Yesterday, two significant things happened in Washington: the Senate passed Joe Biden's Covid rescue plan without any Republican votes. Kamala Harris passed the deciding vote. And Margorie Taylor Greene was supported by the overwhelming majority of House Republicans. There can no longer be any doubt about who and what the Republican Party is. Eugene Robinson writes:
Trump led the GOP's base deep into the wilderness. Republican leadership in Washington lacks the skills and the guts to lead the party back to reality — and back to constructive participation in addressing the massive challenges we face. Don't blame "both sides" for ruining the elegant, strategic, productive political competition we'd like to see. One party is trying to move the chess pieces. The other is trying to eat them.
And what is true of the federal Republican Party is also true at the state level:
At the state level, the Republican Party is, if anything, even less tethered to reality. The Arizona state GOP actually censured former senator Jeff Flake and Cindy McCain, widow of the late senator John McCain, for failing to blindly support Trump. A few Republican governors, such as Jim Justice of West Virginia, are doing well in the vaccination phase of the pandemic. Others, such as Ron DeSantis of Florida, continue to put politics over public health.
The Republicans will claim that Joe Biden's promise of bipartisanship is a lie. But Robinson correctly observes that "There are no productive deals to broker between objective reality and cynical fantasy, between truth and lies."
The Republican Party is damned.
Image: The Pepper Bough
6 comments:
Lies have always been coin of the realm in the GQP - tax cuts pay for themselves, Iraqis killing babies in incubators, Saddam's WMD, Iran's nuclear weapons program, Trump won in 2020, and on and on. But when social media giants started making money from clicks, and controversy and hatred got the most clicks, the lies became more and more unhinged.
Companies like Facebook and Fox have radicalized almost half the US population into believing absurd conspiracies. It's truly disturbing to watch otherwise intelligent family members go through the looking glass into this fantasy world where Donald Trump is on a mission to save America from Dems who rape and eat children. Trump, who was pals with Epstein and admits to watching teens change at his beauty pageants! These people have slipped the surly bonds of reality. Short of shutting down the purveyors of these fantasies, I don't know how you bring people back.
Btw, there's a typo up there, it's Kamala Harris.
Cap
Thanks, Cap. I missed that one completely. You keep me on my toes.
.. Its Wonderland down there.. or Dorothy in drag.. or trans..
no shortage of wicked witches, tornados
and where is Toto when we need him. Still in Kansas ? Its full on silly season
The pretentious defenders of the faith vs the accused witches of Salem
Much of this so comical in a distorted circus mirror sort of way
but I aint laughing..
This would be hilariously funny, sal -- except getting back home to Kansas could be life-threatening.
I recall the first time I realized we were watching unfold The Lord of the Flies or, perhaps more accurately, The Lord of the Flies Captures America.
The Guardian has an article on how Rupert Murdoch is steering FOX back to the extreme right to chase viewers who defected to NewsMax and OAN. That must be ratings viagara to Hannity. For a while, during the peak of Trump's denialism, Rupert sent out the word to stop encouraging the Great Bloat. The station had the temerity to swallow hard and say Trump lost.
Then FOX lost as the once loyal audience bled off to the competition. Another 180 from Rupert abrupt enough that it probably gave him vertigo.
Money talks and money, it seems, is easier to pocket in a horribly divided, tribalist America. If that's what lines Rupert's pockets he won't hesitate to ruthlessly exploit America's vulnerability.
It turns out that peddling insanity can be very profitable, Mound. Trump and Murdoch have been doing that for decades.
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