I understand Rep. Jamie Raskin was on The View today calling Donald Trump “the GOP’s problem.”
“I think he’s a pariah in terms of American politics, while he continues to exercise a stranglehold psychologically and politically and financially over the Republican party,” Raskin told the co-hosts. “And I feel bad for the Republicans, because they had an opportunity to do the right thing for America, for the Constitution, and to render impartial justice. But 43 of them didn’t and now he really is the GOP’s problem.”
This is what I’ve been thinking all along. I have thought that if the GOP and right-wing media heads had any sense at all they would have destroyed Trump after the 2018 midterms. If not through impeachment, they could have worked together to take him down in other ways. But they didn’t. And now much of the GOP seems to be doubling down on Trumpism. Republicans in state legislatures are calling for censure of Republicans who voted for impeachment, for example. See also Lindsey Graham’s toadyism on Fox News shows where the GOP is heading.
A number of news stories today say that Trump will speak at CPAC next weekend and tell the assembled wingnuts that that he is Republicans’ “presumptive 2024 nominee” and that he’s “still in charge” of the party. He also has let it be known he will be going after Repubicans’ who voted to impeach him or who have otherwise shown themselves to be insufficiently obsequious to His Orangeness. See Mike Allen, Scoop: Trump to claim total control of GOP at Axios.
Meanwhile, the Republican voter base is divided between those who think the party didn’t do enough to support Trump and those who are disgusted with Trump and want him to go away. Good luck threading that needle, Republicans.
Also today, the Supreme Court finally said Trump has to turn his tax returns over to the Manhattan District Attorney. We’ll see what Cy Vance does. Vance has a reputation for being soft on white collar crime, but he probably realizes that prosecuting Trump would be a huge boost to his political career.
Also today, Merrick Garland’s confirmation hearing for the Attorney General position finally began. Garland said that investigating the January 6 atrocity at the Capitol will be his top priority. And I believe him.
See also This is Trump’s heaping list of legal problems post-impeachment at CNN. These include a criminal investigation into Trump for his “attempts to influence the administration of the 2020 Georgia general election.”
IMO it’s extremely unlikely Trump is going to skate through all of this. Four years is a long time in politics. I could understand being afraid of Trump’s base if there were an election around the corner. But it’s too early to know what impact he’ll have in 2022 or 2024, and it could well turn out that Republicans will be pretending they never heard of him by the next time voters are lining up at polls.
Ted Cruz didn't fail me today.
Nope!
Ted's been on a roll by acting like a troll since November's election.
So today; when I see him on the news, it makes me want to LMAO while at the same time pondering how big a divot I could take off his scalp with a 7-Iron.
Well, today, while questioning Merrick Garland, he goes on and on about how we can't have any corruption of/in the DOJ, and making sure Garland knows he's the lawyer for the people and not the president, and goes through a few more, and by now you can see this is heading for the question of whether he'll bring charges against tRUMP, right?
WRONG!
Instead of askng about tRUMP and AG Barr, Cancun Cruz uses Obama and AG Holder!!!
OBAMA & HOLDER, MAN?!?
WTF?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
That's some sick shit from a gutless puke.
A sycophant and a coward.
Ted, when you look in the mirror, is it like looking into the void?
Breathing, can you fog a mirror ?
Ted Cuz: Empty vessel….
The Republican Party is mutating into the party of mastery of political theater and a resulting incompetency in leadership. What plays well to gerrymandered red district determines who will win in the primaries or caucuses. This involves mostly a limited skill set of reciting pat phrases on divisive issues such as gun control, immigration, abortion, and the like and no competency at all in understanding of what it takes keep ever more complex systems working. Trump was and still is that mutant ideal, but most mutations do not have survival value in biology. It is looking a bit more and more like this political mutation may be a maladaptation of the application of political science.
The geographical areas that the Republican Party controls are tending to become more and more unlivable as vital systems break down. Instead of them having a commonwealth, the tend to have a common poverty. Though they are rich in guns and free of immigrants and abortion clinics, this does little to attract and keep the kind of talent it takes to run vital structure of civilization, like water, food distribution, education, transportation, electrical power distribution, sanitation, and the like. Some Republicans have even discovered that a well maintained arsenal and stores of ammunition do no good in warding off a pandemic. These seem to be the same ones that the party is in the process of censuring. It is kind of like having a doctor who kills your vital organs so that your cancer has more room to grow. But again, who is to say a biology analogy has any validity at all when applied to political science. We will soon the impotent mutants of political theater lead to the extinction of the Republican Party as a viable governing force. Some indicators suggest it might already be there.
Really surprised that Raskin said Trump has a Financial stranglehold on GOP. Psychological and political, yes indeed, but I don't believe the Real Money behind the GOP is backing Trump at all. Trump was outspent in both 2016 & 2020, because the real GOP Moneybags routed their cash to House, Senate, and State races. Trump's campaign money came largely from small donations, with a small number of very big donations (Sheldon Adelson, etc).
IMO, that's the divide in the GOP: the Old GOP, mostly Big Money and the Think Tanks they fund, vs. Trump's Mob. Old GOP still has the Money, Trump stole "their" voters. I've described it as a bad divorce: Trump gets the "kids", GOP gets the money.
I'm still hoping that Trump starts a new Party, and convinces his Mob that the GOP are The Enemy. I'm not worried about Trump winning in 2024; if he survives that long, and somehow avoids jail & exile, he will be too old & crazy to attract any votes outside his core Thrall. More importantly, he's incapable of running a large organization, so his Party will fizzle when he's gone.
But if the GOP does "thread the needle" and patch up their coalition of Big Money & Pissed off (white) People, we – the USA, the Earth – are in for a rough(er) ride. For now, they can let Trump pretend to be in charge, to keep him happy. When the criminal charges start hitting, GOP will complain about them loudly but secretly be very glad that Democratic AG's are taking Trump down. That's GOP's Best Case scenario.
We’ll see what Cy Vance does. Vance has a reputation for being soft on white collar crime
Vance hired someone named Pomerantz, a legendary mob prosecutor. He literally defined what the word “racketeering” means, legally.
Visualize a dial with three needles in the same pin. One needle displays the direction of the party establishment, usually defined in a written definition of the party platform. The official GOP party platform in 2020 was they could not meet (zoom, anyone?) and therefore the party platform was Donald J. Trump and America First. Really – look it up. The Democrats have a policy document about real stuff like wages, human rights, immigration… (They don't always follow it, but it's there.)
So the needle of the GOP official platform points at DJ Trump and 'America First". "America First" stands for whatever DJ Trump says it does. (Moscow Mitch got whiplash from the number of times legislation was redefined by the WH after it had been passed by Congress. The GOP really can not define their policy.) The needle for the Democratic party points at real issues.
The second needle of the dial points at the position of the Donor Class. And both parties have a donor class and the clout they have with the party machine is almost always understated. (Historically, whenever the official party platform conflicted with the donor class, the party did what the donor class demanded – both parties.) The interests of the donor class are the profits of the donor class.
The third needle is the interest of the voter. As individuals, that's all over the place but if you determined an average of the desires of the voting class for each party it lies a few degrees off the official policy needle on the other side of the donor class.
DJ Trump is driven by ego and greed. He's pro-big oil and against corruption. Trump is neither for nor against big business, but he's supported the business faction who supports him. Which makes him the most corrupt POTUS we've ever seen – policy is driven by what enhances Trump's personal wealth and strokes his ego. We saw Trump oppose mergers for no other reason than retaliation against enemies. (CNN and Amazon)
Trump is a madman. That's opinion but supported by his erratic behavour. Trump followers are 75 percent of GOP voters and will support whatever bizarre whim Trump declares at that moment. To the degree voters will ignore objective reality completely. (Election results, the truth about Covid, etc) But here's the thing. Even if Trump's needle is erratic and the voter needle is glued to Trump, the donor class has not changed. The donor class wants profits, stability, and they want control of the implementation of policy whenever a decision affects their profits.
Jan 6 was a wake-up call for the donor class. It remains to be seen if the corporate donations have truly dried up for candidates who glue themselves to Trump. If candidates can't be trusted to vote for the interests of the donor class even without Trump's permission they are unreliable to the donor class. The donor class will NOT let Trump rule them. (They sucked up to him for a while but the demands for public abasement were too much for the titans of business.)
How will this play out? In 2022, the bat-shit crazy will come out to primary GOP incumbents and win in large numbers. They will lose in almost every district that's not bright red in the General election and the Democratic House majority will gain seats.
The donor class (IMO) is now considering that long-term stability is more critical than short-term profits. (Google, Amazon, and Apple united to de-platform Trump.) And if the donor class sees the Trumpsters gains as a potential threat to stability, the GOP donor class may unite (temporarily) with the Democrat's donor class to stamp out the Trump movement by 2024. (If you wonder how that might work, look to a kinder, gentler version of McCarthyism and the Communist blacklists.)
Buckle up.
Charles Pierce, I’m Willing to Bet No Cabinet Nominee Has Ever Begun Their Opening Statement Like Deb Haaland Did. I hope like hell she manages to get in. What monumental win it would be for this country.
Unfortunately Charles Pierce is no longer free. I am really going to miss him.
I'm too cheap to pay for his words also. You can read a few of his articles each month, gratis.
How is this not clear to everybody? The GOP is quadrupling down on vote suppression and Gerrymandering. That's the plan. Suppress millions of minority votes, block any election reform in Congress; end early voting and vote by mail. And defy the electorate.
It could easily work too because Democrats are too painfully stupid to just eliminate the filibuster to ram through a voting rights act. It's literally life or death for Democracy and they are waffling!
And every GOP state legislature is saying "millions of people think the election was rigged" because of Trump's lies, so that's why we have to eliminate early voting and vote by mail and purge Black people off the voting lists and Gerrymander another 6 or 8 congressional seats to take back the House in 2022.
Then it's two years of Biden conspiracy theories and "investigations" Hunter Biden followed by a "payback bitches!" impeachment against Biden.
Then we'll see in 2024 whether the American electorate can stand up to another Trump candidacy. Because one thing is sure. He's right when he says he absolutely is the front runner for the GOP nomination and no Republican better cross him between now and then.
THe base is now a full on Fascist movement — and Trump is der Fuhrer. And nobody deposes the Fuhrer. Nobody "resists" or crosses him without there being a Night of the Long Knives. That night is coming in 2022 when Trump terrorizes the party again by purging every single Republican who rejected him. As long as he has the base in lock-step they will all bow down and take it like a bitch — if they want to have any further career that is.
I would hope the Dems are being strategic about the filibuster. They have (2) shots are getting things done through budget reconciliation, the first will be spent on COVID relief.
The second will be used for ???
The last item is Voting Rights, whereupon they go nuclear, eliminate the filibuster, and secure our elections.
It's a matter of using your ammo wisely. Plus they have to get a bunch of nominees through before the Rs begin serious stonewalling. There's a time to piss off the elephant and a time to wait.