So this is fine, I guess. As long as it’s white people insisting on putting vast numbers of people in danger because wearing a mask is an infringement of their freedom:
Angry, maskless spectators forced themselves into the Idaho House special session on the coronavirus pandemic Monday, shattering a glass door, rushing into the gallery that had limited seating because of the virus and forcing lawmakers to ask for calm in a crowd that included a man carrying an assault-style weapon.
After some people shoved their way past Idaho State Police, Republican House Speaker Scott Bedke allowed the gallery to fully open as long as the crowd stopped chanting and was respectful.
“I want to always try to avoid violence,” he told The Associated Press later. “My initial reaction of course was to clear the fourth floor. But we had room for at least some more.”
Several conservative lawmakers asked for calm and decorum from the gallery crowd that included a man armed with an assault-style weapon. The session started with a full gallery and few masks.
That carried over into packed committee rooms, where maskless spectators ignored social distancing. One Democratic representative walked out of a committee meeting, citing unsafe conditions.
I would guess these ARE suburban white people. They aren’t getting tear gassed or beaten with night sticks. But they are sitting in large groups, INDOORS, unmasked and putting everyone around them at risk, including dozens more they come in contact with when they leave this place.
Who’s the bigger danger to the suburbs? Black Lives Matter or these people?
During the first night of the Republican National Convention, the word “cocaine” started to trend on Twitter, and not because there was any breaking news about the infamous party drug. No, it’s because many of the speakers at the convention brought a hyperactive bombast to the proceedings that was highly reminiscent of the effects of cocaine and other illegal stimulants. Watching some of the speeches, in fact, felt quite a bit like sitting through that scene in “Boogie Nights” where a menacing half-naked cocaine dealer brandishes a gun while pacing and ranting to 1980s hits like “Sister Christian” and “Jessie’s Girl.” The only thing missing was a dude in the corner setting off fireworks randomly to keep people even more on edge.
In particular, Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, along with his girlfriend, former Fox News host and current Trump campaign factotum Kimberly Guilfoyle, delivered speeches that caused widespread speculation on social media about the use of chemical assistance.
“Don’t let the Democrats take you for granted. Don’t let them step on you. Don’t let them destroy your families, your lives and your future. Don’t let them kill future generations because they told you and brainwashed you and fed you lies that you weren’t good enough,” Guilfoyle ranted in a speech so hyperventilating and ridiculous that Mother Jones paired it with North Korean propaganda music.
Trump Jr. brought another variation on the cocaine aesthetic, with his hurried speech, bloodshot eyes and skin shining with sweat as he gravely declared that “the radical left” wants “to bully us into submission.”
There was even a hat-tip to the unhinged gun-waving with the presence of Mark and Patricia McCloskey, a St. Louis couple who became right-wing heroes after being photographed swinging their guns like “Scarface” characters at a bunch of Black Lives Matters protesters who passed by their home earlier this summer. A video of their bizarre meltdown was played at the RNC before a subdued but morbid living-room-style chat in which Patricia warned that “your family will not be safe in the radical Democrats’ America.”
This entire display left progressives, mainstream journalists and anyone who isn’t already in the Trump tribe befuddled. It was grotesque and overwhelming, and only served to unnerve viewers. Even the presence of speakers who took a more measured tone, like former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley and Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, didn’t help matters. If anything, the rapid and dramatic tonal shifts only served to discombobulate viewers more. It was an emotional roller coaster that was, yes, reminiscent of the wild mood swings of someone who’s cranked up on hardcore stimulants.
As gross as it all was, it would be a mistake to assume that Republicans don’t know what they’re doing. On the contrary, this coked-up aesthetic has a long and unsavory history in the annals of fascism, authoritarianism and other forms of personality cult.
Hitting audiences with a firehose of emotions is about deliberately unmooring them, spinning them so hard emotionally that they can’t tell up from down. It’s about breaking down people’s sense of self and their grip on reality, so they turn into putty at the hands of the authoritarian leader, to be rebuilt in the form that he prefers.
The emotional overloading strategy, often openly fueled by stimulant drugs, was a famous aspect of Nazism, which was known for rallies with long and overbearing speeches and a general atmosphere designed to overwhelm participants. Fidel Castro, of course, was known for giving speeches, that often lastd hours, that would wear down listeners so they could be built back up again in his image. Cult leader Jim Jones would suck down mountains of drugs and then rant at his followers for hours through the speaker system at Jonestown, breaking them down emotionally so that resistance to his message became impossible.
Hell, cocaine abuse and fascism are so intertwined that when David Bowie was at the height of his cocaine addiction, he convinced himself he was a fascist.
To be clear, I’m not suggesting that anyone on Team Trump is using drugs. (And I’m not saying they’re not.) Really, that’s beside the point. The issue isn’t drugs themselves, but the aesthetics of the convention — ones that happen to be suggestive of drug abuse, but can also be induced by other forms of emotional flooding, including inflated rhetoric, loud music, paranoid fantasies, and rapid and disconcerting tonal shifts. The main thing is to keep up a sense of too-much-ness that makes it hard for people to get their bearings and start thinking more clearly. Clear thought, after all, is the biggest threat to Trumpism.
In fact, the shouty, nutty, coked-up atmosphere of much of the televised convention on Monday night is perfectly in line with the aesthetic Donald Trump has used to dominate his audiences for years. His rallies are notorious for blasting loud music at decibel levels far beyond what is normal for campaign rallies, and they’ve only gotten louder. After enduring that for however long, the audience is then subjected to a rambling Trump speech that usually clocks in at more than an hour and veers wildly from one incoherent grievance or conspiracy theory to another. The whole process couldn’t be better designed to break down a person’s emotional defenses or remaining tendrils of rationality, and indeed, it’s wise to assume that’s exactly the purpose.
Trump really is just building on what Fox News has been doing for years to get viewers to turn off their rational brain and swim in a sea of overstimulated emotions. The formerly “fair and balanced” network employs not just loud graphics and loud music, but also overwhelms its audience with violent and even salacious imagery. For those who aren’t conditioned to this already, it feels incredibly alienating. But it’s important to grasp that the Trump fans who this convention is geared toward have ingested a steady diet of increasingly chaotic media for years now. If it all felt coked-up, well, that was likely the intention. Because giving viewers a moment to breathe might lead them to start thinking for themselves, and that is the last thing Trump or the Republican Party want.
I was reminded of this observation of that Madison Square Rally by Jon Schwarz in the Intercept:
The main speaker is Fritz Kuhn, a naturalized German immigrant and head of the Bund. On the one hand, everything about him screams that he’s a buffoon and a grifter. He declares they are there “to demand that our government shall be returned to the American people who founded it” in a heavy accent that makes him sound exactly like Adolf Hilter. Even Nazi Germany’s ambassador to the U.S. found Kuhn embarrassing, once describing him as “stupid, noisy, and absurd.”
But on the other hand, no one in the Garden seems to notice or care. To the crowd’s delighted laughter, Kuhn speaks about how “the Jewish-controlled press” continually lies about him, depicting him as “a creature with horns, a cloven hoof, and a long tail.”
Then one man, 26-year-old Isadore Greenbaum, rushes the stage. Kuhn’s uniformed minions immediately seize and beat him. At some point, as the New York police grab Greenbaum and hustle him offstage, his pants are pulled down. Kuhn smirks, and the audience erupts in glee.
The next day the New York Times reported that the Bund had raised almost $8,500, the equivalent of about $150,000 now. Later that year Kuhn was convicted of embezzling all that and more — $250,000 in today’s money — from his devoted followers.
[…]
PERHAPS THE CENTRAL moment of “A Night at the Garden” is a shot of a young uniformed boy on stage. He is maybe 8 years old, and part of the Bund youth; he appears smaller and slighter than the others. As the crowd humiliates Greenbaum and drags him away, the boy looks around for affirmation that he is not alone. Then he does a joyful jig, rubs his hands together, and performs his dance again.
This is a ferocious, simian exhilaration that can only be felt by someone who is emotionally a child. But there are always many chronological adults waiting for someone to give them permission to lay down the burden of an individual adult’s consciousness. To tell them: We’ve located the culprits causing all your frustration and pain. They look like us, like humans, but they’re not. They’re wearing a disguise. Dissolve with us into this howling mass of protoplasm, and you will be responsible for nothing.
As far as I can tell there hasn’t been much polling since the DNC to judge whether or not they got a bounce, which is a little odd. Maybe there will be some today.
But, as you can see, the spread is remarkably steady and I have to guess that it’s not going to get substantially bigger. As nuts as it seems, Trump has maintained the support of about 42% of the country. I know that’s disturbing but there’s no denying it.
The average also has Biden +5.9 in Florida.
Were about to head into the final lap of the campaign and Biden is in a good position. But anything can happen.
President Trump and his political allies mounted a fierce and misleading defense of his political record on the first night of the Republican convention on Monday, while unleashing a barrage of attacks on Joseph R. Biden Jr. and the Democratic Party that were unrelenting in their bleakness.
Hours after Republican delegates formally nominated Mr. Trump for a second term, the president and his party made plain that they intended to engage in sweeping revisionism about Mr. Trump’s management of the coronavirus pandemic, his record on race relations and much else.
And they laid out a dystopian picture of what the United States would look like under a Biden administration, warning of a “vengeful mob” that would lay waste to suburban communities and turn quiet neighborhoods into war zones.
At times, the speakers and prerecorded videos appeared to be describing an alternate reality: one in which the nation was not nearing 180,000 dead from the coronavirus; in which Mr. Trump had not consistently ignored serious warnings about the disease; in which the president had not spent much of his term appealing openly to xenophobia and racial animus; and in which someone other than Mr. Trump had presided over an economy that began crumbling in the spring.
Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son, praised his father’s management of the virus, one of several segments asserting an unsupported narrative that the president had been a sturdy leader in a crisis even as polls show Americans believe he has handled the pandemic poorly.
“As the virus began to spread, the president acted quickly and ensured ventilators got to hospitals that needed them most,” the president’s son said, making no mention of the millions of Americans sickened and killed or the complaints from governors that they were not receiving the necessary equipment. “There is more work to do, but there is light at the end of the tunnel.”
It was part of a vehement address the younger Mr. Trump delivered that framed the election as a choice between “church, work and school” against “rioting, looting and vandalism.”
The scorched-earth rhetoric and knowing references to phrases like “cancel culture” would not have been out of place during a Fox News prime-time segment. By that measure, the arguments might help lure some wavering Republicans, uneasy with the president’s handling of the virus, back to Mr. Trump. But it was far from clear that the programming would appeal to any undecided voters.
It won’t. But that’s not the point. They re trying to get their feral base so riled up that they can scare people into not voting at all and if that doesnt work they are setting the conditions for that base to refuse to accept the results of the election no matter how badly Trump loses.
I don’t think you can judge this convention by normal standards. They aren’t trying to persuade anyone to vote for them. They’re setting the stage for something dangerous in November.
Asfor the production, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it might be. But that’s because I assumed they’d try t be creative which they didn’t. The videos were mostly just their ads I’ve seen dozens of times on TV already. And the speeches were all in the same set, with a wall of flags that evoke certain feelings of the 1930s. The cutaways were all to Washington monuments. It wasn’t thrilling, but it wasn’t a trainwreck either.
The speeches, were the type of thing you see on Fox every day. So that’s who this was for. Interestingly, Fox News cut away more frequently than the other networks throughout the evening so that Tucker and Hannity could talk about how great it all was. I think that says something …
Anarchy rules in American cities. One heard they are “on fire” (Rep. Clay Higgins, R-LA) and “burned out” (Rep. Ralph Norman, R-SC) in Monday’s House hearing on the U.S. Postal Service. That false narrative continued into Monday evening’s opening of the Republican national convention. Differences in world view between Democrats and Republicans could hardly be more stark.
The Democrats’ national convention had too little detail on policy, someone wrote on social media the other day. Joe Biden’s web site has plenty. The Democrats’ 2020 platform has nearly 100 pages of it. The independent complained he didn’t see enough on TV.
Still, not even Republican pollster Frank Luntz can say what Republicans stand for: “For the first time in my life, I don’t know the answer.” The Republicans’ platform is whatever the acting president tweets today. And the opposite if he tweets that tomorrow.
Joe Biden’s convention spotlighted everyday Americans who knew him from the community or the commuter train, someone else observed (in one of those tweets that vanish when the app refreshes). Opening night at the Republican convention, the tweet said, spotlighted citizens who owed Trump for some official act and came to lavish praise on him for it.
Kimberly Guilfoyle’s speech at the #RepublicanConvention seemed to make way more sense with North Korean propaganda music in the background.
“The white supremacy was barely disguised,” Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin writes of young Charlie Kirk’s speech last night. Representing Turning Point USA and Students for Trump, Kirk called Trump “the bodyguard of Western civilization.” Rubin responded:
Let me translate: Anyone who is not a White American is foreign, alien and “the other.”
So it goes. During a commercial Monday night, I changed channels from Star Trek: First Contact in which the Borg take over the Enterprise. Catching a few moments of the RNC convention, it was hard to tell the difference. The Borg traveled back in time to rewrite human history. Republicans spent the evening trying to rewrite history in real time.
Which is to say trying to have a policy debate across this gulf, while not exactly futile, is not necessarily productive. Democrats don’t need to win an ideological battle. They just need Trump leaners to vote their way or stay home in November.
To do that, Democrats have to listen to them (more difficult these days), not talk at them. And not in the cities which are blue strongholds but in rural America where Republicans eat Democrats’ lunch at the polls. It’s not necessarily political conversations needed, but simple everyday contact of the sort Biden had that built familiarity and trust. When conservatives I don’t know hear I am a Democrat, I break the ice by asking for credit for keeping my tail tucked in and my horns ground down.
Statewide campaigns make a mistake by placing so much emphasis on turnout in blue cities where voters are easier to reach. It may be efficient, but not necessarily effective. Too little attention to rural America sends a message: we don’t care about you.
Well, Democrats will care plenty when they carry statewide races but lose control of 2021 redistricting to state legislatures dominated by Republicans from rural districts.
A Facebook video from Down Home NC spotlights the issue. Luckily, they were working at developing rural relationships for several years before the pandemic hit:
Democrats don’t necessarily have to win those counties or districts outright to make a difference. Sometimes they just have to shave GOP victory margins.
● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
For The Win, 3rd Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV mechanics guide at ForTheWin.us. This is what winning looks like.
Rachel Maddow gave an almost giddy recitation of all the laws that the RNC might break, from Melania Trump’s speech in the White House Rose Garden to using a Federal Building for partisan purposes. But one of the most deadly might be if they allow more than 50 people to be inside at the same time.
The current scuttlebutt is that multiple people will be attending in person at both DC AND North Carolina venues. Depending on the venue local and Federal laws on mask mandates & the number of people allowed at indoor gatherings could be broken. Who will be sent to ensure compliance? The Mayor of D.C.? The Mayor of Charlotte? The Surgeon General? UPDATE: I CALLED IT!
WSOCTV-Charlotte Several delegates inside the Convention Center could be seen not wearing masks on the floor, which drew the ire of Mecklenburg County Health Director Gibbie Harris.
“I have just shared concern about the lack of mask-wearing and social distancing in the room at the RNC Roll Call Meeting with the RNC Convention staff,” she said. “I have been assured that they are working hard to address these issues. All attendees agreed to comply with the requirements prior to attending and were informed that these requirements would be enforced.”
Hermain Cain is dead. People who attended the Tulsa rally got infected. These are both facts. This information SHOULD have BEEN used by the public health community as evidence to prevent ANY more large scale, in-person indoor rallies, especially when there are no-mask requirements and enforcement of social distancing rules. The information DID lead to Pence cancelling an event in Jacksonville, but it could have led to even MORE scientific proof that these types of events are deadly and should be banned NATIONWIDE. Why wasn’t it? I detail the reasons below, and how to stop them in the future. There will be multiple Hatch Act violations coming from Trump Campaign. Will Henry Kerner, at the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC), the agency responsible for enforcing the Hatch Act, be geared up to cite the violators as they make violations? Of course not! He’ll wait for someone to fill out this form exactly then mail it in. Considering the postal sabotage I’d FAX it to them at 202-254-3700. You can alert them via tweet, but I don’t know if the tweeted form to @US_OSC counts.
What if you spot an FEC violation? Is there a FEC SWAT Team that will bust down the doors of the Andrew Mellon Auditorium and rush the stage? Nope! Ellen L. Weintraub @EllenLWeintraub the @FEC chair will wait for your complaint. Details here. In 30-90 days you might get a ruling, usually a warning. Something like, “Don’t do that again!”
The press can point out law breaking violations the moment they happen, but the citing and enforcement process takes months. In real time Trump’s Campaign will probably dispute them (and make a change so they are technically not breaking a law. )
I try to think, write and act strategically so it’s insanely frustrating when I see opportunities for the Democrats to nail Team Trump and their enablers when they break laws, not just norms.
Team Trump always breaks norms, but when they break laws (and we KNOW they are going to based on past performance) BE PREPARED to bust them by anticipating HOW they will try to weasel out of that crime by using another trick, then bust them for that! And then use that action to make news of the multiple bustings.
Rachel comments, “It’s the Trump Era, What does law mean!” It feels like the Dem strategy now is. “Let them break more laws, just vote them out in November!” We need to keep on them for law breaking, because even if we win in November the time between then and January 21 all the usually tricks will be pulled out and adapted to his lame duck status. What actually happens now is that Team Trump tries something, someone pushes back, they figure out some way around it and do it again slightly different. Here’s the process:
Legislation: Make up something, get sued, go to court, lose, change the executive order, try again. See Muslim Ban versions 1, 2 & 3.
For FEC violations they argue, it’s investigated and they pay a fine, “It’s just the cost of doing business, politics corruption.”
Bribes, payoffs, threatening witnesses: They break the law, go to court, lose and a scapegoat gets arrested to take the hit. “We’ll pardon you later if you don’t sing.” (Stone vs. Cohen)
Authoritarian acts: The question the wording of laws and actions. “It wasn’t tear gas! They used PepperBalls(™).”
Team Trump reuses tactics. As they said on Battlestar Galactica, “All of this has happened before, and will happen again.” But they do learn and adapt–so should we!
HOW THEY AVOID PROOF TRUMP’S RALLIES ARE DEADLY
Because there was no coordinated plan from the Democrats at the time to prove Trump Rallies are deadly superspreader events, we can’t use that for legal and public health pressure to prevent the Trump Campaign from doing it again. As I said, they learn and adapt. They avoid responsibility by using loopholes in different states and situations.
For example, it wasn’t illegal to be maskless inside a Tulsa venue or in Phoenix. It wasn’t illegal to go maskless in South Dakota either, but they held it outside to show they are moving on the issue. But still there was no social distancing, no testing of the whole audience and ONLY the people around Trump like Kimberly Guilfoyle got the 30 minute tests.
I’m hoping some highly-paid Dem strategists or activist group is already thinking like me and doing this, which would be great, but frankly the public health community should have done this to stop in-door maskless, no distance rallies. They didn’t because of pressure from Republican governors and they don’t want to appear partisan. They can say, “”All events like this must be banned, no matter political ideology.”
Why No Rally Pre-Test, No Post Rally Isolation and Testing? Trump Doesn’t Want to Know
The Trump campaign doesn’t want to have proof that people got the virus at an indoor, maskless, no social distancing rally. But state public health could have had proof. It could have been a perfect experiment. 1) Arrange for everyone to be tested–with a fast test– before entry. 2) People who tested negative before the rally would then isolated themselves for 2-5 days post rally to incubate. 3) Post rally testing would be followed by post rally isolation until results are in. 4) If post rally test was positive, the Public health department would be alerted in order to do contact tracing with all the people at the rally.
“But Spocko,” you lament, “The Trump people weren’t going to cooperate to show you where they got sick! They aren’t going to isolate after a rally! They weren’t going to tell their own Government who they met with before and after they tested positive! And besides, there are so many people at the Rally, contact tracing would be impossible!”
I heard you through my mind mend and I thought the same thing, that is why I wrote to the reporters and camera crews in Tulsa recommending that they ALL do this.
I did this for two reasons. First because I got to talk to several great Tulsa reporters like Whitney Bryen @SoonerReporter, Stetson Payne @stetson__payne, Cory Jones @JonesingToWrite and Trevor Brown @tbrownOKC and I didn’t want them to get sick. Second because if they DID get sick they could have PROOF where they caught it to alert others. Tragically because Oklahoma State Department of Health had no fast testing reporters had to wait days– while possible infected traveled home spreading the virus.
BTW, we COULD have hard proof about where Herman Cain caught the virus. If this was a murder mystery using modern CSI and all the data we have on people, we’d know by the end of the episode.
I keep pushing the need to build chriminal, civil and ethical cases and against this group of radicals that violate norms, break laws and don’t care if others die. I can see the future, we need to plan ahead.
Temperature tested before the rally. Masks REQUIRED during testing, then 95% of the people TOOK THEM OFF during the rally. This station COULD have been a COVID testing location, but Trump didn’t want it and OSDH didn’t provide it Image from: Dane HawkinsTV
If I was a news person attending RNC (or a union camera person, I’d demand testing before, isolation afterwards with new testing 5 days after the event. I suggest you tweet this story to MSNBC’s HR dept! (And yes, I would even say the same thing to Fox News and The Apprentice camera operators working the RNC. I’m not a monster!)
Remember that the day of the Tulsa rally, it was announced that some of Trump advance team and Secret Service were infected (we know this because people around Trump get fast tests.) I can anticipate the same will happen at the Andrew Mellon Auditorium and in the venue in Charlotte. What should be the response from the media? 1) Ask the in-person delegates if they were tested. (They might have had temp checks, but everyone should have been tested by now so results are ready before it starts Monday. 2) Ask EVERYONE in attendance at in-person events if they were tested before hand. If not, why not? If they weren’t tested–because they weren’t around Trump–why didn’t they get tested anyway? Because they were asymptomatic? That’s an excuses used to cover made because of lack of testing. Bottom line, Team Trump DOESN’T WANT PEOPLE TO KNOW. The delegates will play along, but what about the workers and media? ASK THEM! UPDATE: FROM WSOCTV Note they are talking attendees, not convention staff or media
Attendees were asked to practice enhanced social distancing and get tested prior to travel, fill out a pre-travel health questionnaire and participate in a daily symptom tracker. They’re also being tested onsite, have been asked to maintain a 6-foot (1.8-meter) distance from other people and to use face coverings as a condition of participation — though many attendees were seen openly flouting those rules Monday morning. The RNC has also committed to contacting every participant five, 14 and 21 days after the event to check on potential symptoms.
How do you punish the reckless, deadly behavior of the Trump Campaign? I spoke to Paul DeMuro, one of the lawyers who sued to prevent the Tulsa Rally. PDF Link to Petition. He told me the case is still open! It’s not against Trump, it’s against the SMG and ASM Global Parent Inc., that company that ran the venue.
He said that it would be difficult to show the direct connection of infection at the event UNLESS someone did exactly as I suggested to the reporters in Tulsa before the event. (Gosh I hope someone in MSNBC’s HR or Tulsa’s News @KJRH2HD Department did!)
If ASM Global gets linked to the outbreak, they will be financial liable and if that happens they will roll on the Trump campaign that broke the protocols that were agreed to before hand. “Hey we put “DON’T SIT HERE!” stickers on every other chair. The Trump Campaign removed them! Watch the video!!!”
I spoke to DeMuro July 30th, right after Cain died, but I didn’t write about it until now. Demuro was very respectful and expressed his condolences to the family. He was clear about pointing out that at that time there was no evidence about where Cain got the virus. He had not heard from anyone from Cain’s estate or family. However, the case is still open! Who sat around him? Might they have proof they were COVID-19 free pre-event?
Make Team Trump pay. Hit them in the wallet.
It’s been proven before how COVID-19 spreads, but hard evidence from this rally could drive nationwide laws banning these events, not just “CDC recommendations.” It’s also important to bust Team Trump FINANCIALLY, because he cares about money first. Then when he goes to a friendly state without a law or a friendly venue like his golf course in a state with a law, like New Jersey, there would be be legal and financial precedent for future cases.It’s important to remember that these rallies spread infections all over the state and country. Maybe you met the criteria! And as they say in the ads, “You might be eligible for financial compensation!”
This week I hope the workers and media attending the events at the Andrew Mellon Auditorium and the Charlotte venue have thought strategically about testing and isolation after the RNC, not just for their own sake, but to help stop Trump’s Campaign from having more potentially deadly in-person events.
I wrote earlier about Sean Hannity’s job as Trump’s consigliere and “wife in a sexless marriage.” He is also the top PR consultant for Republican congressman apparently:
House Ethics Committee formally admonished Rep. Matt Gaetz for a threatening tweet about President Donald Trump’s former lawyer and fixer — the lightest form of punishment the panel can take. While the 10-member panel determined that the Florida Republican’s “actions did not reflect creditably upon the House of Representatives,” the committee also concluded in its report that he “did not violate witness tampering and obstruction of Congress laws” and declined to issue more severe sanctions. On the eve of Michael Cohen’s testimony before Congress in February 2019, Gaetz vowed to release embarrassing information about allegations of Cohen’s infidelity.
The investigation into Gaetz revealed that Panhandle Republican went to Fox News star Sean Hannity for advice.
The House report includes a text exchange between Gaetz and Hannity that happened in February 2019 that starts with Gaetz telling Hannity: “Fuckers are coming for my law license. You were right. We all spend our time in the barrel.”
Hannity texts back: “Run this shit by me!!! You won’t lose the license.”
Hannity tells him in the exchange that it was “smart” for Gaetz to delete the Cohen tweet: “Smart to pull it down and say what u said. It will pass. Attention span of people is zero. Just learn from it.”
Gaetz asks Hannity how long he should “lay low.” Hannity tells him “just a while’ then urges him to reach out to Cohen’s lawyer or Cohen directly:
“Just say you were upset at what was transpiring and meant it as a question, not a statement. And u would never threaten anyone. In retrospect it was poorly written and you wish u didn’t send it. That’s a CYA.”
Hannity then gives contact information for both Cohen and his attorney Lanny Davis. He asks that Gaetz share his apology to Cohen to him first before he sends it. After Gaetz sent the apology to Cohen, he tells Hannity that Cohen asked him to post it and ask people to leave his family alone. “I did. It felt good,” Gaetz texted.
“Good,” replies Hannity. “You are amazing. Thank you.”
I don’t know what can be done about Fox. But until Fox changes, we have a major problem in this country.
This piece by Tim Alberta in Politico Magazine is really something. I find it hard to believe it’s taken this long to recognize the fact that the GOP is nothing but grievance and Trump but I suppose we all cling to our delusions about our own people, whether marriage, family, tribe, country or party, long after we should have realized it had gone off the rails. This is mainly because we usually contributed to this state of affairs and don’t want to take responsibility. But it’s also because we really don’t want to face up to traumatic change.
That’s what’s happening among elites in the Republican Party right now:
Earlier this month, while speaking via Zoom to a promising group of politically inclined high school students, I was met with an abrupt line of inquiry. “I’m sorry, but I still don’t understand,” said one young man, his pitch a blend of curiosity and exasperation. “What do Republicans believe? What does it mean to be a Republican?”
You could forgive a 17-year-old, who has come of age during Donald Trump’s reign, for failing to recognize a cohesive doctrine that guides the president’s party. The supposed canons of GOP orthodoxy—limited government, free enterprise, institutional conservation, moral rectitude, fiscal restraint, global leadership—have in recent years gone from elastic to expendable. Identifying this intellectual vacuum is easy enough. Far more difficult is answering the question of what, quite specifically, has filled it.
Bumbling through a homily about the “culture wars,” a horribly overused cliché, I felt exposed. Despite spending more than a decade studying the Republican Party, embedding myself both with its generals and its foot soldiers, reporting on the right as closely as anyone, I did not have a good answer to the student’s question. Vexed, I began to wonder who might. Not an elected official; that would result in a rhetorical exercise devoid of introspection. Not a Never Trumper; they would have as much reason to answer disingenuously as the most fervent MAGA follower.
I decided to call Frank Luntz. Perhaps no person alive has spent more time polling Republican voters and counseling Republican politicians than Luntz, the 58-year-old focus group guru. His research on policy and messaging has informed a generation of GOP lawmakers. His ability to translate between D.C. and the provinces—connecting the concerns of everyday people to their representatives in power—has been unsurpassed. If anyone had an answer, it would be Luntz.
“You know, I don’t have a history of dodging questions. But I don’t know how to answer that. There is no consistent philosophy,” Luntz responded. “You can’t say it’s about making America great again at a time of Covid and economic distress and social unrest. It’s just not credible.”
Luntz thought for a moment. “I think it’s about promoting—” he stopped suddenly. “But I can’t, I don’t—” he took a pause. “That’s the best I can do.”
When I pressed, Luntz sounded as exasperated as the student whose question I was relaying. “Look, I’m the one guy who’s going to give you a straight answer. I don’t give a shit—I had a stroke in January, so there’s nothing anyone can do to me to make my life suck,” he said. “I’ve tried to give you an answer and I can’t do it. You can ask it any different way. But I don’t know the answer. For the first time in my life, I don’t know the answer.”
[…]
“Owning the libs and pissing off the media,” shrugs Brendan Buck, a longtime senior congressional aide and imperturbable party veteran if ever there was one. “That’s what we believe in now. There’s really not much more to it.”
Actually, that’s way, way too easy. There is much more to it.
Owning the libs and pissing off the media is the tactic they use. But what binds them is what has bound them underneath all the dogwhistles and clever intellectual obfuscations for the past 40 years: white patriarchy and protection of the malefactors of great wealth. And like it or not, Donald Trump is the perfect embodiment of that worldview.
The article bemoans the lack of policy ideas, harking back to the “bold” agenda of Newt Gingrich and Paul Ryan. Alberta notes that they still have not come up with an alternative to Obamacare which should give him a clue as to why this has happened. they tried all that stuff and it didn’t work. Their agenda was a disaster and they don’t have any new “conservative” ideas to replace them, which is to say no new “market-oriented” ideas to replace them. That’s because market solutions have proved to be totally inadequate. They are capitalism, not government, and those two things are not the same thing.
Anyway, it’s an interesting article. I’m sure conservatives will someday get themselves together but there is no guarantee that the right will moderate. They could easily go the other way. They’re halfway there already.
There will be multiple Hatch Act violations coming from Trump Campaign. Will Henry Kerner, at the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC), the agency responsible for enforcing the Hatch Act, be geared up to cite the violators as they make violations? Of course not! He’ll wait for someone to
What actually happens now is that Team Trump tries something, someone pushes back, they figure out some way around it and do it again slightly different. Here’s the process:
