How Democrats Should Run

Don’t make this election about Trump, but draw a sharp contrast with Trumpism.

--Advice of Democratic political consultants for 2022 Congressional candidates, reported by the WashPost

I think that advice is pretty good.

I try not to focus on Trump at all on this site (though I lapse sometimes, like when I got recently fascinated by the theory of Trump and "the Drunken Fist"), but "Trumpism" became a search label on WataugaWatch before 2020 and has racked up many pings in 2021 and 2022. The Trumpists are raging. They're mad. They smell blood (which may turn out to be turtle poo), and they have plans for you. Especially you. They aren't afraid to say what some people consider outrageous things because they're just being themselves, finally released from the bindings of political correctness. 

Women, they have further plans for you. And you, the young and the restless, and you, Black and brown people, and newcomers to these shores from non-European nations. They have plans for all of you (and their Christian nationalist branch has definite plans for public schools and public libraries and the regulation of private behavior.

"The Purge," 2013, Universal Picts.

Gosh. The Trump GOP has created a brand -- "We stand for cruelty and force" -- that just might scorch them. 

What does it mean, after all, that Trumpists love a purge? They run off their best talent, censor them, vote them out in nasty primaries. Because those people do not kiss the ring. Those interior eliminations by the Republicans themselves become ultra mean because that's the way their leader behaves. That's his identity, and now it's become the identity of an entire political party. Hey candidates: do your best Trump, talk tough, spout conspiracy theories and rabid ideas, make your nonsense sound unassailable, and push extreme laws that strip, say, women of equal citizenship in the name of religion. 

Today it's as though Liz Cheney got denounced to the Congregation of the Holy Office (Inquisition) and was quickly condemned to an auto-da-fe ("act of faith") when the Pope Hisself marked her for death, and the Republican voters cult-like piled up the dry wood for her immolation. She's being (by all reliable reports) burned at the stake today, an actually thoughtful, knowledgeable, philosophically consistent member of Congress whose integrity cannot be abided by Trump or by his Trumpists.

Because counter-reformation Christians considered it an "act of faith"
to burn certain people at the stake, the above is a contemporary illustration
of an Auto-da-fe in Valladolid, Spain, May 21, 1559

“I think this is much bigger than Trump. This is about a radical MAGA Republican Party that wants to take away your rights, your benefits, your freedoms,” DCCC Chairman Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.) said. That's it, that's the message and the issue that can energize the Democratic base and draw the Unaffiliated.

On the NCGOP Election Slate, It's Election Deniers (All the Way Down)

 

"I say this to my Republican colleagues
who are defending the indefensible.
There will come a day when Donald
Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain."
--Liz Chaney

Congresswoman Virginia Foxx voted to overturn the Pennsylvania presidential vote in favor of Donald Trump on January 6th. Then there was a riot. Angry and deluded people broke in, and when it was over and she got back to the House chamber, Foxx changed her tune and voted to certify the Arizona results, while many of her fellow Republicans from North Carolina continued to push the big lie that somehow the election was stolen from Donald J. Trump. They rejected the Arizona vote despite the riot they had just escaped.

About a month after the election, Congressman Ted Budd, the eventual NCGOP nominee for US Senate, fed the fantasies of a stolen election  -- "millions of Americans do not have faith in the November election" -- and on January 6th voted against certifying the tallies in both Pennsylvania and Arizona.

Both Foxx and Budd are either playing it for effect, or they believe the lie. Both alternatives are disqualifiers for public office, or ought to be.

As we learn now almost daily via Liz Chaney et al. -- the Big Lie was not only the spearpoint of a scheme to seize power but also a grift to fleece gullible Trumpists of their cash. So how are we to live with Republicans like Foxx and Budd and the whole tribe who have refurbished their entire political lives around the make-believe of a would-be dictator?

Our shared oxygen ought to burn the lungs.

Virginia Foxx Purges Liz Cheney

 

Bless Virginia Foxx's capacious heart! She's shared her remarks from this morning when she was sliding a 10-inch stiletto into Liz Cheney's heart in the Republican caucus.

What She Said:

"We have always had space for diverse views in this conference and many here can testify to that, but for us to be a majority we must come together and agree on a course of action."

What She Meant:

I mean, you can have roast chicken or fried chicken or chicken and dumplings, or lemon chicken is not out of the question, and I know that some even tolerate kung pao chicken, though I think -- and I've actually prayed about it -- that Mexican chili chicken pizza is going too far.

..............

What She Said:

"Our conference’s main goal now is fighting for sound, conservative policies that will resonate and regain the majority in 2022."

What She Meant:

Did you know that if you stretch a drumhead tight enough you can vibrate down a mountain to an ant hill, if not a large building?

.............

What She Said:

"...our vision for this country is fundamentally and undeniably better than what Speaker Pelosi is offering our country."

What She Meant:

Betelguese! Betelguese! Betelguese!

..............

What She Said:

"Unfortunately, we have been distracted from that goal by your continued statements sowing confusion with the public on our message and agenda."

What She Meant:

MAGA to you, and covfefe forever to unite a bewildered nation in his blessed vision!

Et Tu, Virginia? Foxx To Place the Ceremonial Knife in Liz Cheney's Back

 

Separated by Trump--
V. Foxx on the right, Liz Cheney on the left

Politico reported that Congresswoman Virginia Foxx has been selected (or volunteered, bless her heart) to introduce the formal resolution in the Republican caucus to remove Liz Cheney from House Republican leadership.

Politico reported that "Foxx ... spoke out against Cheney during February’s closed-door meeting on the Wyoming Republican's future, according to multiple party sources. Ahead of this year's failed first attempt to oust Cheney from leadership, Foxx specifically took issue with the fact that Cheney used her 'conference chair' title in the press release announcing her vote to impeach then-President Donald Trump."

Politico also guesses that Foxx's 2022 primary challenger, Bo Hines, has something to do with her decision to pile on Cheney for her insufficient loyalty to the former president: "...Foxx, the top Republican on the House Education and Labor Committee, is notably facing a far-right primary challenger who is accusing her of staying in office too long and being part of the capital's 'swamp.' Her leading role in Cheney's now-inevitable leadership eviction could help her in that fight."

The plan to tap Foxx for the resolution was hatched in recent days. GOP leaders made a calculation that if the effort to remove Cheney from leadership was led by ultra-conservative members of the House Freedom Caucus, their involvement could turn off other more moderate members. Instead, they wanted a Republican to lead the anti-Cheney charge who is both less polarizing and a woman, easing some of the political awkwardness associated with removing the highest-ranking GOP woman in Congress from her role as conference chair.

Foxx ... "less polarizing"? Also ... "a woman"? Personally, we haven't seen that long-form birth certificate. 

Your Once and Future GOP

 

I started to write a post yesterday, speculating on what would happen in the US House Republican conference as it took up two problem children --  Liz Cheney, because of her impeachment vote, and Marjorie Taylor Greene, because of being one sick honey badger. Wouldn't it be cute, I started to write, if Liz Cheney ended up being the only person punished for the January 6th Capitol siege?

What happened was even worse. The Republican members of Congress decided to hug both women and make room for Greene's craziness while allowing Cheney to vote her conscience on Trump. Liz Cheney survived with only 61 votes against her. Those were the never-surrender Trumpist acolytes who intend to punish any Republican who fails to offer loyalty to the ex-president. Greene for her part got a standing ovation, we hear, apparently for saying she was sorry for the trouble she'd caused everyone else. But no apology, in true Trumpist form. “I won’t back down. I’ll never apologize,” she tweeted Saturday.

So it's up to the Democrats to strip Greene of her committees, and they will, we trust, later today.