Axios’ Jim Vandehei wrote that the the Republicans have landed on a new post-Trump template and it’s just terrific:
Republicans are rallying around a plan to break up with corporate America and oppose Big Business, Big Tech, Big Media, Big Education — and big government:
Quit corporate America: A new breed of Republicans — led by Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, who last week called on the party to divorce Big Business — is championing the working class against the party’s traditional boardroom allies. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) introduced a plan to “Bust Up Anti-Competitive Big Businesses.”
Pound parental rights: Terry McAuliffe’s debate remark dissing parents allowed Virginia Republicans to mainstream an issue that was already burning up Fox News. The day after Glenn Youngkin’s victory, House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy said the party will soon unveil a “parent’s bill of rights.” Democrats are now playing defense on education — an issue they used to own.
Terrorize tech: If Republicans win back the House and/or Senate majorities, curbs on Big Tech — including new taxes — will be a Day 1 priority. Cries of censorship — real or manufactured — are one of the surest GOP applause lines, milking the party’s cultural gulf with Silicon Valley. J.D. Vance, the “Hillbilly Elegy” author running for Senate in Ohio, is pushing to dismantle the “Big Tech Oligarchy.”
Malign mandates: President Biden’s plan to require COVID vaccination or testing for employers of 100+ people beginning Jan. 4 has been a huge gift in the eyes of Republican governors. Florida’s Ron DeSantis was among the first of several GOP governors to sue Biden over the mandate: “[T]he federal government cannot unilaterally impose medical policy under the guise of workplace regulation.”
Fan fear: House Republicans are building their regain-the-majority strategy around the trifecta of rising inflation, illegal immigration and crime. The GOP blames all those troubling trends on Democrats, since they’re in charge. The fear factor has a receptive audience with the big prize in next year’s midterms — suburban swing voters.
Well, there is this little problem:
The big picture: Trump will probably run in 2024 and make the GOP about his various grievances. In that case, Republican candidates will try to smuggle these ideas to voters without offending the party leader.
“Without offending the party leader…” As if that’s just a perfectly normal thing now.
Well, good luck with that:
An Arizona congressman tweeted a photoshopped anime video of himself slaying liberal Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. Sen. Ted Cruz , a Texas Republican, has reportedly been spitballing about secession. Michigan Rep. Fred Upton shared a vile voicemail branding him a traitor and threatening his family after he was one of the handful of Republicans to vote for a bipartisan infrastructure bill to create jobs mending roads, bridges and airports.
And the ex-President himself has taken his incitement and obsessional lies about an election in which he tried to destroy US democracy to new levels of intensity. He has already notified the court that he is appealing the judge’s ruling Tuesday night that the current President’s decision not to assert privilege over the documents outweighs Trump’s position that they should not be handed over.
For all the signs of a newly focused GOP ready to exploit President Joe Biden’s struggles against inflation and high gas prices and to court parents dismayed over pandemic school closures, its unhinged wing is again stealing the spotlight.
The GOP is again coming across as a party that glorifies violence, denies truth, defies constitutional order, excuses insurrection, fuels conspiracy theories, appeases extremists and trashes democracy in its zeal to grab back power.
[…]
The bile heaped on 13 GOP members who backed a bipartisan infrastructure bill revealed another example of the zealotry pulsating through the conservative populist movement. Upton revealed on CNN a voice mail calling him a “f**king piece of sh*t traitor” after Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a leading light of the GOP’s stunt and conspiracy caucuses, tweeted the phone numbers of Republican colleagues who voted for the bill and called them traitors.
“The leader of the party” is leading the charge:
Former President Donald Trump ripped 13 congressional Republicans who backed a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill during a lengthy speech Monday – while one of them, New York Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, listened from the audience.
Malliotakis appeared visibly shaken as Trump railed against her and other Republican House members during the National Republican Congressional Committee dinner, a source told The Post.
How about this?
His opponent is a MAGA nutcase.
So, good luck getting around this freakshow with your phony populism, Republicans.