Category: Republicans

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I grew up under a different Republican Party (and admittedly a different Democratic Party as well). The Republican Party of my youth won elections big. The biggest vote getter was Ronald Reagan. He called himself a big tent Republican. Republicans didn’t have to agree with him 100% of the time. He was all right with that if they stuck with him most of the time. He also famously worked with Democrat Tip O’Neill in creating budgets that both the Democrats and Republicans could live with. Reagan showed how well the big tent worked by winning two two landslide elections.

Something Republican candidates for President can’t do anymore. Since 1992, Republicans have won a majority of the popular vote once — 2004. This depressing statistic doesn’t seem to bother them in the least. Indeed, they are moving to a strategy that is puzzling. They only want true believers and, because they only want true believers, they are chasing away members who actually would prefer to stay. Really Liz Cheney, George Will, where the Hell are they supposed to go but the present party leadership wants to scream Liberal when they walk in the door. So instead of going to a big tent, they want to move to a much smaller tent, let’s call it the pup tent strategy.

You can catch this strategy if you watch the endless election of the Speaker of the House. The normal procedure is that the Republicans would choose their candidate through a majority vote of the Republican members. The guy (or gal) who got the majority of the votes would then become Speaker. This tried and true system no longer works for Republicans because they hate each other so much that one individual member always will hold grudge for anyone who winds up being their candidate for speaker. Just because someone has a majority of the votes doesn’t mean I have to respect the majority’s decision. We certainly have known this since the 2020 election but that involved a Democrat which, while troubling, is at least understandable. Republicans are supposed to hate Democrats but that they turned this hatred on to Republicans is a bit of shock. I am enjoying it tremendously but I don’t understand it. So a party where members pretty much agree about everything will torpedo one of their own — making their party a laughingstock because of a petty disagreement with the guy who won. It makes no sense at all, at least no sense for a party that wants to win an election.

The present Republican Party would rather quarrel. Kevin McCarthy had to sell his soul and, even that wasn’t enough, they still kicked him out. Steve Scalise preferred to bow out rather than be humiliated by numerous failed votes. Jim Jordon tried to steamroll his way into winning and ended up pissing off so many people that they wouldn’t buy his soul if he was the last soul on earth. So a revolving number of Republican members continue to thwart majority rule. Because. Because. Because they can???

And after thwarting these men, all who had at one time were the choice of the majority of Republicans, they are about to destroy any future candidates chances. Tom Emmer’s name is being batted around as the next victim person to run for Speaker. Instead of saying great here is the person to lead, there are Republicans saying that Emmer is Nancy Pelosi in a suit. Now that is about as low as a Republican can get when throwing insults around and, unsurprisingly, not even remotely true. Emmer’s only sin is accepting the election of Joe Biden in the 2020 election otherwise his record is similar to every other Republican in Congress and certainly doesn’t match Nancy Pelosi record. Hyperbole I guess but Jesus this seems to be way beyond hyperbole.

And it is going to get even worse. If a minority can hold finance bills hostage, this minority will do it. McCarthy was able to delay this reckoning. It is in fact what did him in — cooperating with Democrats. So we know there are enough Republicans who would rather shut down government than have a bill that has any Democrats fingerprint on it. Since Biden is a Democrat and the Senate is run by the Democrats, Democrats, by the very structure of our government, are going to have their fingerprints on it. The idea, at least in the past, was that people worked together to find a bill that would get a majority of votes. It is hard work and difficult but government has to run and the only fair way to do this is by majority rule. But Republicans don’t care about majority rule and they certainly can’t pass a bill that Democrats may like and so they will shut down the government. Of course, their true believers will love it but what about everyone else. Pup tent thinking.

But these Republicans aren’t interested in creating a broad center right party. They are working to make voting harder instead of trying to attract new voters. There is even talk of limiting the franchise to fewer and fewer voters — to land owners only, to people who have children only, to men only ( see here and here). Ideas that have long gone ago passed their expiration dates but, because the Republicans aren’t able to persuade a majority of Americans to side with them, they are fondly remembering that you were once able to choose your voters and are trying tirelessly to make that happen.

Compromise is the only way the American system works. It isn’t perfect but it is the system we have. If you can gain more seats, you don’t have to compromise as much as the other party but you will still have to compromise. That compromise is seen as a problem speaks to a much bigger problem that Republicans seem to have with democratic institutions. Working with the system we have and making it work isn’t nearly as much fun as making the system dysfunctional. They don’t give a damn what the majority wants and apparently have no interest in making the tent larger. Indeed, some even don’t believe the majority should decide. That is a problem.

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The ouster of Kevin McCarthy has caused some Republicans to engage in some mind blowing contortions to get the blame firmly pinned on the responsible party. Yes, Republicans are trying to blame it all on the Democrats.

How they got the finger pointed in this direction is pretty amazing. In order to be elected Speaker, after 15 failed attempts. which, by the way, should have given McCarthy and the Republican leadership a hint that he didn’t have the full confidence of his party and might have trouble with his bomb throwers later, McCarthy agreed to an almost complete emasculation of the Speaker’s power. So, then, due to the intransigence of members of his own party, McCarthy begin his role in an incredibly weak position.

He was further hobbled in that the people within the Republican Party most opposed to him were also the same people who thought that any compromise with the Democrats was treason. Given that the Speaker has some responsibility to keeping the government running, McCarthy was doomed. McCarthy, at some point, would have to work with his Democrats colleagues. Unsurprisingly once he did, Matt Gaetz went into action. What was surprising is the McCarthy thought he was in the catbirds seat and challenged Gaetz to remove him. Gaetz took him up on the challenge.

Just in case you haven’t noticed, the Democrats have been uninvolved in McCarthy’s troubles up to this point. Here is where they come in. McCarthy apparently was under the impression he would be saved by the Democrats. Why he thought this is still a mystery. Maybe he had conversations with them prior to the vote but, so far, no real evidence of a deal between McCarthy and the Democrats exists. McCarthy, I guess thought, because earlier in the month he made a deal with Democrats to keep the government going, that the Democrats owed him. The Democrats thought differently.

Even if the Democrats had been willing, would the votes of the Democrats have helped him in any way? Isn’t working with Democrats what got him in trouble with Gaetz in the first place? Wouldn’t the Democrats support in this situation be more evidence of his treachery? He was doomed because his responsibility to govern clashed with his bomb throwers desire to, well, throw bombs.

Before you issue a challenge of the kind McCarthy offered Gaetz, it is best to find out if you really have the votes you are depending on. Did he really think that the Democrats would give their votes without getting anything in return? Since he was the one who needed help, it was incumbent on him to ask for it. He did absolutely nothing to get the Democrats on board. He couldn’t without unleashing the rage of his nihilist fringe. It was all wishful thinking on McCarthy’s part. So the idea that the Democrats somehow double crossed McCarthy is laughable. There has to be an agreement before there can be a double cross.

It reveals a shocking lack of competence and of knowledge of the Republican Leadership and of McCarthy in particular. The Democrats are supposed to make his life difficult. They are, after all, the opposition party. His own party was in the majority and they are supposed to back him because that’s how they stay in power. Eight colleagues of McCarthy opted to bail on him. Eight people who agree with McCarthy about almost everything but his willingness to keep the government open. How is this the Democrats fault? Did anyone sit down with Gaetz and company and spell it all out for them? Tell them how this could damage the party and its ability to govern? And, if not, why? Leaving politics aside and looking at executive abilities, the Republican Leaders in the House are incompetent managers and unable to govern effectively.

Say what you will about Mitch McConnell but he knows how his institution operates and knows how to get things done. I may not agree with McConnell or his politics but I can certainly admit he knows how to use his power. He rolled the Democrats twice on Supreme Court appointments and used his power effectively to bring on as many Republican appointed judges as he could during his time in the majority. Even though he had two troublesome partners – Donald Trump and the Republican House – he still managed to use his power effectively. It sends chills down my spine to think of what he could have done if he had a more reliable president and competent House leadership.

Democratic institutions are complicated. Winning elections doesn’t give you much power and it can disappear quickly even if you are doing things well. Winning one of 425 seats only gives you a seat at the table but you have to work in the institutions you have with people there. You don’t get everything you want but you work for the best deal you can get. This is why McConnell and, for that matter, Nancy Pelosi get things done and McCarthy gets kicked to the curb.

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The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, wants to flood the Civil Service with true believers because they want people who will follow Donald Trump’s orders when he is elected in 2024. I had to check my history books here but I thought the whole point of the Civil Service Reforms enacted after the Civil War was to ensure that workers were actually there to do their jobs and not perform as political operatives of the party in power. After only one google search, I discovered that I remembered correctly. A Republican administration and congress created laws to ensure that the civil service employees maintained their jobs through merit. This stopped the practice of using political strings to gain employment after election victories.

I can’t say I was shocked but it does reveal yet again the intentions of the modern Republican Party to undermine effective government. This is not an argument over the size and scope of government. It is a plan to gain a foothold in the present government institutions and then to dismantle them. They no longer want an independent civil service, they want servile employees who will follow orders. Well, ok but what happens when the Democrats win the next election and replace the Republican Party hacks with Democratic Party hacks? Isn’t preventing the chaos and confusion that such actions have on the independent civil service the exact problem that the Civil Service Reforms were designed to protect us against? So, much for moving forward.

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The present Republican party loves love fighting each other, if not more, than they like fighting Democrats. The recent Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene dustup was shockingly unnecessary and brutally public. If I understand this correctly, Greene called Boebert a bitch and, not under her breath, out loud so Boebert could hear her. There were some extra adjectives dangling before the actual word bitch but I am on a roll here and don’t want to lose my momentum so I am not going to stop and look them up, suffice it to say they weren’t very nice and Boebert got pissed about it.

On the other hand, was it a faux pas worthy of kicking Greene out of the Freedom Caucus. Boebert and Greene agree about almost everything, what is a little name calling among friends? This is really nothing, right? Not something to make a public scene about. Why put their party in a bad light over something so petty? But apparently I am wrong. Petty as it appears to be, the two battlers are making this public. I don’t know about you but I would be mortified if everyone in my office knew I was arguing with a coworker about being called a bitch. I would have to quit from the embarrassment.

This is, I think we can all agree, small potatoes. There are other arguments going on as well. The Never Trumps like George Will, the Bushes, Liz Cheney, who are basically in ideological agreement with the Republican Agenda, they just hate Trump are also battling with the Trump Republicans. The Trumpies like to imply that the Never Trumps are somehow not real Conservative Republicans because they are critical of Trump. Loyalty to Trump is now the baseline that Trump requires from all Republicans. This means that the Never Trump Republicans will continue to hate Trump from afar as Trump will not go away. In a normal political party this is where the party elders might come in and tell everyone to play nice. Except that the party elders are all almost universally despised by the Trump Republicans. So, even if they did try to bring peace, it isn’t going to matter.

At this point, Republican Party brawling is a pretty reliable expectation, kind of like Saturday night boxing. So I thought I was inured to this petty but vicious infighting until I read this column by Robert Zimmerman. He is mad at Ted Cruz. Ted Cruz. Zimmerman sounds really far right wing, but not that much further right than Cruz, a senator that only the Reddist of Republicans could love. Cruz was apparently too accommodating with the Democratic Majority when dealing with a matter in the senate. That Cruz is in the minority and his hands were tied is irrelevant. He should have made a scene. I am certain Cruz was perfectly willing to make a scene when he sees potential gain but he does have to space them out to make them more effective. If he were to make a scene every day, he might be mistaken for Marjorie Taylor Greene and nobody wants that distinction.

The funny thing, at least I find it amusing, is that this destructive political infighting used to be the province of Democrats. All of these Republicans trying to pick up the mantle of Reagan forget that he was comfortable with a party that included a lot of different factions. Reagan was remarkably adept at keeping all these sometimes contentious factions in the same boat and, for the most part, rowing in the same direction. His 11th Commandment was thy will not speak ill of a fellow Republican. And, speaking as someone who didn’t like his politics, this was no mean feat. Reagan, if you will recall, also won elections with landslide margins. Trump can’t say that and will never be able to. He is poison to half of the electorate.

Don’t get me wrong. Personally, nothing makes me happier than Republicans on a suicide mission. But it is stunning to hear their lack of self awareness when talking about RINOs (Republican in Name Only) here and RINOs there and then complaining about election rigging. RINOs do vote. Their complaints might be more believable if they didn’t spend so much time bad mouthing their own party members.. Theoretically, in order to win elections, you have to add members to your party to achieve a majority and not chase members away. The sad truth that Republicans can’t face is that Trump doesn’t give a damn about the Republican Party. He cares only about Donald Trump and if he has to destroy fellow Republicans to get what he wants, he will happily do so. I don’t think you can say the same thing about Ronald Reagan and there, my friends, is the difference between a landslide and a close election.

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Tommy Tuberville, Republican Senator from Alabama, flubbed a question about white Nationalism the other day. Since nobody admits to making a mistake any more, he has chosen to double down on the mistake. Which probably will turn out all right because his voters don’t give a damn about the topic. On the other hand, an admission he goofed would certainly save the rest of the Republican party running around having to say White Nationalists are indeed racists and we don’t know what Tommy Tuberville is talking about here but we can guarantee you he isn’t racist.

Which is understandably disturbing to those of us who do know what White Nationalism is all about. So, what exactly does he think when hanging out with these friends he just disagrees with but they themselves are really good people when they spew this racist poison. What is a Senator to do? For Tuberville, it is just a simple difference of opinion, requiring nothing more than an oh shucks you crazy guys, I can’t believe you still think that is true.

He either is an idiot, which could be the answer, but I really want to give Tuberville the benefit of the doubt here, he is, after all, a US Senator, so he must raise, if ever so slightly, above being characterized as an idiot. This leaves he doesn’t give a damn what people think as, to some extent, he is OK with White Nationalism. This seems closer to the truth as I can’t believe that a Republican US Senator would not be prepared for such a softball question. His internal danger warning must have been screaming DANGER, DANGER THIS IS A TRICK QUESTION SENATOR.

Instead of taking the easy way and finesse the question to a meaningless but agreeable mush of words, Tuberville, knowingly stumbled into the controversy that followed. Nobody, even his White Nationalist friends, would have condemned him had he responded with some benign blather about all races are equal under the law and he judges each person as an individual and not by their race. Since he decided to engage in a conversation about White Nationalism, it suggests he holds a more nuanced understanding of White Nationalism and he is putting his toe in the water to see how receptive the American public was to this position.

The good news for the country was there was enough blowback to make Republicans tell Tuberville he was wrong and Tuberville kind of sort of backed down just a smidge on what he meant. It is still concerning that a Republican Senator clings to a racist belief system and is a little confused on why people are getting all worked when he expresses his opinion. There is a persistent group within the Republican Party attacking democracy as we have understood it for the past 50 years. The heart of their argument is defining who is worthy to be considered a full citizen. They worry that certain groups are not the right people to be considered citizens. They worry about illegal aliens giving birth to American citizens. They worry about softhearted woman voters. They worry about poorer citizens exercising their right to vote, and they question the ability of urban counties run by Black officials to count votes fairly.

Their real worry is these groups don’t vote Republican and hence are making their party’s electoral survival more difficult. Any party that has only won the popular vote once in the last six presidential elections has every reason to worry about this too. Making their arguments more palatable to the American voter, however. might be a better strategy to pursue than changing the makeup of the American citizenry.

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We are all sinners. This is one Christian teaching I have admired as it humbles, or it should humble, Christians when they are tempted to judge other people. Pope, Prince and Pauper — we are all sinners. It is the great equalizer. Christians would be wise to keep this teaching in mind instead of throwing their moral superiority around to influence public thinking. Unfortunately they rarely do. Instead they divide the world into two camps — Christians and everybody else. Moral people versus heathens. This type of American Christian enjoys pointing out everyone else sins and, because heathens continue to sin, these Christians are committed to making sinners lives as miserable as possible.

This divisive thinking among American Christians can be seen on a daily basis but a particularly vivid example of it occurred the other in the Florida Legislature. Republicans there passed a law saying that they don’t have to treat anyone if they disagree with them on moral grounds. The intention, as I understand it, is to enable doctors to refuse treatment of patients who they find morally dubious.

I am confused because aren’t these same Republicans and Christians complaining about cancel culture. They want to be able to be disagree on subjects like transgender treatment for children without fear of retribution from trans activists who would view this as transphobic. Since their stated goal is an open society where anyone can speak their mind freely without fear, its particularly annoying that whenever they get control of a legislature they try to cancel the groups that fails their morality tests. A morality test that is pretty much focused on people Christians view as sexually deviant. They aren’t complaining about treating robbers, rapists, adulterers and con men. Their focus is on doctors being forced to treat gay and trans people.

I didn’t know they were being forced to now. This is the first I heard of it. I would think if this is a widespread problem that the outrage machine at Fox News would have spread the news far and wide. Are any doctors in Florida complaining about being forced to take on Drag Queens and Trans patients? Don’t doctors have a pretty easy way of taking on patients they approve of without making much of a scene. If I call a doctor for an appointment and the receptionist catches my gay lisp, they can just say the doctor isn’t taking new patients and I wouldn’t be the least bit suspicious to hear that. It happens all the time. There is no need to get into a conversation about morality much less a law suit. As with many issues that the Republican Party take on, this isn’t a problem. It is a show tune song to please their constituents and not because there is a problem. Florida Republicans have made a mountain out of no hill. It does give the illusion of movement and that is all these legislators want.

Another big problem with this startling ill-considered law is it is so broadly written that non-Christians can use it too. This will be its undoing. What is to stop a Gay Doctor from saying I believe that Christian Republicans are evil and I refuse to take them on as patients. What happens if there is a mass casualty event and the police bring in the wounded gunman, can a doctor decline to treat him because he disapproves of murder? Would Emergency Rooms across Florida have to staff a cross section of faiths, sexual identities and political persuasions to accommodate all the different political and religious passions that inspire disapproval? Where exactly does this end?

What we have here is a solution to something that isn’t even a problem. Nothing will change. Doctors will carry on doing what doctors do without having any patients forced on them. Nobody will see the difference because nothing needed to change. There will be legal battles because, of course, this is what it is all about. Republicans want somebody to challenge this law so they can point how unreasonable their political opponents are because, of course, some Trans Activists will take the bait and bring suit.

It is a lot of fuss for nothing. Most doctors will treat any patient they have without question. If a person wants a gender reassignment, I am pretty certain that most Christian doctors aren’t experts in that particular field and will have to refer them to another doctor any way. Most gay people want a doctor they feel they can talk freely to and will choose someone who is sympathetic to them.

If there is a problem then I suggest these Christian doctors remember the teaching that we are all sinners. Every patient that a doctor treats has sinned and is going to continue sinning every day for the rest of their lives. They will sin because they are human. In the mean time, a body is a body. If you have the power to make someone feel better why not do it? What would Jesus do?

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I can’t believe drag shows are still in the news. But Republicans have latched on to them as if they were the gravest danger the nation now faces. Witness –Bill Lee, Tennessee governor, joining Florida Governor DeSantis, in stopping drag queens from entertaining children. The good news is that the Republican clearly have run out of scare tactics because, if you take away Republican governors, there is absolutely no one worried about this.

It is not the first time that Republicans hyperventilated about non-issues. It is, after all, what they do best. How can we forget the problem of a nine months pregnant woman deciding to abort right after she goes into labor. This simply doesn’t happen and no doctor would proceed with the abortion even if it did. Even though it never has happened, Republicans demanded answers and Democrats stupidly answered them. In the end, the Democrats looked like people who would kill a new born baby if the woman wanted to obtain an abortion just prior to delivery. Why Democrats continue to fall for these hypothetical question about something that never happens and never will is beyond me but sadly they do.

This is why I am concerned about the drag show debate currently going on because awkward opposition to these laws might give people the impression that the Democrats are encouraging parents to take their children to drag shows. This isn’t the case at all but any time you involve yourself in a ridiculous debate, you risk saying something stupid like parent’s should decide whether their child should go to a drag show. Well, yes, this is absolutely true but it really isn’t something that most parents need worry about in the first place because drag shows are adult entertainment usually performed in an establishment that serves alcohol. Children won’t be attending even if, God forbid, the parents approved of the child going.

That doesn’t stop Republicans from getting upset about it. These new laws will have little impact on anyone. Drag shows will continue unimpeded for their adult audiences and children will continue not to see them. That the drag show issue continues to be debated, only shows the sorry state of American politics. A heated debate is going on about something that doesn’t affect anyone, that no one cares about, and that no law is likely to change the current situation. But, by all means, let’s continue to talk about the dangers of children at drag shows.

It is a a rather clumsy ploy by Gov. DeSantis and his fellow Republicans to put the spotlight on non-issue with which they think they damages Democrats. I doubt seriously if this is true. This is an issue that only is of burning importance to true believers. DeSantis and company might be able to shore up their own numbers with their fellow Republicans but everyone else? Have you heard anyone expressing concern about the dangers of children at drag shows? I haven’t.

It does however move the spotlight to an issue that, at best, is of peripheral concern to most Americans. The media loves talking about drag shows because drag queens are entertaining. Drag queens are much more fun viewing than say a spot about the origins of the war in the Ukraine. This also means, if the media is talking about drag shows, they aren’t talking about Healthcare, Jobs, Education, the Economy, the War in the Ukraine, and well the list goes on and on. Issues that actually affect people. But then the media isn’t about news, it is about selling ad space. The media prefers scandals over meaningful information about what is going on in the world. In other words, they prefer controversy and sex than news. This is why the Republicans are rampaging over drag shows and this is why the media is happily reporting about them.

It also shows that the Republicans are politically bankrupt. Concern about the dangers of drag shows is smoke and mirrors, a sleight of hand to draw attention away from these other more pressing issues. Do you think that Republicans would be talking about drag shows if they had any credible policies to deal with the the array of problems facing this country? Why would they spend so much energy on such a non-problem like drag shows if they could actually attract voters with winning policies regarding the economy or education or healthcare? Or protecting children, for Christ’s sake. They want to protect children from drag queens, which isn’t a problem, while ignoring the dangers of crazy men with guns shooting up schools which actually is a problem. And they are getting away with it.

This is where the Democrats need to confront them. Can Republicans show the damage that drag queens have had on children? How does that compare with gunmen? Would teachers and students need special training if a drag queen entered a school? How about if a gunman entered a school? Given the difference in dead children that gunmen cause in schools and the damage that drag queens do what would be a more prudent way to spend our time and money? Let’s ask them awkward questions about their empty priorities and see how well they respond.