Republican leaders are not looking to de-radicalize their MAGA/QAnon base so much as find ways to coexist with the tiger they are riding. Fighting left-wing extremism: good. Fighting right-wing extremism: bad.
“Republican politicians suggest that attempts to enforce any kind of accountability for or reckoning with the events that led to Jan. 6 are threats to their political freedom,” writes Josh Kovensky at Talking Points Memo:
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) said on Jan. 22 that he was “concerned” that the “74 million Americans who voted for President Trump” would be “labeled as insurgents,” as a Fox News chyron reading “Domestic Terror Proposal Raises Fear Of Overreach” blared beneath him.
“I think what we’re witnessing is the cancel culture purge being kicked into overdrive here,” Johnson said.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), who played his own well-known role in challenging legitimate election results, fanning the flames on Jan. 6, has flirted with a similar idea.
“Joe Biden and the Democrats talk about unity but are brazenly trying to silence dissent,” said Hawley (R-MO) in a statement on Jan. 21. “Democrats appear intent on weaponizing every tool at their disposal — including pushing an unconstitutional impeachment process — to further divide the country.”
Hawley later blocked the nomination of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, accusing him of being weak on immigration, but prompting consternation from specialists in far-right extremism.
One reason Trump’s Nov. 6 insurrection caught authorities off guard is the lack of a threat assessment from the FBI and Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence & Analysis. The Trump administration’s “top-down aversion” to monitoring right-wing extremists and white nationalist groups led to a dismantling of the infrastructure for doing so.
But top-down aversion for taking right-wing violence seriously is a reflection of the paranoid style of the Republicans’ extremist base. It is the same reflex that brands Black Lives Matter protesters a threat to God and country. Right-wing shooters and insurrectionists are by contrast deranged lone-wolfs, patriots or heroes instead of domestic terrorists.
Veteran journalist Katie Couric reflected last month on how the country might cope with right-wing extremists propagandized 24/7 via the internet and conservative media. “And the question,” she told Bill Maher, “is how are we going to really almost deprogram these people who have signed up for the cult of Trump.”
Okay, she might have chosen her words more carefully.
“Deprogram these people? Into what, conservatives want to know? Little totalitarians? Little socialists?” asked the Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins. To his audience which includes people who chanted “Lock her up” or “Lock them up” at Trump rallies, Perkins added unironically, “America has become a nation where the ruling party wants to lock up anyone they disagree with — and then brainwash them into their radical way of thinking.”
If you want some American exceptionalism, here it is.
Despite everything, most Americans still think we’ll do great in the future even if we acknowledge that we really screwed the pooch this time. I guess that’s probably due to Trump, but as far as I’m concerned, the fact that we could elect Trump in the first place says we are in decline. The events of January 6th just confirm that. If the Democrats can demonstrate effective governance I will be much more optimistic. But the jury’s still out.
More Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD): "They're not the Squad. They're Ilhan. They're Alexandria. And they're Rashida. They are people. They're our colleagues … and this is an AR-15 in the hands of Ms. Greene." pic.twitter.com/4kf2qPnEhA
You tell me why AOC and the others were terrified when the Capitol was overrun with Marjorie Taylor Greene fans screaming about putting bullets in people’s brains. Were they just being silly hysterics?
I’ve been wondering about that weird movie since the day of the insurrection. As I watched on C-Span, I thought WTF is this? Just Security published this interesting analysis today and it’s fascinating stuff. Check out this creepy thing first and then read the deconstruction of what it means. Chilling stuff. And people wonder why the violent mob raced down to the Capitol.
On January 6, Trump supporters gathered at a rally at Washington DC’s Ellipse Park, regaled by various figures from Trump world, including Donald Trump Jr. and Rudy Giuliani. Directly following Giuliani’s speech, the organizers played a video. To a scholar of fascist propaganda, well-versed in the history of the National Socialist’s pioneering use of videos in political propaganda, it was clear, watching it, what dangers it portended. In it, we see themes and tactics that history warns pose a violent threat to liberal democracy. Given the aims of fascist propaganda – to incite and mobilize – the events that followed were predictable.
Before decoding what the video presents, it is important to take a step back and discuss the structure of fascist ideology and how it can mobilize its most strident supporters to take violent actions.
I. The Fascist Framework
Increasingly central to Trumpism is the QAnon conspiracy theory, which, as many commentatorshavenow pointed out, closely resembles Nazi anti-Semitic myths. QAnon is just the most obvious manifestation of the increasing parallels between Trumpism and Hitler’s framework itself. Indeed, several contemporary fascist and white supremacist movements find similar roots in the framework Hitler developed, even if they did not culminate in such extreme actions as the Nazis.
Fascist thought
Chapter 2 of Mein Kampf, Hitler’s first and most famous book, is entitled “Years of Study and Suffering in Vienna.” In it, he documents what he describes as his gradual realization that behind the various institutions of power were the Jews. His enlightenment supposedly begins with the entertainment industry, where he remarks that “[t]he fact that nine tenths of all literary filth, artistic trash, and theatrical idiocy can be set to the account of a people, constituting hardly one hundredth of all the country’s inhabitants, could simply not be talked away; it was plain truth.” But it was, Hitler writes, when he “recognized the Jew as the leader of the Social Democracy” that “the scales fell from [his] eyes.” Hitler describes a growing sense, foundational to the ideology the book delineates, the ideology of Nazism, that Jews were controlling the apparatus of the state, both as important party politicians in the Social Democratic Party, and as operators behind the scenes of the press and other institutions.
In Nazi ideology, Jews are represented by an unholy alliance between Jewish capitalists and Jewish communists. The goal of the Jewish plot is to destroy national states, replacing them by a world government run by Jews. This diabolical Jewish plot involves destroying the character of individual nations, by flooding them with immigrants, and empowering minority populations. Hitler describes the German loss in World War I as part of this plan, a “stab in the back” of the German people by Jewish traitors seeking the ruin of the nation. In Nazi ideology, liberal democracy is represented as a corruption, a mask for this takeover by a global elite. Hitler reveals his true attitude toward liberalism in Mein Kampf, when he writes (in the characteristically sexist terms of Nazi ideology):
<blockquote>Like the woman, whose psychic state is determined less by grounds of abstract reason than by an identifiable emotional longing for a force which will complement her nature, and who, consequently, would rather bow to a strong man than dominate a weakling, likewise the masses love a commander more than a petitioner…</blockquote>
Fascism is a patriarchal cult of the leader, who promises national restoration in the face of supposed humiliation by a treacherous and power-hungry global elite, who have encouraged minorities to destabilize the social order as part of their plan to dominate the “true nation,” and fold them into a global world government. The fascist leader is the father of his nation, in a very real sense like the father in a traditional patriarchal family. He mobilizes the masses by reminding them of what they supposedly have lost, and who it is that is responsible for that loss – the figures who control democracy itself, the elite; Nazi ideology is a species of fascism in which this global elite are Jews.
The future promised by the fascist leader is one in which there are plentiful blue collar jobs, reflecting the manly ideals of hard work and strength. In Nazi propaganda, many white collar jobs, the domain of Jews – running department stores, banking – were for the idle. And the fascist nation’s heart and soul is the military – as Hitler writes, “[w]hat the German people owes to the army can be briefly summed up in a single word, to wit: everything.” The fascist future is a kind of restoration of a glorious past, but a modern version – replete with awesome technology that glorifies the nation to the world. The German V-2 rocket was a characteristic representation of Nazi might. The fascist future is, in the famous description of Jeffrey Herf, a kind of reactionary modernism.
Fascist propaganda
Fascism uses propaganda as a way of mobilizing a population behind the leader. Fascist propaganda creates an awesome sense of loss, and a desire for revenge against those who are responsible. In the face of the supposed betrayal of the nation during World War I by Jewish “vipers,” Hitler describes the proper response to have been to place the “leaders of the whole movement…behind bars.” Hitler writes, “[a]ll the implements of military power should have been ruthlessly used for the extermination of this pestilence. The parties should have been dissolved, the Reichstag brought to its senses, with bayonets if necessary, but, best of all, dissolved at once.” The goal of fascist propaganda is to mobilize a population to violently overthrew multi-party democracy and replace it with the leader.
Fascism is not an ideology consigned to Europe. Black American intellectuals from W.E.B. Du Bois to Toni Morrison have spoken of American fascism. America has a long history of anti-Semitism similar to Nazi anti-Semitism, central to the ideology not just of the Ku Klux Klan, but to Henry Ford’s “The International Jew.” In its American version, communist Jews supposedly use Black liberation movements, control of Hollywood, and labor unions to destroy the nation in the service of a global elite. We should not be surprised at all by the rise of a fascist movement in the United States. And if it does arise, it would be no surprise if it did so in the party that keeps alive the “lost cause” myths of the American South.
II. The Movie Shown at the Ellipse
This history, both European and American, illuminates the dangers we face today, laid bare in the video. In it, Trump is repeatedly represented as the nation’s father figure. It is laced through with images of masculinity, and mournful loss at the hands of traitors, clearly justifying a violent restoration of recent glory.
The video begins with Trump’s eyes in the shadow, and its second frame focuses the audience on the Capitol building – America’s Reichstag, where the decisions being denounced by the rally’s organizers were being made that day. The third frame of the video is the Hollywood sign in Los Angeles. This image immediately directs the attention of an audience attuned to an American fascist ideology to the supposedly elite class of Jews who, according to this ideology, control Hollywood. The appearance of the Hollywood sign makes no other sense in the context of a short video about an election. The next two images, of the UN General Assembly and the EU Parliament floor, connect supposed Jewish control of Hollywood to the goal of world government. As we have seen, according to Nazi ideology, Jews seek to use their control of the press and the entertainment industry to destroy individual nations. The beginning of the video focuses our attention on this supposedly “globalist,” but really Jewish, threat.
The next clip lingers on Joe Biden, with a vacant stare in his eyes and the video footage slowed, while Trump’s inauguration speech plays, “For too long, a small group in our nation’s capital has reaped the rewards of government, while the people have borne the cost.” It is clear from the image of Biden that he is not making the decisions. The video shifts to an image of Senator Charles Schumer, reminding the viewer of prominent Jewish leaders of the Democratic party. Schumer is wearing a Kente cloth, an image evocative of Ku Klux Klan ideology — that Jews support Black liberation movements as a way to undermine white rule and destroy the nation. The next frame shows the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, flanked by two Jewish Congressman, Representatives Nadler and Schiff. Pelosi, too, is controlled by Jews.
Who, then, are this “small group in our nation’s capital”? The video suggests it is a group that controls Hollywood and the Democratic Party, and seeks to use Black liberation movements to undermine the nation, and bring about world government. In Nazi ideology, as well as its US counterpart, this group is the Jews. And what are the costs? As the inauguration speech continues, “The establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of this our country;” gunshots are fired and we are shown images of these citizens betrayed by a duplicitous establishment – mournful pictures of coffins of veterans, homeless encampments, and a series of slides varying between nostalgic images of white American families over dinner with rural destitution – a worn down home flying a large American flag with an old pickup truck in front. At the end of these grim scenes of the results of elite betrayal, Trump declares, “This all ends right here, right now.”
As the music surges, what follows is a series of photos taken during Trump’s first term. This phase of the video begins with images of enormous naval ships on the ocean, and moves to images of Trump striding in front of a military guard at a football game, the iconic sport of American masculinity (hence the very particular danger of the Black quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s challenge to white supremacy). It is followed by rally after rally with adoring masses cheering Trump. The images of women overcome with emotion at the sight of the nation’s father figure, and violent anger at his political enemies, are interspersed with heavy machinery in factories, churning out huge new pick-up trucks, fighter jets streaking across the sky, and Trump striding across the screen framed by the powerful American imagery of the Lincoln Memorial. A Black man and a white man are shown in brotherhood at a Trump rally. Trump is shown observing powerful rockets launch, images evocative, for those schooled in history, of the Nazi’s own obsession with this particular technology.
After these scenes of Trump’s glorious leadership, the restoration of American rocket technology dominance, the mood shifts, as we are shown former Attorney General Bill Barr swearing in at what appears to be a deposition, followed by a smirking Joe Biden. Treachery has entered in, stage left.
What follows is scene after scene of immense loss. Empty streets of great American cities, a forlorn white woman peering out of a window, trapped at home. Scrabble pieces spelling “FEAR” appear and disappear within less than a second, empty chairs at a school, a sign reading “closed.” We see an image of the Supreme Court, followed by what appears to be a Black Lives Matter rally on a street emblazoned with “DEFUND THE POLICE.” Joe Biden appears in a forlorn photo in a gym, speaking to a lone man in a chair – Biden is here a petitioner, not a commander. The video switches back to a representation of glorious Trump years – a rising stock market, more fighter planes, a Black man and a white man with a “Jesus Saves” shirt embracing in brotherhood – a reference to the power of a shared Christian identity to bond Americans across racial lines. It ends with the screen filling with a powerful image of Trump’s face, showing steely resolve.
The message of the video is clear. America’s glory has been betrayed by treachery and division sown by politicians seeking to undermine and destroy the nation. To save the nation, one must restore Trump’s rule.
Each of us can decide what moral responsibility Trump personally has for a video to rouse his supporters at the rally. How much of a role the White House or Trump himself may have played in deciding to show the video and sequencing it immediately after Giuliani’s speech, we don’t know. But it is worth noting that the New York Times recently reported that by early January, “the rally would now effectively become a White House production” and, with his eye ever on media production, Trump micromanaged the details. “The president discussed the speaking lineup, as well as the music to be played, according to a person with direct knowledge of the conversations. For Mr. Trump, the rally was to be the percussion line in the symphony of subversion he was composing from the Oval Office,” the Times reported.
Worldwide, there have been many fascist movements. Not all fascist movements focus on a global Jewish conspiracy as the enemy, and not all of them were genocidal. Early on, Italian fascism was not anti-Semitic in its core, though it later turned that way. British fascism was not genocidal (though it also was never given the opportunity to be). The most influential fascist movement that takes a shadowy Jewish conspiracy as its central target is German fascism, Nazism. Nazism did not start out in genocide. It began with militias and violent troops disrupting democracy. In its early years in power, in the 1930s, it was socialists and communists who were targeted for the Concentration Camps, torture, and murder. But it must never be forgotten where Nazism culminated.
Marjorie Taylor Greene got a standing ovation after she spoke to the GOP caucus last night. Today she took to the floor to admit that the sun came up this morning and whine like a Trump about being “misunderstood.” If there’s ever been a more disingenuous floor speech, I haven’t seen it:
By the way, she never actually denied that 9/11 happened and nobody accused her of that. She denied that a plane hit the pentagon, a standard 9/11 Truther trope. Of course, that’s just par for the slippery course.
Jake Tapper on CNN took Greene to task:
CNN’s @jaketapper on GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene defending her past comments, which perpetuated conspiracy theories: "This is about something bigger than [Greene]… It’s about how much the Republican Party is willing to embrace this and mainstream it.” https://t.co/E92EyZelzJpic.twitter.com/srBkZmzIoR
By now, anyone who’s paying even the remotest amount of attention knows that Greene is a loose nuke set to explode at any time. Yes, strip her of committees. Yes, expel her (or at least try). But…
The Congress shouldn’t stop there. Cruz, Hawley, all the other disgraceful sedition-crazy Republicans who refused to certify what by all rational accounts was a fair election — all of them need to be held accountable for whatever they did to fuel or incite an insurrection against this country. A country whose values they thoroughly despise and hate.
If they are not held accountable, then what Cruz and Hawley did becomes normalized. And that will embolden the Nazis, the fascists, and the white supremacists to do far worse than January 6.
And let’s not forget that it was only sheer luck — and some very brave guards — that averted a bloodbath on that day.
Two weeks into a new administration, a majority of Americans say they have at least some confidence in President Joe Biden and his ability to manage the myriad crises facing the nation, including the raging coronavirus pandemic.
Overall, 61% approve of Biden’s handling of his job in his first days in office, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Though the bulk of Biden’s support is from fellow Democrats, about a quarter of Republicans say they approve of his early days in office.
Even at a moment of deep national divisions, those numbers suggest Biden, as with most of his recent predecessors, may enjoy something of a honeymoon period. Nearly all modern presidents have had approval ratings averaging 55% or higher over their first three months in office, according to Gallup polling. There was one exception: Donald Trump, whose approval rating never surpassed 50% in Gallup polls, even at the start of his presidency.
Biden’s standing with the public will quickly face significant tests. He inherited from Trump a pandemic spiraling out of control, a sluggish rollout of crucial vaccines, deep economic uncertainty and the jarring fallout of the Jan. 6 riot on Capitol Hill. It’s a historic confluence of crises that historians have compared to what faced Abraham Lincoln on the eve of the Civil War or Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the depths of the Great Depression.
Biden’s advisers know that the new president will be quickly judged by Americans on his handling of the pandemic, which has killed more than 450,000 people in the U.S. He’s urgently pressing Congress to pass a $1.9 trillion relief package that would include funds for vaccine distribution, school reopening and state and local governments buckling under the strain of the pandemic.
“We have to go big, not small,” Biden told House Democrats on Tuesday. He’s signaled that he’s open to trimming his $1.9 trillion proposal but not as far as some Republicans are hoping. A group of GOP senators has put forward their own $618 billion package.
About three-quarters of Americans say they have at least some confidence in Biden’s ability to handle the pandemic, while about a quarter have hardly any. Still, that confidence is measured — no more than about 4 in 10 say they have “a great deal” of trust in Biden to handle any issue asked about in the poll.
From the start, Biden has sought to differentiate his approach to the pandemic, and governing as a whole, from Trump’s. He’s empowered public health officials and other experts, putting them at the forefront of briefings on COVID-19 and other policy issues, unlike the former president, who often clashed with members of his coronavirus task force.
According to the AP-NORC survey, about 8 in 10 have at least some trust in Biden to incorporate the advice of experts and advisers into his decision-making. Roughly three-quarters have a great deal or some confidence in Biden’s ability to effectively manage the White House.
A December AP-NORC poll showed that Americans identified the pandemic and the economy as their top priorities for the U.S. government in 2021. The two issues are directly linked, with the pandemic battering businesses across the country and creating economic uncertainty as states and cities grapple with public health restrictions.
About two-thirds of Americans say they have at least some confidence in Biden’s ability to handle the economy and jobs. That’s similar to his ratings from the public on his approach to health care, race relations and climate change.
In his first two weeks in office, Biden has signed a blizzard of executive orders on those policy priorities and others, largely aimed at undoing actions of the Trump administration. Among them: rejoining the Paris climate accord, pausing new oil and gas leases on public lands and reversing a Trump-era travel ban on people from several majority-Muslim countries.
But executive actions are inherently limited in scope, and Biden needs Congress to step in to help him pass the more sweeping aspects of his agenda. He has the narrowest of Democratic majorities in both the House and the Senate, meaning he’ll either need some Republican support for his agenda or have to push through rule changes that would allow legislation to pass with fewer votes.
Just 20% of Americans say they have a great deal of confidence in Biden’s ability to work with Republicans in Congress, though another 45% say they are somewhat confident.
Tom Tierney, 65, of Richland, Washington, voted for Biden in November and said he’s skeptical about Republicans’ willingness to work with the new president. He urged Biden to not waste time if GOP leaders are holding up his agenda.
“I think that Biden’s going to have to eventually play hardball and say, you know what, you guys don’t really want to compromise,” said Tierney, who described himself as a moderate independent.
Biden was already facing enormous headwinds after winning the election, but the crises facing the country escalated after the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. The insurrection revealed the extent to which Trump’s false attacks on the integrity of the election had resonated with his supporters and the threat that posed to the nation’s democratic institutions.
In his inaugural address, Biden noted both the durability and the fragility of American democracy, a particularly pointed message given that he was speaking from the same Capitol steps that had been overrun by the pro-Trump mob just two weeks earlier.
A majority of Americans — 70% — say they think Biden respects the country’s democratic institutions.
I guess I should have seen that coming. But I honestly didn’t think it would be possible to get away with erasing the violence of that day and turning it into a rowdy tailgate party that’s being exaggerated by a bunch of hysterical drama queens. But the right wing media haven’t really been sharing the reality of what happened that day with their audience so I suppose they probably can. The cult is already primed to believe that everything they don’t like is fake anyway.
Here’s a thread from a reporter who was there:
There is a debate going on here about whether people who were at the Capitol complex had a right to be scared on January 6. I was there.
I would like to think I have seen some things in my day. I have been present for violent protests, shootings, violent protests, a fatal accident, and a terrorist attack. January 6 was one of the scariest things I have ever witnessed.
I keep flashing back to the first moment I realized people were inside the dome. There was no data reception. I hadn’t seen it online. I called my editors to let them know.
The moment I hung up one thought rang out in my head, “This is so dangerous.” I knew people being inside there meant shooting could break out at any moment.
I keep flashing back to this because it was when I realized this could turn deadly – and it did.
Along with the danger, there was the sight of such chaos at that iconic dome.
That’s a place that is supposed to be so secure. Everything was out of control and unpredictable.
As a New Yorker who was there that day too, it reminded me of 9/11 – and that’s a comparison I’d never make lightly.
The scope is obviously different but it was impossible to know at the time.
And seeing things that just aren’t supposed to be possible creates a unique panic.
I had seen reporters attacked – that day and this summer. I tried to keep a low profile. I can’t imagine what the experience was like for people whose names and faces made them known. The crowd was clearly armed and dangerous.
I am a reporter and I am a man. There’s a lot of reasons I don’t like to talk abiut fear in a personal sense. However, it’s important for me to bring you all a clear story of what happened that day – especially if it’s being minimized or forgotten. It was terror.
I think one reason we’re not being entirely clear about how serious this was is that the pandemic has really disconnected people from reality. The extraordinary has become normal and we’re all watching it at a distance. It was also a moment of transition.
But 1/6 is exactly how we should be thinking about this and we should not forget.
Really appreciate all the great responses to this thread. I did this video with @CBSNLive abut my experience covering the Capitol on 1/6 a few days after the attack.
I can’t get past the idea that anyone would minimize the gravity of this:
If people cannot see that violently assaulting the US Capitol during a Joint Session of Congress to try to overturn an election is one of the gravest events in our political history they are being willfully blind. The fact that those people were out for blood is indisputable. The fact that only five people died that day is a miracle.
I am literally sickened that people are downplaying this monumental event. It makes me think that we are in even bigger trouble than I thought.
He stanched the bleeding. But he showed weakness. Jim Jordan is breathing down his neck. I won’t be surprised to see him out by the end of the year.
When two parallel political dramas collided in a House Republican conference room on Wednesday night, the result was a telling one for the future of the party after Donald Trump.
In fact, it’s almost like he never left.
In a marathon closed-door meeting, Republican lawmakers closed ranks around Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), the QAnon-sympathizing conspiracy theorist, while some spent hours dragging Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), the third-ranking House Republican who voted to impeach Trump for inciting the Capitol riot on Jan. 6.
Cheney ultimately survived a challenge to her position in leadership in a conference vote Wednesday night, on a vote of 145 to 61, according to multiple reports. She will remain chair of a GOP conference that is hurtling down a very different path than the one she might want. Meanwhile, Greene—who was revealed last week to have endorsed social media posts calling for the assassination of Speaker Nancy Pelosi—received a standing ovation from GOP lawmakers after she gave brief remarks defending herself during the meeting, according to Punchbowl News’ Jake Sherman.
The House GOP leader, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), is trying to hold this fractious family together as he eyes reclaiming the majority in 2022. He praised and defended Cheney during the meeting, but according to two sources familiar, he spent more time mounting a defense of Greene, who is facing a Democratic-led push to remove her from her committee assignments.
That echoed a statement McCarthy released Wednesday afternoon, in which he “unequivocally” condemned Greene’s comments and said he gave her a talking-to. But he mostly blamed Democrats for “distracting” Congress with the push to remove Greene in a “partisan power grab,” and gave no indication he’d discipline her in any way, much less remove her from posts on the House Budget and Education Committees.
And while McCarthy defended Cheney’s vote to impeach Trump as a matter of conscience, rank-and-file members decried her for exposing them to attacks through the way she announced her position. Ultimately, more GOP lawmakers spoke up in defense of the Wyoming Republican than against her, according to a Cheney ally. And the final vote to keep her in leadership reflected what had been the conventional wisdom in GOP circles for weeks: that most members, even if they disagreed with her vote, respected her and wished to keep her as a leader.
That Greene got off without so much as a slap on the wrist but Cheney faced a vote on her fitness to serve as a leader rankled GOP aides longing for the brand of conservatism Cheney brings to the table—rather than the one that, like Greene, suggests that Jewish-controlled satellite lasers start wildfires.
Before the meeting, GOP aides were saying that Greene’s mounting controversies had begun to overshadow the effort from a group conservative agitators to oust Cheney from leadership.Democrats, incensed over Greene’s conduct and past claims, increasingly put pressure on their party leaders to back dramatic action to reprimand her. Many rank-and-file Democratic lawmakers have thrown their support behind booting Greene not only from her committees but from Congress altogether. A bill to expel the Georgia Republican from office, introduced last week by Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-CA), has nearly 70 cosponsors as of Wednesday.
And on Monday, a resolution from Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) began circulating to remove Greene from her assignments on the House Education & Labor Committee and the House Budget Committee.
Those measures picked up support as McCarthy continued promising a “conversation” with Greene but avoided any commitment—or even any hints—on what he might do to discipline her.
Some aides in both parties grumbled that the Democrats’ move to force a floor vote might let McCarthy off the hook. But then they moved to use the resolution as a sword of damocles to hang over the GOP leader, with Democratic leaders saying that if he did not remove Greene from committees, they would move forward with a vote to do it themselves—which is slated for Thursday.
The Democrats are going to force them to take a vote on Greene and they can show off for Trump and the cult by voting for her publicly. But they voted for Cheney on a secret ballot making it possible to argue either side of this mess in 2022 depending on whichever comes out on top. Keep Trumpie happy for now but cover their bases in case he and Marge go even further off the rails and they have to bail.
The House voted 218-212 Wednesday in favor of a budget reconciliation bill – basically a blueprint that sets spending priorities and directs 12 congressional committees to hammer out the details. The measure includes Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief plan, a package Republicans have criticized as being too expensive.
The vote does not remove the possibility of passing a COVID-19 relief plan as a separate bill, with bipartisan input and amendments. But it paves the way for the Senate to pass a similar budget reconciliation bill, one of the few items that is not subject to a filibuster.
President Biden told GOP senators he has “an open door and an open mind” regarding their views on his $1.9 trillion coronavirus plan. That doesn’t mean he is open to sacrificing his priorities on the burning altar of bipartisanship.
Axios reports that “longtime Biden confidant” Steve Ricchetti believes Biden has “reaffirmed and deepened his explanation and commitment on the numbers and the substance” of his coronavirus package. Biden may welcome ” fine-tuning or amendments or recommendations,” but….
What we’re watching: Ricchetti said the president wants to have “a bipartisan and unifying dialogue in the country,” including conversations he’s already had with mayors and local elected officials, “so that this isn’t just about a dialogue with senators and members of Congress. It is a dialogue with the country.”
●Ricchetti said Biden treated a GOP counterproposal “with an open mind and with respect. He was also honest … in underscoring why he proposed what he did — that he was committed to every one of the elements in his package.”
Coronavirus cases falling and economic recovery are key to Biden’s first-term success and to Democrats holding the House and Senate in 2022, both unlikely but vital nonetheless.
Individuals with incomes up to $50,000 would get the full $1,400 payment. Heads of household earning up to $75,000 would also qualify, and married couples with earnings up to $100,000 would get a $2,800 payment. (Past stimulus checks were based off of “adjusted gross income,” and that is likely to be the same again).
Similar to the prior rounds of stimulus checks, people who earn slightly above those thresholds would still qualify for a partial payment.
Parents of children would receive an additional $1,400 per child.
Timing on receiving checks is unclear. First, the bill has to pass, and second, the understaffed IRS will be in the middle of tax filing season when checks need to go out. But the White House is committed to passage before unemployment extended benefits expire in March. The Post story has more.
Celebrate every step, trumpet every good thing we’re achieving. Say what we’re for and can deliver.
Biden’s plan will face Republican opposition, especially whatever roadblocks Mitch McConnell can erect in the Senate. But Biden has the public on his side.
Nearly 7 in 10 Americans in a Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday said they support President Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief plan.
Why it matters: 37% of Republicans polled said they backed Biden’s plan — which comes after GOP attempts to negotiate the price tag of the relief bill down to just over $600 billion and lower direct payments to Americans.
● 64% of Republicans polled by Quinnipiac said they support Biden’s $1,400 direct stimulus payments, which is more than the GOP wants to spend.
Where it stands: Biden rejected the $618 billion proposal after meeting with 10 Senate Republicans on Monday, AP reports. During a meeting with Senate Democrats at the White House on Wednesday, Biden told reporters he believes the $1.9 trillion package would get some Republican support.
● Democrats are prepared to push Biden’s proposal through the Senate with a simple majority vote, as they hold a 50-50 split with Vice President Kamala Harris as the tie-breaking vote.
Those of us who remember the Obama years will wait to celebrate until the bill(s) is passed and signed ungutted. Republicans have demonstrated their desire to rule even when in the minority, no matter how out of step they are with public opinion. They need neither a T-party nor an insurgent mob to persuade them to obstruct everything a Democrat in the White House proposes.
Republicans ignored their own 2012 postmortem that warned that to remain viable the party needed to soften its opposition and increase outreach to nonwhites. If they hope not to die a slow, electoral death, they still need to heed their own advice. But it may be too late.
