It's Getting Worse, Isn't It?

We have some catching up to do.

(Photo by GIORGIO VIERA/AFP via Getty Images)

I’ve only been on vacation for two weeks and look what a fine mess you’ve made.

The right’s latest heartthrob, RFK Jr., put on the full tinfoil armor of antisemitic lunacy; the Christian Right turned its lonely eyes to … Tucker Carlson; the successor to CPAC is even worse than the Star Wars bar scene it replaced; an increasingly desperate Ron DeSantis put out an anti-LGBTQ video that channeled the Westboro Baptist Church; the House GOP held national defense hostage to its culture war agenda; Republican candidates got booed for even modest forays into common sense; the No Labels folks doubled down on their grift; and DJT’s grip on the GOP grew stronger than ever.

Speaking of the party of small government:

Donald J. Trump and his allies are planning a sweeping expansion of presidential power over the machinery of government if voters return him to the White House in 2025, reshaping the structure of the executive branch to concentrate far greater authority directly in his hands.

Their plans to centralize more power in the Oval Office stretch far beyond the former president’s recent remarks that he would order a criminal investigation into his political rival, President Biden, signaling his intent to end the post-Watergate norm of Justice Department independence from White House political control.

Mr. Trump and his associates have a broader goal: to alter the balance of power by increasing the president’s authority over every part of the federal government that now operates, by either law or tradition, with any measure of independence from political interference by the White House, according to a review of his campaign policy proposals and interviews with people close to him.

Happy Tuesday!

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We have some catching up to do, don’t we?

You thought CPAC was a sh*tshow on steroids? Just when you think it couldn’t get worse, along comes Charlie Kirk and TPUSA. As Nick Catoggio noted yesterday:

The next generation of right-wing activists is terrible.

This weekend was the occasion of the annual Turning Point USA Conference, the most august event on the populist vaudeville circuit.

That distinction used to belong to CPAC, but CPAC has been diminished by scandal and, frankly, a dearth of showmanship. A party led by a TV celebrity and populated by voters who treat politics like wrestling demands a certain amount of pyrotechnics in its pageants. TPUSA understands that.

Even the nomenclature feels significant. The Conservative Political Action Coalition is an awkward fit for a movement that isn’t very conservative anymore except insofar as “conservative” is an antonym for “left-wing.” An outfit that sheds distinct ideological beliefs for gassy apocalypticism—America is at a turning point—better suits the feral nihilism of the “Flight 93 Election” right.

Naturally, this sort of rancid demagoguery was on offer all weekend:

And, to the surprise of no one:

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Putin’s Most Useful Idiot Does Iowa

The TPUSA confab followed the latest iteration of the Tucker Show in Iowa. ICYMI: “Tucker Carlson Turns a Christian Presidential Forum Into a Putin Showcase.”

Bob Vander Plaats, the conservative evangelical kingmaker in Iowa politics, now knows what happens when you turn over your Republican presidential showcase to Tucker Carlson.

Jesus is out. Vladimir V. Putin is in.

Mr. Carlson was given the task of interviewing six Republican presidential hopefuls at the Family Leadership conference in Des Moines on Friday. Consequently, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine became the dominant issue of debate, on a day when Gov. Kim Reynolds of Iowa used the event to sign a near-total abortion ban into law.

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Meanwhile, the GOP increasingly embraces the loony left. As JVL noted last week, “The Leading Republican Presidential Candidates Are Running (Way) to Biden’s Left on Ukraine.” In the House, Matt Gaetz put forward an amendment to cut off U.S. military aid to Ukraine.

This amendment—which could just as easily have come from Code Pink—failed. Even a majority of Republican members voted against it.

Yet most of the leading Republican presidential candidates are closer to Gaetz on Ukraine than they are to even the main body of the GOP in the House.

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ICYMI, this happened last week:

The House on Friday narrowly approved the must-pass defense policy bill, ending uncertainty about its fate after Republicans pushed through a series of conservative policy amendments on abortion, diversity, equity and inclusion programs, and gender transition procedures.

NYT’s Michelle Cottle mused: ““Some days, Speaker Kevin McCarthy must look out over this House conference in awe and think: Are you maniacs trying to lose us the majority?”"

Mr. McCarthy’s debt-deal machinations this spring won plaudits from many political watchers: What leadership skill! Maybe we underestimated him! Maybe he really can keep his conference in line! But his hard-liners raged that he had sold them out, and they promptly committed to making the House as dysfunctional as possible, even if it meant bogging down their own team’s policy goals. Their hostage-taking and acting-out have been a warning to Mr. McCarthy: Fool us once, and we’ll turn this chamber into a do-nothing freak show just to teach you a lesson. Try to fool us twice, and things will get really dark and weird.

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But McCarthy is hardly a victim here. Last week found the self-gelded Speaker actually doubling down on the Hunter Biden “informant,” who’s been indicted as a Chinese spy.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) argued Thursday that the unsealing of an indictment against a key informant in the Hunter Biden investigation only buttresses Republicans’ case against the first son.

Democrats have needled the GOP over the indictment of Gal Luft on eight counts — including acting as an unregistered foreign agent of Beijing — by suggesting Republicans got taken by a fugitive out to save himself by leveling wild accusations against the first family.

“It wouldn’t undermine that case because if you extrapolate that even further, the Justice Department went after him,” McCarthy told reporters.

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And over in the Senate:

In the Senate, GOP Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville has been blocking military nominations and promotions over the military abortion policy, which covers certain abortion-related travel expenses for service members based in states with restrictive reproductive healthcare laws.

Lisa Murkowski has some thoughts:

“We should be concerned about this as Republicans. I’m having more ‘rational Republicans’ coming up to me and saying, ‘I just don’t know how long I can stay in this party,’” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). “Now our party is becoming known as a group of kind of extremist, populist over-the-top [people] where no one is taking us seriously anymore.”

You think?

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Meanwhile, in Arizona, College Republicans platform an actual neo-Nazi.

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This is going well, isn’t it?

It’s no secret that the relationship between Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert has never been worse. The two U.S. representatives yelled at each other on and off the House floor. Greene recently called Boebert a “little bitch” to her face. And Boebert supported Greene’s removal from the Freedom Caucus.

But, lawmakers told The Daily Beast, the situation between the two is still even worse than most people think.

“A fistfight could break out at any moment,” Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) told The Daily Beast.

Burchett, who later clarified that he was serious, said he was enjoying the standoff as a “professional wrestling fan.”

“I am friends with both of them. It’s entertaining to think that a fistfight could break out at any movement. I kind of dig that,” he continued.

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What did I miss?

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Quick Hits

1. President Candace

In today’s Bulwark, Tim Miller has a deep dive into the MAGA mom vlogger-in-chief.

Because once you’ve decided that people who have turned the culture into something you don’t know and you don’t recognize are all part of the same team that must be defeated, you see them everywhere you look. 

It’s only natural, then, to think that the best way to fight the cultural hegemons is with someone who understands how to beat them at their own game. Someone like Trump. 

The next person who makes it seem as if they can do that will be his true heir. 

And who better than Candace? 

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2. Joe Manchin Is Attacking Democrats As If He’s a Republican

Jill Lawrence in today’s Bulwark:

The elusive West Virginia Democrat is in the middle of (yet another) extended run of driving both parties crazy as he publicly mulls whether to run for re-election to the Senate or run for president on a third-party ticket. He could also decide to retire (he’ll turn 76 next month), but that seems the least likely path for someone who has such obvious enthusiasm for negotiating, deal-making, and being in the thick of the political fray.

My theory based on the evidence to date is that ultimately, when Manchin announces his decision at year’s end, he will tell us he is running for re-election. But first he will tease state and national Republicans with the prospect of an open Senate seat and/or a bipartisan No Labels ticket that polling shows would drain votes from President Joe Biden and elect the GOP nominee. If that is Donald Trump, it’s no stretch to predict disaster will follow.

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Cheap Shots

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