Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Jeffrey M. Leatherwood's avatar

On the story concerning the gunslinging GOP, I have this little vignette to share. My father was a 20-year Army NCO with two combat tours in Southeast Asia. As a boy, he urged me to stand up to school bullies if cornered. But he also discouraged me from walking around my neighborhood with a stick or other weapons because in his words: "It'll make other people think you're looking for a fight."

Are these GOP 2A people merely cosplaying? Or is it the beginning of a new brinkmanship? If it is the latter, then I encourage my neighbors not to play their games. Just as I listened to my Dad's advice, I also listened to my wife when we were at the Antietam Battlefield about ten years ago. There were three KKK members loitering outside the visitor center, wearing "Invisible Empire" tee-shirts.

As a history professor and an Army vet in my own right, my first impulse was to walk right up to these three losers and give them a piece of my mind. But my wife told me this is exactly what they want -- attention in the media. If we give them what they want and a fight ensues, then regardless of what the news actually says, these right-wing nuts will just turn it around to their own advantage.

So let them post their inciteful photos and stage their rallies. Instead of clicks, let them hear crickets!

Expand full comment
Tim Coffey's avatar

ā€œGOP Rep. Struggles to Defend Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Homeland Security Committee Post When Confronted on Her 9/11 Trutherism.

ā€œLook, this is 2018. I will tell you she has matured,ā€ said McCaul. ā€œI think she realizes she doesn’t know everything, and she wants to learn and become I think more of a team player. I think it’s incumbent upon more senior members to try to — she’s a member of Congress — bring her in and try to educate her that these theories that she has are not accurate.ā€

Marjorie Taylor Greene? Team player? This is BS. MTG got into politics to be famous, to be on NewsMax, OANN, Fox, etc., and to rub shoulders with Trump and affluent far right deplorables. This is why she's on the road far more often than she's in her district. Her whole career depends on grandstanding, and maturing doesn't factor into her personal equation.

Expand full comment
267 more comments...