This is the last Morning Memo of 2022. We’ll see you back here Jan. 3. Happiest of holidays to you and yours.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1443158
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1443158
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First? No cat also should be asleep
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True to its core:
Accountability for a president who uses the great power of his office to flout and undermine the rule of law is essential, but the rule of law will not long survive if its only defenders are federal prosecutors.
Some people want to be ruled. They want someone like Putin, Orban, and Xi to make unilateral decisions. This reality has become so clear since tens of millions of people voted for the person who said, “I alone can fix it.”
I don’t know how to fix that. Also … not FIStR!
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“The Republic will remain in peril so long as the democratic consensus is broken.”
If that’s the case, unfortunately it is going to be in trouble for a long time. The GOP and the right wing media have increasingly strong incentives to encourage and expand social divisions. I often use Fox News as a symbol, but as long as its main hosts are able to lie at will, it is hard to see a reforming of consensus.
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You know those things that people said George Santos would be going through? He is starting to go through those things.
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A dominant theme of the Trump era is the reluctance and in some ways the inability of American political culture to grasp the threat he poses.
I confess that for a long time, I was in that “inability” group. To borrow a term from another context, the entirety of the Trump administration (and the near-total falling-into-line of the GOPers) is such a black swan event that it just defied my ability to see it as something other, and more insidious, than an anomaly. The report drives home, though, that embedded in conservative politics are people willing, if called upon, to circumvent and, if they feel it necessary, to attack, with literal violence, the rule of law. All they needed to hear was the call from someone willing to make it. Trump happened to be that person–this time. But the report indicates to me that it could have been anyone else of a similar mindset.
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Wishing Everyone on TPM-Hive a very buzzy, safe and happy holiday season.
Here’s a reflection of where I live.
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Trump didn’t create the current iteration of the Republican Party. The modern Republican Party created Trump.
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Santos is going to tell his story “next week.” I thought two weeks was the go to time frame for MAGAts?
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‘I have multiple personalities. The person who made all of those claims was Dirk, my secondary personality. They may have all been false, but he believes them to be true. I can’t speak for Dirk, but I can only tell you what I believe: lowering inflation, public debt and crime!’
What’s more likely if he does actually issue any statement or make any speech is just a completely new set of lies to overwrite the previous ones!
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He needs the extra week to complete his Obamacare replacement and to write his infrastructure bill. Making up new lies takes less time.
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I shudder to think that Herschel Walker could be his soulmate.
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I don’t imagine much. For the most part the committee was either preaching to the choir or giving a “beef it’s what’s for dinner” speech to a vegan society. I can’t imagine it swayed many people one way or the other. Nice stuff to know but America has a history of just not fixing the big shit. Mỹ Lai, Iran Contra, WMD…nada. I’d bet a big wad that’s the case here.
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A quick glance at that sphere instantly brought to mind Phantasm.
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I’m sure Santos’ story will sound a lot like Gollum.
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Swaying people really wasn’t the point, though, I don’t think. They can’t have been so obtuse as to actually think they were going to change minds.
Rather, it was important to get a version of the story in the record for the history books that does not reflect the poor freedom-loving heroes being beaten and shot by the police, rounded up and thrown into prison under horrific conditions for having stood up for freedom and democracy in peaceful and lawful protest.
That’ll be important as the years slip by, memories fade, Netflix decides to take some liberties with facts filming a mini series on it, etc.
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I remember being troubled when Karl Rove said “We’re creating our own reality” shortly after W was installed and now here we are.
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Greatness:
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