Georgia burns your ass. That ought to be your main concern, but I guess who expects a sniveling coward to have his priorities straight. Go do a popper & drink your mint julip.