Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R-AR) said on Wednesday that Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) shouldn’t be punished with a removal from her post as conference chair for making a “vote of conscience” to impeach former President Donald Trump.
I don’t much care what Gov. Hutchinson thinks one way or the other but…
Pre-empting this line of argument seems exactly why Minority Liar McCarthy has been repeating the whopper that the lack of support for Cheney has nothing to do with the impeachment vote.
Such a bald lie on its face but they think they’re clever in that it gets them around this criticism.
The ‘boys’ in the Republican House are ‘punishing’ Liz for a vote of conscience because they HAVE none. They are ‘elevating’ a moderate Republican because she will promote the lie and worship at the … whatevers … of one Donald J. Trump.
The whole Cheney imbroglio makes a damning talking point for Democrats: even without Trump, the GOP continues doubling down as a Stalinist party, purging even otherwise hard-core ideologues who don’t pledge blind fealty to Stalin.
IOW: swing voters, don’t think that the GOP minus Trump is the party of Gerry Ford.
In any case, I don’t see why the Dems, who have apparently made a nice fundraising haul in 2021 so far, don’t blanket the airwaves about 6% GDP growth, rapidly falling unemployment, and a highly successful vaccine rollout.
The average goof out in TV Land doesn’t grasp why the sun shines and the grass is green. Dems have to tell them: because WE’RE running the government.
This has little or nothing to do with ideological conservatism or any coherent policy stance and consideration. It is, and always has been, about power and culture. Specifically, the power of rich white conservative dudes and the culture of racist white conservatives dudes. The former don’t want their taxes raised, businesses regulated and political power ebbing away, and the latter don’t want their white bread 1950’s fantasy of what Murca’s supposed to be like shattered. It’s 100% reactionary politics. The money and power reactionaries exploit the race and culture reactionaries to stay in power and get their way.
For a time the Nixon/Reagan/Bush/Cheney wing of the GOP controlled this reactionary movement–and the GOP has been increasingly about reactionary politics since Ike passed the baton to Nixon. And then the Gingrich/Limbaugh/Fox/Trump wing took it away from them and ran with it, and it’s not theirs anymore, and may well never be again. What we’re seeing is one of the last stages of this transfer of power within the GOP from its more “genteel” reactionary wing to its more populist one.
And since both wings always relied upon the support of their mostly working and middle class “regular people” voters, who are overwhelmingly white, non-urban and shall we say less “refined” (i.e. more domestic beer and brats vs merlot and brie), it was inevitable that this would happen. I’m surprised that it took so long. And power’s not going back to the more “genteel” wing any time soon, if ever. GOP voters want one of their own leading their party, or at least someone who’s good at pretending to be one of them, someone crude and openly racist, sexist and homophobic, a real red-blooded asshole like them. I.e. Trump.
The transformation that began in the late 40’s is now basically complete, and the Cheneys and Romneys of the party stand no chance. They’re going to have to stand back and play second or third fiddle, if that, or leave the party entirely and try to form a new one (good luck with that in terms of its having any political relevance for years to come, unless they can play spoiler). And they basically brought it upon themselves by embracing the politics of racist and nativist grievance. Ha ha, sucks to be you.
This joint venture of the nativists and whatever was left of traditional and country-club Republicans remains a joint venture. Forget that at least one partner is crazy and abusive, they still need each other to win elections. So far, Trump has merely threatened loss to keep his partner in line, but two can play brinksmanship. “Never Trumpster” is still a concept that could be used for leverage and I suspect that the anti-Trump wing sees themselves as smarter than the average Trumpster. The problem is that the traditional group has a lot of religious people, an elderly demographic. The Trumpsters are Children of the Reagan Revolution. If you are Fox, and your average viewer is in their 70s, you have to covet this younger demographic.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has been particularly pointed about trying to steer the narrative away from Cheney’s vote — contending that calls for her replacement had more to do with her ability to carry a unifying message to help Republicans stack wins in 2022.
Only problem: that “unifying message” happens to be the lie about a stolen election.
What I want to know is: who’s going to explain the meaning of the word “conscience” to McQarthy? Maybe it’ll be the same person who explains “truth” to Trump.
Cheney’s concern may have less to do with saving American democracy and more to do with saving the Republican Party from the Trump wing.
She comes from Republican royalty, so she can easily find the backbone to speak truth to the McCarthys. Then add to that the likelihood that she sees the writing on the wall: if Trump remains in control of the party into next year, they are fucked in the midterms. Why? Because he will find a way to fuck up. He always does. Case in point: Georgia.
And every time a Trump favourite wins a primary, there will come a new and improved Democratic opportunity.
So she’s speaking up in hopes of turning things around before it’s too late. It’s a lonely task, however. Hers is currently a voice in the Republican wilderness.