Freshman Rep. Peter Meijer of Michigan who voted for Trump’s impeachment:
“I would say my goal is to not be a hypocrite,” Meijer told Phillip. “To be able to call balls and strikes fairly and have a voice that is credible even if somebody might not have the same beliefs or agree on the political side.”
That’s nice, but being a hypocrite is a defining characteristic of Republican politics. He thinks it means being equally critical of “both sides” which it really has nothing to do with:
He said Republicans need to stop living in “a perpetual state of denial” about the way they lost power in 2020.
“We lost the presidency in 2020. We lost the Senate in 2021. So we need to get back to a point where we could be offering some solutions, and earning the trust of the voter and get that rare privilege of governing on behalf of the American people,” he said.
How nice. I look forward to hearing his conservative solutions. Tax cuts I presume? Meanwhile:
“If you’re a progressive, you’ve seen a lot of just wild sums of taxpayer dollars thrown toward — or just thrown vaguely in the direction of things that you like,” he said. “If you were hoping to see some bipartisan consensus, if you’re hoping to see governance from the middle, I think you’ve been sorely disappointed.”
Ah, the lukewarm water politician is not entirely extinct. But almost. Which is actually good. Because all they do is blather on about how nobody is a reasonable as they are and never actually do a thing. And that’s even more true on the Republican side where radicalism truly does reign.
The beltway loves these folks though. From Susan Collins wringing her hands over everything but never actually doing anything meaningful to Joe Manchin throwing his weight around to guys like this who just want to “tell the truth” except they criticize the Democrats for failing to “work in the middle” and refuse to recognize they belong to a party that thinks “meeting half way” actually means my way or the highway (and even then they’ll tank the deal just to own the libs.) These people are hypocrites and phonies even as they strut around extolling their own moral authority and fiscal responsibility while allowing themselves to be pawns of the most radical people in the country. And that’s not AOC and the squad.
Meijer is better than Marjorie Taylor Greene, of course. Better a bucket of lukewarm water than a barrel full of battery acid. But they don’t do very much good either. If you are a Republican today, you are a member of the party of Donald Trump. That’s what it is. Pretending to be something else is the ultimate hypocrisy.