The GOP is not moving back to normal.
Crazy is getting more crazy. Trump is doubling down.
In investment markets extreme conditions eventually "correct." An equilibrium is found that generally reflects a longer term, sustainable balance.
It happens in politics, too. Democrats should wish for a healthy GOP that finds that equilibrium. Republicans will win more elections, and they would be a more reasonable governing party. In our two-party system, Republicans will hold majority power about half the time. Voters are fickle. Being replaced in office is the mechanism of political equilibrium.Politics, like investments, have bubbles, when crazy gets more crazy. That is happening now within one party, the GOP. Democrats have their own problems, but Democrats chose Joe Biden to be the nominee. Joe Biden is a conventional, old-school ethnic politician whose extreme passions are union firefighters and fathers who feel shame at having lost a job. GOP fundraising letters say he leads a war on Christianity and all-American values, but he is a cradle-to-grave Catholic and a member of the Silent Generation. A priest puts ashes on his forehead on Ash Wednesday. He is not a leader of fashion-forward, woke, anti-capitalist modernism. To the dismay of some Democrats, the party moved toward an equilibrium.
Republicans, though, are in a feedback loop. Extreme is attempting to out-do extreme. It is a new GOP with the old name. The politicians Republican voters cheered a decade ago are the enemy now. George Bush is out. He is a RINO. Liz Cheney is out. Dick Cheney is out. Mitt Romney is out. Paul Ryan is out. Mitch McConnell is in trouble.
After reporting that Trump lost Arizona in 2020, Fox News saw that it, too, was going out. It chose to risk defamation lawsuits to stay in. Too little, too late. This week Steve Bannon said he considered Fox to be out.
The credible candidates for the GOP nomination are not presenting themselves as "back to normal" Republicans leaning toward some former equilibrium. DeSantis is attempting to out-Trump Trump. DeSantis declares himself more anti-vaccine, more angry about gays and trans, more willing to confront Disney or any other company that would cross him, more harsh in treatment of immigrants seeking asylum, more anti-abortion, and a better and stronger agent of God.
Trump isn't flat-footed. He is raising his own bet on extreme. Trump is not minimizing the January 6 Capitol riots or distancing himself from people who were caught on camera in violent overthrow of the election. Trump just released on streaming services a musical performance he made in concert with them. A choir of January 6 prisoners sings the Star Spangled Banner while Trump says the Pledge of Allegiance. It ends with a chant of U-S-A, U-S-A. Trump has a position: His post-election actions were patriotic.
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| https://youtu.be/uhXDz_ZTMfQ |
Republicans are testing American democracy. It is increasingly likely that Democrats will nominate a vulnerable candidate, an elderly Joe Biden. He is getting more popular. People see him as capable, after all. But it is a risk. Voters may consider him a Fetterman-in-waiting. That makes the GOP candidate, no matter how extreme, a plausible alternative. Republicans are in a feedback loop of one-upsmanship on extreme. Voters rejected Trump in favor of Biden once, just barely when measured by electoral votes in battleground states. I had hoped the GOP would moderate, but the party appears to be moving in the opposite direction. Click on the link and listen to the "song."
14 comments:
The "song" is clickbait for a pitch for money. The clip is monetized, (mandatory ad at the beginning), and claims to be raising funds for the families of the defendants.
We'll see.
It's always about money and if future is a prediction of past we'll hear about how little or none will made it to the intended recipients. More interesting, is how it was produced, looks to be very low budget. Perhaps the brainchild of George Santos?
"Trump’s part of the music project was recorded a few weeks ago at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida resort home, according to Forbes, which was first to report news of the song. The Jan. 6 defendants were reportedly recorded their part via a jailhouse phone." - The Hill
Trigger Warning: It's really creepy.
Amazing video. Powerful emotional message.
The Democrats have a patriotism problem. A emotional message based on the “historical crimes of the United States“ has no chance politically against the message of that video.
The Republican Party is predicated on a lie – the “stolen” election. Its overall message is fear and anger. Its media mission is to manufacture outrage. Republicans’ answer to climate change is more fossil fuels; their answer to gun violence is more guns; their answer to a violent attack against our government incited by their Supreme Leader is to declare the perpetrators “patriots.”
It's dismaying that so many people would align themselves with such madness. Some attribute it to working class ire at the “globalist elites” who fill Walmart with cheap stuff made overseas by cheap labor that the working class demands. In fact, it’s more a case of like attracting like. Those who find autocrats and demagogues like Trump and DeSantis appealing can’t deal with democracy, which requires an informed electorate. They prefer “alternative facts,” especially when election outcomes aren’t to their liking. Crazy has become the new normal.
The comment thread so far today is a good illustration of the political situation in our country. People each making their own points; no productive engagement with each other.
It’s as though we are each on top of our own hill. We each see the world below us from our own unique perspective on our hill. We each may be correct in our description of what the world looks like from the top of our particular hill.
But we do not seem to be open or willing to visit each others’ hill. Things might go much better if we were willing to make those visits and see what the world looked like from those other perspectives. It would have to start with not flinging angry epithets at each other over the differences in what we see from our respective hills.
If Joe Biden runs again, Kamala Harris should do the right thing and step aside for the good of the party and the country.
She is not very popular. She is too radical, too California and does not connect with many Americans. Sorry!
She does not have good political instincts. She attacked Joe Biden during the debates and implied that he was a racist, so ridiculous. Then she had to eat her words.
As I recall, her parents were academics who met in California. She was born in Oakland.
Joe Biden needs a running mate with broader appeal, a man or woman who is more politically moderate. Most Americans do not want a far left, "progressive" President such as VP Harris or the current Governor of California.
If in fact Joe Biden is the Democratic nominee he will need a different vice president that is recognizable as credible and competent step-in president day one. To do that Joe needs some competition for the job. His vice president should be the Democratic second choice for president. Let's see some young Democratic blood make their play!
I wish to comment on the following statement in today's blog: Biden "is not a leader of fashion-forward, woke, anti-capitalist modernism. Toi [sic] the dismay of some Democrats, the party moved toward an equilibrium." I'm not sure what equilibrium you have in mind or what Democrats. Before Biden, the party had been in the control of centrist, pro-Wall Street, pro-neoliberal Democrats like the Clintons and Obama. Joe Biden did not bring the party back from the way left to the center. Along with his own long-time commitment to working people, he felt lots of pressure from the Sanders-Warren-Sherrod Brown Democrats to move considerably farther to the left than his Democratic predecessors in the White House. Because of that, and in line with Democratic senators and representatives, in his first two years he accomplished far more than Obama did in eight, and the party suffered no losses in the Senate in the mid-term election and far fewer in the House than Clinton or Obama did. Your obsessive concern that progressive Democrats are jeopardizing the party's electoral chances blind you to the reality.
The point is well made that Republicans need to stop flinging angry epithets at opponents (which they call enemies), from Trump’s stupid name-calling on down to the jerks with the F**K JOE BIDEN signs.
Democracy is based on the ability to reason and compromise, but you can’t reason with people who don’t believe in facts. Imagine trying to reason with Trump, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Ron Johnson, Lauren Boebert, Tucker Carlson et al – it'd make you as crazy as they are, and they’re today’s GOP.
Possibly Herb Rothschild thinks he is correcting me. I think he is confirming my point, so I am delighted to see his comment. . Biden has gotten things done. (So did Obama. The ACA was a BFD, so big that it caused a backlash response that caused the red tide.) Biden got things done because he seemed sensible to enough people. That is the equilibrium I was describing. A firebrand on the left might have met big success, but I suspect he or she would have done less well. A firebrand would have made more exciting and inspiring speeches, but the Manchin, Sinemas, and others would have resisted. The Senate absolutely needs Jon Testor from Montana, and Angus King from Maine. Biden did not achieve big success by becoming Sanders in politics or manner. He achieved because he stayed good old moderate-sounding Joe. Yes, it is an obsession for me to warn Democrats but Democrats lose when they overreach and think America is bright blue.
Oregon readers will know the story of the new congressional district. I like Jamie McLeod Skinner and donated several thousand dollars to her campaign. She lost, in a D+6 district. I love Elizabeth Warren, but when Warren made a big endorsement of Skinner, I cringed. McLeod Skinner would have been better off without the endorsement. Warren is beloved in Cambridge, but she runs poorly in working class Fall River. That Oregon district is more Fall River than Cambridge.
Unknown,
I was thinking more of the venom directed at people commenting here at various times in the past.
According to Jamie, her big problem was that Kurt Schrader, the incumbent Democrat she primaried because he all too often voted with the Republicans, in the general worked for her Republican opponent. She lost the election in his bailiwick, whereas she did well in other parts of the district. No, Peter, it wasn't progressive Dems who lost that redrawn district. It was an vindictive right-wing Dem.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but Peter seems to be making the point that the GOP is crazy and getting crazier (see his heading). He supports it with examples. Facts aren’t venom, they’re just facts.
No, Mike, facts aren’t venom. Reflexive, passive-aggressive and unjustified accusations of racism are venom.
The Democrats are doing what is best for this country.
The Banana Republicans are doing what is best for Russia.
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