Today will be an interesting day. It’s still early, but by the time the sun sets on the east coast we should know at least one or two interesting facts, namely: 1. Does Kevin McCarthy have any leadership ability whatsoever? He’s not being asked to display the wisdom of Solomon, merely show evidence of some kind of principled stance with respect to Liz Cheney. 2. Is Liz Cheney or Marjorie Taylor Greene going to define the focus and be the face of the Republican party at this point in history? Because if it is Greene, then the GOP is in some real trouble, according to the Wall Street Journal via Raw Story:
“The main goal of the House minority is to become the majority, and in 2022, Republicans should have an excellent chance,” the WSJ’s editorial board stresses. “But they’ll squander it if they purge serious members like Liz Cheney and let themselves be defined by conspiracy theorists and Parkland truthers.” […]
“If bowing before all things Trump is the litmus test for being a loyal Republican, the party should get used to continued losses in the suburbs,” the WSJ’s editorial board warns. “Mr. McCarthy should be defending his colleague’s vote as a matter of principle, even if he disagreed with it, rather than living in fear of the wrath of Mar-a-Lago.” […]
“A few dozen backbenchers want to depose Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney from the House leadership for voting to impeach Donald Trump,” the WSJ’s editorial board explains. “Other members are concerned about the high public profile of Marjorie Taylor Greene, a freshman member from Georgia with kooky views. If the House GOP punishes Ms. Cheney while saying nothing about Ms. Greene, it will deserve a longer time in the wilderness.”
The central problem here is the same as it’s always been, which is that to appease Trump and to espouse any kind of normal GOP dogma are mutually incompatible — yet terror of the base keeps elected Republican officials trying to do the impossible. What has never been understood is that Trump is a freak show and his cult members love the freak show. They’ll do anything to keep it on stage. So the operant question becomes, “Is the GOP a producer of freak shows or a major political party, with a platform and with policies?” Until they all come to some kind of a reckoning with that question and produce an answer and live by it, this pushmi pullyou waffling nuttiness is all you’re going to see.
This is no small thing that is happening today. Liz Cheney is representative of the Old Guard Republican party. Marjorie Taylor Greene is wingnuttia on roller skates and steroids. The fact that the GOP even needs to make such a choice speaks volumes about the condition that they’re in right now.
The sheer immaturity of people my age or older continues to baffle me in terms of the Trumpists. Margarine Gangrene is, simply put, a problem child, potentially just as bad as Trump ever was in terms of trouble. But rather than acknowledge this, they keep entertaining infantile fantasies of revenge that only look more pathetic with the repetition. Gonna be a while before they have their act together.
Speaking of acts coming together, happy to report that I’m now getting the newsletter and article updates are coming in regularly!
can’t say the same about the newsletter. And the really weird bit is that article notifications show up on the corner of my screen but if I don’t click them right then they vanish and do not show up in my email list.
When Republicans need someone to clean up the economic messes and even a catastrophe like 2008 they COUNT on the Democratic Party to fix things. And clean up the mess. From where I sit they are hoping that once again Democrats will come to their rescue and it seems we are doing our part. Our side is moving to strip Greene of her committee assignments and what’s been going on and probably furiously being debated as I write this is Republicans trying to decide if they can put up at most token opposition. And THEN turn right around and market the whole thing as crazed Democrats hating on ALL Republicans!
Of course, MTG, poster child for the arrested development support group, AKA the tRumpublican Party, is not really the face of the Party. She is the butt end of the Party. It was an easy mistake for the WSJ to make, since tRumpublicans always lead with the back end.
The sonnet of the Republican Party becoming the Marg Taylor Greene Party is music to the ears.
The WSJ was pretty sure Trump was gliding to re-election, so if they’re predicting trouble they mean it ten fold.
I just read a HuffPo article with the jaw-dropping headline “ROILED GOP FACES CHOICE: MODERATE CHENEY OR QANON GREENE.” So apparently the definition of “moderate” now is simply “not batshit crazy.” Never has the Overton window been yanked this far to the right!