The Republican Party, Dana Milbank writes, is engaging in the politics of projection. Yesterday's debate to formalize the rules for Trump's public impeachment procedures offered several examples of this strange kind of magical thinking:
[Devin Nunes] railed about the sort of person who believes in “conspiracy theories” and relies on “defamation and slander,” who spins a “preposterous narrative” with “no evidence” and only “bizarre obsession.”
Surely he was describing one Donald J. Trump to a T?
Trump has repeatedly advanced Moscow’s agenda, pulling out of Syria, siding with Russia over U.S. intelligence on election interference and withholding military aid to Ukraine. But Republican Whip Steve Scalise (La.) displayed on the House floor a poster of a hammer and sickle and the Kremlin and said Democrats are the ones doing things “Soviet-style.”
Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyo.), the GOP conference leader, said Democrats are the ones “putting politics above national security.”
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) alleged that Democrats are the ones undermining “the integrity of our electoral process.”
Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tex.). “For one man to turn this country upside down,” he said, is something “our Founding Fathers warned about.” Surely this was about Trump? Nope — Schiff.
Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.) said Democrats are the ones “eagerly ripping our country in half,” and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) lamented “what the Democrats have put our nation through for now almost four years.” (He specifically blamed them for the Mueller probe, launched by Trump appointees.)
Donald Trump has turned the Republican world inside out. They have jettisoned everything they once stood for -- balanced budgets, family values, opposition to Russia -- and accused the Democrats of doing precisely what Trump has done. They are now a cult who worship at his feet.
And cults, Milbank warns, always end badly.
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4 comments:
This same kind of reversal thinking led the Republicans to announce that Pelosi should be charged with treason. It's like the Bizzarro World in Superman where hello means goodbye up means down. Then again it's no different in our world where winning the popular vote is not really losing and 32 percent in a minority is seen as winning. Sheesh, get me an aspirin already.
It's all very Orwellian, zoombats -- where Ignorance is Strength, and Freedom is Slavery.
Projection is not unique to Trump and has been a GOP tactic for a long time. The idea is to accuse your opponent of something you yourself are guilty of - ideally, you do this first so when your opponent points out your failing it looks like a schoolyard squabble. The media will then faithfully report that BOTH SIDES accuse each other, without looking into the merits of the accusations. Voters then act like exasperated parents and want both parties to shut up. Presto, you've successfully buried yet another scandal.
When the Cons started running election ads saying that Trudeau is not what he seems, it was a safe bet that Scheer had skeletons that would come tumbling out of his closet. And sure enough, we found out that the media had warned the Cons in August that they were planning to run a story on Scheer's lack of insurance accreditation. That story was largely blunted as the media bothsidesed it with the Trudeau brownface story. Mission accomplished.
Cap
You're right, Cap. It's an old tactic -- and it's thoroughly dishonest.
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