On the GOP and fighting the left
Yesterday I wrote a post which dealt with the fact that the GOP is refusing to appoint a temporary replacement for Senator Feinstein in order to facilitate the appointment of leftist judges. The title of the post was “Republicans hang tough,” and the last sentence of it was “for now.”
Anyone on the right knows the history of GOP weakness and caving, and of “reaching across the aisle” that remains unreciprocated, to say the least. Whether there is actually a “uniparty” or not (I don’t think so; I think there remain major differences between the parties although they have certain selfish interests in common), there is little question in my mind that many representatives of the GOP all too often have mounted a weak opposition to the left or none at all.
I also wrote a post recently that asked how far the right should go in playing hardball. I notice today that the same question has been taken up by Josh Hammer in this essay. An excerpt follows:
A decade ago, around the time liberals were boycotting Chick-fil-A en masse due to the devout Christian beliefs and strongly held views on marriage of the company’s founder and managers, many on the Right refused to countenance reciprocating with such “nasty” tactics, preferring instead to seize an illusory moral high ground. But concerted economic boycotts, it turns out, work: They are effectual punishments of one’s cultural enemies using the undoubtedly legitimate means of market pressure. The Right, it turns out, can mass-organize just like the Left can. Perhaps Anheuser-Busch will see the folly of its ham-fisted attempt to foist the transgender agenda down the throats of its disapproving — “fratty,” to use the Bud Light vice president of marketing’s now-infamous description — customer base. Or perhaps it won’t. Regardless, the dramatic and successful pushback, which continues almost two weeks later, underscores that the only way out is through.
Regardless of whether it’s enough (and I don’t think it is), I do see signs that the right has hardened in its fight against the left. Another example would be the recent behavior of Kevin McCarthy.
And here’s something a bit interesting. In the “Republicans hang tough” thread, commenter “Eeyore” mused:
The question is whether they’ll start to peel away. I wonder who’ll be first.
To which commenter “Art Deco” quickly replied:
The smart money says…
“1. Sleaza Murkowski
“2. Pierre Delecto”
The latter is, of course, an alias Mitt Romney once used.
Good guesses. But so far, no one appears to have budged.
And what did Mitt Romney aka Delecto actually say on the matter? This:
“They’d like Republicans to help them speed the appointment of more liberal justices? Yes — when hell freezes over,” he said.
Now, you might say that’s only rhetoric. But it’s certainly uncharacteristic rhetoric from the likes of Romney, and it’s been backed up by behavior.
So far.
And yes, a great deal more has to happen before the right manages to effectively counter the left, and it is by no means certain that any of it will be successful. But still, it’s a wee bit encouraging.
I’ll be more encouraged when I see some real action such as impeachment proceedings against the Homeland Security and Transportation secretaries, charges brought against Fauci, etc. Right now all I see is hearings, hearings, and more hearings. The GOP House can hold all the hearings it wants and it’s just theater until they actually DO something. I know they only hold the House, but that didn’t stop Pelosi et al from bringing forth impeachment against Trump that had no hope of making it in the Senate. At least it forces the MSM to report such things, I would hope.
The weakness of GOPe and its unwillingness to fight against an evil, implacable, and relentless foe remain perhaps the principal reason why so many traditional and conservative Americans still favor Trump, despite his many mistakes as POTUS, despite his age, and despite his obvious personal flaws and foibles. This also accounts for the popularity of MTG, perhaps not the most refined or the most sophisticated, but smart, sensible, and possessed of more courage than most of the men in her party.
Our doubt is fueled by the fact that similar statements on other matters have been made in the past, only to disavowed in some “gentleman’s agreement” with the Democrats. In short, the GOP is very well known for “hanging tough for a news cycle or two”, and then caving when no one is paying attention any longer.
The real action is not reported in the news. That’s kind of the weakness of the Right blogosphere is that it is dependent on the media for source material, and what’s reported in the media on national politics is not only hopelessly biased but actually intended to conceal what is actually going on, by distracting people from appropriations, legislative maneuvering and the other procedural shenanigans that happen long before there is ever an up-and-down vote.
The RESTRICT Act, the debt ceiling, these are going to be reported on in such a way as to obscure what is actually happening and give cover to the GOPe politicians who will be enabling what the Dems want to do. Happens all the time.
For an overwhelming majority of likely GOP voters, the most important requirement is a willingness to fight. Any candidate who doesn’t demonstrate it vigorously and consistently has no chance of winning support.
People are getting tired of being punched in the face, stabbed in the back, and kicked below the belt. The GOP has an obligation to protect them. Even the cowards and grifters are beginning to figure this out.
Related? (yawn…)
“Senior IRS agent blows whistle, alleging Biden DOJ thwarting criminal prosecution of Hunter Biden;
“Whistleblower account to inspector general, notification to Congress calls into question AG Merrick Garland testimony.”—
https://justthenews.com/accountability/political-ethics/hldsenior-irs-agent-blows-whistle-alleging-bide-doj-thwarting
Opening graf:
‘A decorated supervisory IRS agent has reported to the Justice Department’s top watchdog that federal prosecutors appointed by Joe Biden have engaged in “preferential treatment and politics” to block criminal tax charges against presidential son Hunter Biden, providing evidence as a whistleblower that conflicts with Attorney General Merrick Garland’s recent testimony to Congress that the decision to bring charges against Biden was being left to the Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney for Delaware….’
Merrick Garland lying? Shocking, I tell you, SIMPLY SHOCKING! “Biden”, too. Omigosh…
(Looks like another day that ends with a “y”….)
Frederick:
Those things are being covered. I see articles about them. And in the past, the defections of the right have been fully covered, particularly the debt ceiling debacles, over and over. It is a perrenial topic.
I mentioned the RESTRICT act in this post. And it took me literally 5 seconds to find an article about it on the first blog I searched, here.
Perhaps you’re not paying enough attention to the coverage of these things.
@neo: I see articles about them.
You do. Articles that omit the information actually needed to understand what is really going on.
A few weeks ago we were talking about the Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act, it was in an article that mysteriously started with Obama signing the law, and neglected to mention how the law got passed by a Republican Senate with only one “no” vote.
I took some time to go over that, and I pieced together how it was done. I had to tease it out of a bunch of disconnected stuff , including some clues found on the Senate’s website.
It’s going to be the same with these other things: the mainstream media will have their narrative, and the Right-leaning media and blogosphere will start with that narrative and tweak it a little, and we’ll get conned one more time.
But it’s hard boring work to dig the missing facts out of everything that way. It would be hard to make that sort of work pay and people who have day jobs can’t find that kind of time, and maybe not even an audience.
the usual desinforma, first link
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2023/apr/19/instagram-posts/would-the-restrict-act-criminalize-the-use-of-vpns/
Maybe there’s a sorting going on, with Republicans who at heart were the old stereotypical country club, business before all else types deciding they don’t fit anymore and departing, and others who were pretty conventional low tax, small government, simple patriotism Republicans realizing that the Democrats simply don’t believe in anything like the same system they do, and therefore can’t be worked with on the basis that they’re working toward the same goal by the same rules. That’s a pretty un-Romneyish remark from Romney. Maybe a good sign.
Frederick:
Every time an act of Congress is passed by the left with cooperation from a few people (or many) on the right, I see articles on the right listing the turncoats. Over and over, for the whole time I’ve been blogging.
@neo:Every time is a bold statement. I know you see lots of them, and so do I. It’s a blogging mainstay. I’m not saying that never happens, I’m saying that “[such] articles… omit the information actually needed to understand what is really going on”, and “the mainstream media will have their narrative, and the Right-leaning media and blogosphere will start with that narrative and tweak it a little, and we’ll get conned one more time”.
None of these are refuted by your observation. And it’s not like much happens to the “turncoats”, is it? Sometimes we find out later, like 7 years later in the case of the Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act. And then we chase the next squirrel the media releases.
Frederick:
It happens so often that “every time” is not hyperbole and may even literally be true. And although of course the information is often not in the MSM, I never said it was. But it IS in the blogosphere on the right.
Whether the information leads to any change is an entirely different issue. But the information is readily available.
it happens most often then not like when they give an opening to the infrastructure bill or they vote for one or another horrible nominee, and then they complain, like the lion about the scorpion and the frog
@miguel: What I think you know, but not everyone knows, is that the votes in Congress for or against a bill are not the process, but the outcome of the process, and what the party leadership and whips are experts in is figuring out how to arrange a vote that gets the desired thing done but avoids accountability* for the vulnerable. It’s not much like Mr Smith Goes to Washington or even Schoolhouse Rock. You can see it at the state level too if you hang around your state Capitol enough.
And it’s this backstage maneuvering that doesn’t get written about; there’s not many people who see it happen, and it’s boring. The public statements and the culture war are there to distract from it.
*Each party has its Designated Mavericks which can take 100% of the blame, if necessary, in a closely divided Senate. There’s a lot of yakking about them in the media but they never get punished by losing committee seats or having their office moved to a broom closet or anything.
“…backstage maneuvering…”
Indeed.
“Leaker, Whistleblower, Racist, Spy;
“If the story of one of the largest security breaches in U.S. history sounds too good to be true, maybe that’s because it is?”—
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/leaker-whistleblower-racist-spy
Key grafs:
‘…[O]nce again, the Democrats have turned a national security issue into an instrument to serve party interests….
‘…House Speaker Kevin McCarthy tweeted that “The Biden administration has failed to secure classified information” and he promised to get answers. But that’s unlikely, given that the same intelligence bureaucracy that can’t store American secrets securely also routinely leaks those secrets for political and institutional advantage.
‘…So how did it take U.S. spy agencies nearly half a year to discover a historic leak of classified intelligence occurring in real time on right-wing websites?
‘ Maybe it didn’t take that long. Maybe they had been watching for a while. In any event, the administration is already using the leak to justify more internet surveillance, censorship, and propaganda….
‘ The other sure thing is that the political faction Biden heads will see Texeira’s crime as an opportunity to target its political opponents. And this is why the FBI coordinated with the press to set the narrative. White, Christian, working-class, a gun enthusiast who makes jokes about minorities: Texeira is one of them, a deplorable, an insurrectionist….’
“Texeira” is an unusual name for a non-Hispanic white. His grandfather immigrated from the Azores. He has better claim to Hispanic ethnicity than say, “Hilaria” Baldwin.