Tag Archives: Republicans

Who Is Delivering The Republican’s Official Response To Biden’s State Of The Union Address?

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Here are some clues:

“Yeah, yeah: She’s young, she’s a working mom, she’s the first female governor of Arkansas (where she’s not yet through her first month in office). All of that says fresh start.

But nothing else about her does, not if you have a memory and a moral code. She spent nearly two years as Trump’s press secretary, the central figure in excusing his outrages and laundering his lies. She spent much of her campaign for governor invoking his name, appearing with him, even sending money his way — for the catering of fund-raisers for her at Mar-a-Lago.

Trump was her cause and then Trump was her springboard, and that’s what’s so fascinating about where she is now and what she’s being asked to do. She’s supposed to carry Republicans beyond Trump when she so carefully carries Trump inside her. It’s ludicrous. It’s perfect. It’s what makes her such a fitting mascot for a party that won’t come clean about the compromises it has made, the values it has trashed and the madness it has abetted.”

If you’re still not sure.

David Frum On Trump and The Midterms

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“The reckoning has been coming; now it’s a moment where the reckoning can’t be denied. Trump has been a very unsuccessful politician compared with other people in the party. He lost the popular vote in 2016, and he lost the House in 2018. He lost both the popular vote and the Electoral College in 2020. His interventions cost Republicans two Senate seats in 2021, and with them control of the U.S. Senate. Now you have the 2022 underperformance by Republicans. And yet, Republicans convinced themselves that this guy was a big winner. The reckoning was always waiting to happen, but now it’s unavoidable. There’s no escape.”

Full interview here.

What In The World Happened To Elise Stefanik?

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The New York Times asks. The crux of their answer:

“Ms. Stefanik’s story is important in part because it mirrors that of so many other Republicans. They, like Ms. Stefanik, are opportunists, living completely in the moment, shifting their personas to advance their immediate political self-interests. A commitment to ethical conduct, a devotion to the common good and fidelity to truth appear to have no intrinsic worth to them. These qualities are mere instrumentalities, used when helpful but discarded when inconvenient.”

Do We Have Three Parties Already?

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I think so. At least that’s my conclusion after reading Slate’s “Progressives May Be Making a Huge Error in Trying to Save Their Agenda”. Republicans, moderate Demos, and progressive Demos.

The conclusion:

“The GOP is full of loons and nihilists these days, and planning a legislative strategy partly around the hope that they’ll come to a responsible bargain in a few years’ time seems a little Pollyannaish.

In the end, I’m guessing Democrats will settle on a combination of . . . approaches. They may make a paid leave program permanent, but only temporarily extend Biden’s child tax credit, as is currently the plan, anyway. But personally, as a somewhat risk-averse human being, my impulse is to do fewer programs and pay for them to be permanent, so Americans can actually begin planning around them with at least a tiny bit of confidence. LBJ didn’t set Medicare on an egg timer, after all. Imagine how much frailer our safety net might be if he had.”  

What Do You Say We Unplug The Giant, Cosmic Scoreboard?

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These days, as I watch and listen to political pundits on right and left-leaning cable news programs, and their “man/woman on the street” interviews, and as I scroll through my Twitter feed, I recognize a familiar pattern.

Everyone is lobbing political grenades at one another as if there’s a giant cosmic scoreboard with “Democrats” on one-side and “Republicans” on the other.

My friends and I do the same thing. We try to couch our grenade-texts in humor, but we’re definitely scorekeeping.

Whenever we score-keep, we focus more on our team—whether Democratic or Republican—than on problem solving and trying to improve everyone’s quality of life. I’m afraid it’s gotten to the point where we want to defeat the other team more than we want our cities, counties, states, and country to flourish.

Among many other examples, Republicans ran up the scoreboard with their rushed Supreme Court appointment bullshit. This week, Democrats are running up the scoreboard by saying everyone that voted for Trump is responsible for the siege of the Capital Building.

Who is going to unplug the giant, cosmic scoreboard first? I will try to by remembering what my mom taught me, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” Imagine the silence that would descend on the country if everyone followed that maxim.