I realize that “Hope Springs Eternal”, but can we once and for all stop talking about the “normies” in today’s Republican Party?
Seriously, the unanimous election of a MAGA Speaker of the House reminds me of Hitler’s legal path to power. THIS is the scariest moment I’ve had for our country and our people, since it all began in 2015. First…
I realize that “Hope Springs Eternal”, but can we once and for all stop talking about the “normies” in today’s Republican Party?
Seriously, the unanimous election of a MAGA Speaker of the House reminds me of Hitler’s legal path to power. THIS is the scariest moment I’ve had for our country and our people, since it all began in 2015. First, it was okay because off-camera the “normies” all said the right things – they were as shocked and disgusted as the rest of us. Then they started down-playing the severity of what we were seeing and hearing with our own eyes and ears. Then they started going along to get along, but “assuring” us that it wasn’t as bad as we thought.
NEVER speak to me again about the “normies” in terms of the rock and the hard place they find themselves in, poor dears…. Hostages of trump and his MAGA base…. It’s of their own making and they will eventually succeed in bringing down our Republic, our Democracy, our Constitution. For what? Greed, power, relevance, job security, cowardice?
If you’re willing to trade your party (and our country) for an authoritarian movement, you deserve nothing but CONDEMNATION. PERIOD. History (if indeed it survives), will be clear-eyed about it, and so should all of us, starting here, starting now….
Perhaps the professionals should take a cue from JVL. Stop writing about the polls showing people think Biden is too old – start writing about why Biden’s experience is precisely what we need at this very hour of our nation’s peril.
We have barely 12 months left to turn the tide, and hopefully save what we value and cherish, not only for ourselves, but for our children, grandchildren, and all generations to come. We best heed the call…. EACH and EVERY ONE of US….
Especially in MSM. Please stop saying nice things about these terrible people. I'm glad that in many articles I see their crazy laid out, but a lot of the coverage was straight horserace stuff. Stop acting like these people are just same-old people. It's a party of your craziest uncles and aunts and they all have the power to make your life Hell.
But of course. Because that's EXACTLY what this is. We are witnessing a 1933 redux. These people have studied the playbook -- God knows Bannon has it memorized. How do the people in this country not understand that they're going to be extremely shocked as their freedoms are taken from them one by one, day by day, starting with the media. Freedom of speech? Hah.
I think they’ll be OK with it as long as everybody loses their freedoms. So many of our fellow citizens have long ago stopped trying to improve their lot. They just want to see everybody else be stripped of what they don’t have....
I saw Heather Cox Richardson say to Judy Woodruff in her book tour interview that once a democracy is lost, there’s usually no return. The first Trump election was a dress rehearsal for authoritarianism.
This ought to put an end to the nonsensical claims of Reaganite Republicans that "sanity will prevail" and "true Republicanism" will return. JVL has realized that his team lost and is no longer even in the league. When will other Weekly Standard alumni accept that? The Republicon Party (of the Old South) is now the MAGA party and will remain so if Trump succumbs to cheeseburgers tomorrow. Carlson, Rogan, Bongino, Hannity, Bannon, etc. are the real party leaders. Trump is merely the avatar of that angertainment. And a third of the population only wants more of it, not effective governance.
Agreed. At this point they voted away their normie title. Like every other opportunity for an off ramp, they voted to stay on the highway to hell and drag us along with them. They are not normal. They cowards and should be called out as such.
As JVL has referred to them, the "normies" are the company men of the party. Kevin McCarthy is the quintessential example- he's not a natural demagogue, so his post-political career is lobbying and think tank grifting, not being the next Tucker. So for people like him, there as to be machinery and structure to exist in.
For the Gaetz and Lake types, they need less machinery to work and more just a platform to be seen from.
So the company men will hold out against the demagogues in defense of the company, up to the point where continued resistance will significantly damage the company.
Jordan was a bad brand, already unpopular with anyone not in his wing. Keeping him out was worth the fight.
But three nominees down (with one only lasting four hours) the company was bleeding and if not Johnson it was going to be some other MAGA Trump trash. At that point the resistance damages the company more than the nominee.
It's a rational equation from their pov, if one that abandons principles beyond the party and their place in it.
Maybe they rationalized that the honorable Mr. Johnson was much more easily digestible than the offensive Mr. Jordan. Or even less threatening. And therefore even more dangerous to folks who don’t mind holding their noses before they pull the lever in the voting booth....
Probably part of the calculus, and also just that the whole thing had become a national-scale embarrassment and if it dragged out to the point of a shutdown then it really would've hammered them.
Yes, I agree with that; I had a strong feeling that whoever was the nominee in the third round was going to prevail. The public humiliation for the GOP was becoming too big to ignore. Johnson won the Chair by the dumb luck of timing. Still, it’s shocking to see how easily Trump pulls the strings, and they surrender.
I've never really understood the company man mindset, but I'm an ethos over institutions kind of guy.
That said, good company men in a good company can make great things, so I'm not laying in some smug here.
The problem comes when the company goes bad and the careerists decide to keep on trucking. And so it is here, Emmer does all the work to get the nod, takes the knife and promptly, completely folds.
But he'll probably still be there when Trump is gone, a senior member with attached privileges who is getting invited to the meetings. Or he'll be in the adjacent lobbyist infrastructure pulling the respectable wages.
It's the easy road. Take the hit, show your throat and roll over. Life goes on.
There's a profitable section of the GOP that can probably be saved for them, though. What it comes down to is that when Trump dies, the strong likelihood is that MAGA fragments into a thousand different shards centering around flavor of the week shouters, and the remaining institutional strength of the company men lets them keep the business going. That's why the likes of Emmer don't do the Cheney- stay inside, wait for the Trump storm to blow out, be kings of the rubble. Cheney, Kinzinger, our Bulwark crew here have migrated to no man's land where they may get some respect, but nobody's bringing them into the room for strategy conferences or appointing them to cabinet positions.
Honestly, I don't think that's the worst bet on the company men's wing, either. It's a craven, cowardly, despicable choice. But it preserves career options. MAGA celebrities bubble up, get too close to the sun, and melt. Remember when MTG was on the short list of names people were floating from Trump's veep pick? She was by visible evidence utterly irrelevant to the process this time around and the incoming speaker has zero reason to favor her. Her days of getting to sit in the borrowed chair and bang the gavel are probably done.
I realize that “Hope Springs Eternal”, but can we once and for all stop talking about the “normies” in today’s Republican Party?
Seriously, the unanimous election of a MAGA Speaker of the House reminds me of Hitler’s legal path to power. THIS is the scariest moment I’ve had for our country and our people, since it all began in 2015. First, it was okay because off-camera the “normies” all said the right things – they were as shocked and disgusted as the rest of us. Then they started down-playing the severity of what we were seeing and hearing with our own eyes and ears. Then they started going along to get along, but “assuring” us that it wasn’t as bad as we thought.
NEVER speak to me again about the “normies” in terms of the rock and the hard place they find themselves in, poor dears…. Hostages of trump and his MAGA base…. It’s of their own making and they will eventually succeed in bringing down our Republic, our Democracy, our Constitution. For what? Greed, power, relevance, job security, cowardice?
If you’re willing to trade your party (and our country) for an authoritarian movement, you deserve nothing but CONDEMNATION. PERIOD. History (if indeed it survives), will be clear-eyed about it, and so should all of us, starting here, starting now….
Perhaps the professionals should take a cue from JVL. Stop writing about the polls showing people think Biden is too old – start writing about why Biden’s experience is precisely what we need at this very hour of our nation’s peril.
We have barely 12 months left to turn the tide, and hopefully save what we value and cherish, not only for ourselves, but for our children, grandchildren, and all generations to come. We best heed the call…. EACH and EVERY ONE of US….
If I may quote the Fascist Caucus, “Shut up!”
Especially in MSM. Please stop saying nice things about these terrible people. I'm glad that in many articles I see their crazy laid out, but a lot of the coverage was straight horserace stuff. Stop acting like these people are just same-old people. It's a party of your craziest uncles and aunts and they all have the power to make your life Hell.
But of course. Because that's EXACTLY what this is. We are witnessing a 1933 redux. These people have studied the playbook -- God knows Bannon has it memorized. How do the people in this country not understand that they're going to be extremely shocked as their freedoms are taken from them one by one, day by day, starting with the media. Freedom of speech? Hah.
I think they’ll be OK with it as long as everybody loses their freedoms. So many of our fellow citizens have long ago stopped trying to improve their lot. They just want to see everybody else be stripped of what they don’t have....
And they'll be powerless to do anything about it by that point, because "elections" will be nothing more than window-dressing...
I saw Heather Cox Richardson say to Judy Woodruff in her book tour interview that once a democracy is lost, there’s usually no return. The first Trump election was a dress rehearsal for authoritarianism.
This ought to put an end to the nonsensical claims of Reaganite Republicans that "sanity will prevail" and "true Republicanism" will return. JVL has realized that his team lost and is no longer even in the league. When will other Weekly Standard alumni accept that? The Republicon Party (of the Old South) is now the MAGA party and will remain so if Trump succumbs to cheeseburgers tomorrow. Carlson, Rogan, Bongino, Hannity, Bannon, etc. are the real party leaders. Trump is merely the avatar of that angertainment. And a third of the population only wants more of it, not effective governance.
Agreed. At this point they voted away their normie title. Like every other opportunity for an off ramp, they voted to stay on the highway to hell and drag us along with them. They are not normal. They cowards and should be called out as such.
As JVL has referred to them, the "normies" are the company men of the party. Kevin McCarthy is the quintessential example- he's not a natural demagogue, so his post-political career is lobbying and think tank grifting, not being the next Tucker. So for people like him, there as to be machinery and structure to exist in.
For the Gaetz and Lake types, they need less machinery to work and more just a platform to be seen from.
So the company men will hold out against the demagogues in defense of the company, up to the point where continued resistance will significantly damage the company.
Jordan was a bad brand, already unpopular with anyone not in his wing. Keeping him out was worth the fight.
But three nominees down (with one only lasting four hours) the company was bleeding and if not Johnson it was going to be some other MAGA Trump trash. At that point the resistance damages the company more than the nominee.
It's a rational equation from their pov, if one that abandons principles beyond the party and their place in it.
Maybe they rationalized that the honorable Mr. Johnson was much more easily digestible than the offensive Mr. Jordan. Or even less threatening. And therefore even more dangerous to folks who don’t mind holding their noses before they pull the lever in the voting booth....
A wolf in sheep’s clothing. Beware, he’s as extremist as they come and a bible-thumper to boot.
Probably part of the calculus, and also just that the whole thing had become a national-scale embarrassment and if it dragged out to the point of a shutdown then it really would've hammered them.
Yes, I agree with that; I had a strong feeling that whoever was the nominee in the third round was going to prevail. The public humiliation for the GOP was becoming too big to ignore. Johnson won the Chair by the dumb luck of timing. Still, it’s shocking to see how easily Trump pulls the strings, and they surrender.
I've never really understood the company man mindset, but I'm an ethos over institutions kind of guy.
That said, good company men in a good company can make great things, so I'm not laying in some smug here.
The problem comes when the company goes bad and the careerists decide to keep on trucking. And so it is here, Emmer does all the work to get the nod, takes the knife and promptly, completely folds.
But he'll probably still be there when Trump is gone, a senior member with attached privileges who is getting invited to the meetings. Or he'll be in the adjacent lobbyist infrastructure pulling the respectable wages.
It's the easy road. Take the hit, show your throat and roll over. Life goes on.
I think your assessment is correct. Unfortunately the strategy is based on another big lie...that there is a sane GOP left to save. There isn't.
There's a profitable section of the GOP that can probably be saved for them, though. What it comes down to is that when Trump dies, the strong likelihood is that MAGA fragments into a thousand different shards centering around flavor of the week shouters, and the remaining institutional strength of the company men lets them keep the business going. That's why the likes of Emmer don't do the Cheney- stay inside, wait for the Trump storm to blow out, be kings of the rubble. Cheney, Kinzinger, our Bulwark crew here have migrated to no man's land where they may get some respect, but nobody's bringing them into the room for strategy conferences or appointing them to cabinet positions.
Honestly, I don't think that's the worst bet on the company men's wing, either. It's a craven, cowardly, despicable choice. But it preserves career options. MAGA celebrities bubble up, get too close to the sun, and melt. Remember when MTG was on the short list of names people were floating from Trump's veep pick? She was by visible evidence utterly irrelevant to the process this time around and the incoming speaker has zero reason to favor her. Her days of getting to sit in the borrowed chair and bang the gavel are probably done.
Yet another rational calculation from their pov that gets them through another day, to the detriment of the country as a whole.
Fuck Don Bacon.