Everyone knows the Republican Party took an epic whupping in the midterms. So much so even Trump isn’t bothering much with ‘election fraud’ nonsense. It’s not like news outlets, even right wing oriented ones had much choice until now but to accurately frame the election results as the GOP getting its butt kicked. The question I have is when the lame duck Congress convenes this week is how news outlets will frame things, especially with both Parties planning to pick their leadership for the new Congress.
For Democrats there’s some restlessness with Hakeem Jeffries but no effort to challenge him becoming the next Speaker of the House is likely. Senate Democrats on the other hand might try to replace Schumer, although he too is likely to remain the top Democrat in that chamber. For Republicans the picture is rather different. Congressional Republicans will be, like the working class folks of the fictional town of South Park loudly venting “They took our jobs!!!!” Small wonder. I confess I rather enjoy seeing Republican elected officials getting the same kind of treatment (suddenly and unceremoniously being out of a job and seeing ‘those people’ replacing them) as they’ve spent decades inflicting on all those regular working Americans they only pretend to care about.
Some in the House saw the handwriting on the wall and chose to leave at the end of this term. Others are leaving because their own Party tossed them out in the primaries. Then a boatload of them got tossed out by voters in the general midterm elections. Republican incumbents in both chambers got voted out in numbers not seen since post Watergate. While John Thune doesn’t seem to be under threat of replacement as their Senate Leader, over in the House Mike Johnson knew he was toast and has already said he’ll step down. That sets up what’s likely to be a food fight at least on the order of the one that put the Speaker’s gavel in his hand by default. This Reuters article about the upcoming reshuffling of Congressional leadership is pretty tame given what we’re likely to see.
Unfortunately Americans won’t get to actually see the GOP fight things out. Unlike the last couple of times the GOP has tried to pick a leader this time it will all be behind closed doors. Capitol Hill based journalists will get all kinds of juicy details but I don’t believe for a minute their editors/bosses will allow a full account of what happens. Full reporting would be like giving the Republican Party an extra eye and then punching it to make it a black eye. Those who own and run news outlets are looking ahead and by god want their cheap and easy to create horse-race news coverage of 2028.
I’ve made no secret over the years about calling b.s. on the widespread belief that except for Fox, major news outlets are ‘liberal.’ Regardless of conservatives citing surveys of line journalists political leaning, their bosses who control what we read and hear are in fact mostly conservatives. More importantly decades ago bosses at major outlets have become all about the money. They pushed for and got deregulation that allowed consolidation into a handful of behemoths. Worse, they shifted news into being an entertainment platform instead of devoted to informing the public. It was subtle for a long time but now it’s out in the open.
Bari Weiss’ ham handed mis-management of CBS News shouldn’t shock us. It was CBS News’ then head Les Moonves who said what all his counterparts were thinking when he admitted ‘Trump might not be good for the country but he’s great for CBS (ratings)’ and the media narrative in 2016 made what should have been a blowout win for Hillary Clinton into a close race. We know what happened then and since. Trump was on TV live most of the time, and when he wasn’t it was ‘Hillary’s emails’, which morphed into a long-running theme of Dems in Disarray oriented ‘news.’
Even in the runup to the midterms where too much polling showed Democrats getting solid control of the House and genuine chance of the Senate too major news outlets were framing a Dems in Disarray theme. So many pundits lamenting and/or warning the divide between progressive Democrats and moderate ones was wider than the Grand Canyon. Democrats gave them little meat to chew on but I know in my heart the stories here and there about dissatisfaction with Jeffries and Schumer were a prelude to planned coverage of post election political news. However the breathtaking scope (at the state as well as the Congressional level) of Democrat’s Blue Wave has thrown a wrench in all that.
As sure as I’m writing this journalists will be pressed by their bosses to push any tidbit of Democratic disagreements about who should be in what leadership post as OMFG! DEMS IN DISARRAY! However it’s the Republican Party where we are likely to see plenty of infighting. Trump of course is casting blame for the losses on everyone but himself. However plenty of elected Republicans think he and MAGA were the problem. They gambled and rode the Trump/MAGA train for what they hoped would be the last time in 2024. However Trump wouldn’t let the Party move on to a different kind of politics and the bill for Trump and Trumpism finally came due.
Reuters has an article titled ‘Trump has cost us’: After midterms losses, MAGA asks if it’s over ‘Trump has cost us’: After midterm losses, MAGA asks if it’s over about the blame game that’s underway and the shots across the bow non-MAGA Republicans and MAGAs are already firing at each other. The actual MAGA movement itself is already undergoing a combination of soul-searching and infighting:
As pro-Trump internet forums digested the election results, a notable slice of self-described MAGA loyalists – more than 20% – raised doubts about the movement’s leadership and direction, according to an analysis of social media traffic done for Reuters by PeakMetrics, a data intelligence firm. About half of that cohort remained supportive of the MAGA movement but no longer backed Trump as its leader. The other half remained loyal to, though critical of, the president himself.
The analysis was based on 12,850 posts sampled from a universe of 4.6 million Trump-related comments on X and Reddit from 9 p.m. on Election Day to 8 p.m. the next evening. It found broad concern among MAGA supporters as the results became clear. Of the posts that assigned blame for the rout, nearly a third said concerns about the Iran war and Israel’s influence over US policy had overshadowed Trump’s message. A quarter said Republicans not fully committed to the MAGA agenda had undermined the movement.
Making things even more difficult for Republicans is that Trump will continue to be Trump and 2028 will be looming large. A year from now plans will have to have been made and in the works including for Presidential runs and the staffing up and fundraising that goes with such a thing. Candidate wills be jockeying for position in a Party that’s far less forgiving than Democrats, and putting together a national campaign means pulling the most talented staff which means a lot of shuffling. And, for Republicans big dollar donors are needed much more so than with Democrats nowdays.
The thing is, the GOP is out of time to quietly sort out what led to the midterm results, come to terms with it and ultimately decide on how to move forward. Congressional Democrats, especially in the House know their counterparts on the other side of the aisle HAVE in fact been quietly at work settling on an agenda to implement as soon as the new Congress is sworn in. The knives are already out, and the prospect of a demolition derby in the middle of a circular firing squad is quite real. It will manifest starting this week as Republicans decide whether or not to challenge John Thune for leadership of their Senate Caucus, and more importantly in the fight over who will become House Minority Leader.
We are looking a a serious MAGA vs. non-MAGA war. No doubt some gadflies will toss their hat in the ring but the true fight is going to be between Steve Scalise who’ as hard core a conservative as they come but pointedly NOT part of MAGA vs. Jim Jordan who is as MAGA as it gets. Objectively, Scalise is more qualified. He’s done more than his share of actual grunt work in keeping the House working and doing what needs to get done. Jordan is one helluva grandstander but has never gotten a single piece of legislation passed. He’s all about the show. It will be actual conservative substance vs. MAGA style and it’s anyone’s guess which will prevail.
Unlike the deadlock between these two back when McCarthy was ousted and Johnson got the job by default, this time around will be an epic sh!t show that will make the last two GOP clown shows of picking a Speaker looking like garden parties. Which brings me back to the reason I’m writing this. How will major news outlets frame all this? Will they try to significantly push their beloved Dems in Disarray narrative that’s served them so well in the past? Or, will they be unable to minimize what most assuredly will be a Republicans in Recrimination mode framing of goings on on Capitol Hill?
I truly believe that with objective news coverage Trump would never have gotten the nomination ten years ago in the first place. My fear is that since he will inject himself into the leadership fight in Congress news outlets will try to gorge themselves one last time at the Trump trough. People in the country are tired of Trump. That was apparent from the voting and too much Trump led to significantly lower than expected ratings. Even Fox News was down over twenty-five percent. If I had to bet, those in charge at news outlets will want to milk the toxic Trump cow one more time. By playing down all the outright warring between various elements of the GOP and try to frame the news to highlight Democrat’s disagreements between young progressives and older moderates. Time will tell.
Friends, I know everyone begs you for money. I promise, among all those asking for spare change, we are the smallest and the hardest working. We’re a group of old, disabled people, except for one writer in his mid-50s. The rest of us are in our sixties and seventies, and this is a labor of love. All we’re asking for is the chance to keep telling the truth about Trump and help ensure democracy survives. If you can help, please do. Thank you. Ursula
