I’m speaking of Republicans, of course. According to Politico, some of them are wondering where they went wrong with the COVID relief bill. My favorite part of this Politico piece is that the “luminaries” they quote as being unhappy with the GOP response are Steve Bannon and Newt Gingrich. If that’s the best they can do…
The overwhelming sentiment within the Republican Party is that voters will turn on the $1.9 trillion bill over time. But that wait-and-see approach has baffled some GOP luminaries and Trump World figures who expected Republicans to seize their first opportunity to cast newly-in-charge Democrats as out of control. Instead, they fear the party did little to dent Biden’s major victory — a victory that could embolden the administration in forthcoming legislative fights and even the lead up to the midterm elections.
“The lack of response to this bill in an organized messaging and aggressive media push back is shown by the fact that Democrats have now gone from $2 trillion to a $4 trillion infrastructure package. If Covid relief was that easy, why not just run the table?” said former Trump White House chief strategist Steve Bannon.
“It’s a fairly popular bill that polled well because it’s been sold as a Covid relief bill with direct cash payments to Americans — what’s not to like?” he added. “However, that’s not what the bill is. That’s a huge problem because 2022 has already started and you don’t see the fight here.”
Bannon isn’t alone in his lament. Elsewhere in conservative circles, a feeling of missed opportunity has taken root in the wake of the passage of the Covid-relief bill last week. Republicans were never expected to support the measure and unanimously opposed it when the time came for a vote. But in interviews with top GOP operatives, Trump confidantes, and congressional aides, there was a common refrain that the party could have done more to frame it for the public. Instead, periodic claims that the bill was bloated with progressive add-ons and bailout money for blue states were overshadowed by a more relentless focus on the culture wars du jour.
“Whenever there is something that goes into pop culture and now all this cancel culture stuff, it is catnip for the base and the media and Republicans are going to talk about that,” said GOP strategist Doug Heye…
They are relying on that. It’s their whole strategy.
“I think this is a missed opportunity and the GOP has to improve its communications campaign pretty dramatically,” said former House speaker Newt Gingrich, who said he had to assign his production team to do a deep-dive examining the bill for political vulnerabilities.
They didn’t have the guts to strenuously oppose a bill that was delivering necessary, material relief to many Republicans. Once the aid is in people’s hands and we’re past the emergency they’ll almost certainly come back with a lot of jabber about “boondoggles” and “wishlists.” It remains to be seen how well that will work. If they manage to tickle the racist lizard brain enough, the Trumpers will never admit they took the money and back whatever lies the GOP puts out.
The Republican Party’s stumbles around the passage of the Covid-relief bill were, to a degree, a microcosm of the difficulties it has had finding its footing in the post-Trump era. Indeed, some Republicans said their party was hamstrung in the relief bill fight by the fact that they had so recently supported bills that relied on deficit-spending and pushed similar provisions, like direct payments.
“Republicans lost credibility on that issue during the Trump years, especially the first couple years when we had the power to do something about it,” said Brendan Steinhauser, a Republican consultant and former campaign manager to Texas Sen. John Cornyn. “There was no interest in doing anything about it. It was just, ‘let’s not even talk about spending or the debt or deficit or anything like that.’”
They are shameless. I really don’t think this had anything to do with it. They don’t need no stinkin’ credibility. They just lie with impunity.
This is probably a bit more true bit they really should stop and think about what they’re saying:
One Senate GOP aide noted that members held press conferences to push back on the bill, but that the capacity to sustain and prosecute an argument through the press wasn’t there, in part because of former President Donald Trump.
“We were spending the early part of the year dealing with the insurrection and impeachment trial and then we jumped right into passage,” the aide said. “So the attention of the D.C. media wasn’t on this legislation, it was on the fallout of Jan 6.”
Yes. They were very distracted by their energetic defenses of the violent insurrection and sacking of the capitol at the behest of their Dear Leader Donald Trump. It’s so hard to find enough hours in the day when you’re trying to overthrow the government.
And this pretty much proves that they wouldn’t have moved the needle much even if they’d made the case for “small government” as they might have done back in 1990s.
In the absence of a cohesive strategy from congressional GOP leaders or the party apparatus, individual Republicans like Gingrich and GOP-aligned outside groups were left to mount their own attacks against Biden’s American Rescue Plan. Some criticism focused on pet projects within the legislation. Others accused Democrats of using the shadow of a pandemic to expand the welfare state.
“This bill was so extreme and so little about it was actually Covid relief,” said Tim Phillips, president of Americans for Prosperity, which has accused Democrats of “leveraging” the latest legislative response to the Covid-19 crisis “to advance partisan priorities at the expense of everyday Americans.”
None of the attack lines seemed to resonate with voters, who began receiving stimulus checks as early as last weekend and appear overwhelmingly supportive of the law. A CBS-YouGov survey released on Sunday showed 71 percent of adults believe the American Rescue Plan will benefit the middle class more than wealthy Americans. The bill’s passage coincides with an uptick in vaccinations and recognition from Democrats and allied teachers unions that schools need to reopen soon — which together have the potential for improving the electoral landscape for Democrats as they try to keep both chambers of the Congress.
Their people don’t care about ideology. And really, they never did. They are now entirely motivated by blatant culture war issues. Their base cares about “cancel culture” for sure. But they also care about immigration, race relations, crime etc. The Republicans will regroup around that and it will be a much more pitched battle than anything about spending. Democrats are going to have to fight those but should keep going with the safety net improvements, infrastructure and investment programs without concern for right wing opposition.
By the way, this came out today:
The coronavirus relief and stimulus legislation signed into law by President Joe Biden last week is earning high marks from voters, according to a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll.
More than seven in 10 voters, 72 percent, support the new law, the poll shows — far greater than the paltry 21 percent who oppose it.
Support is nearly universal among Democrats — 95 percent — and strong among independents at 69 percent. Despite the law’s earning no support from Republicans in Congress, GOP voters are split in the new poll: 44 percent support it, and 48 percent oppose it.