The leaders of either party are not built for this moment
“Now is not the time to politicize pain and suffering,” Dade Phelan (R), House Speaker, said after Beto O’Rourke’s outburst in Uvalde, Texas on Wednesday. Nineteeen schoolchildren and two teachers died in the shooting rampage there Tuesday.
“I can’t believe you’re a sick son of a bitch who would come to a deal like this to make a political issue,” Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin yelled at O’Rourke.
But politics is their damned job. It is the job of most of the people on the platform at the press conference O’Rourke interrupted. Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, Phelan, and McLaughlin. All Republicans.
They are all paid by the taxpayers to do politics. As they sat there. Doing nothing, as O’Rourke got up and pointed out loudly.
“You are doing nothing,” O’Rourke said. “You said this was not predictable; this was totally predictable, and you choose not to do anything.”
Worse. What Texas did by loosening the state’s gun laws increased the threat of violence and death. There is a fair chance that the conservative U.S. Supreme Court could loosen gun laws further in a ruling on a pending New York case.
“We’ve all seen how quickly and creatively Texas—your local legislature—can act when it wants to, say, protect the unborn embryo. Why not act with that alacrity to protect living, breathing 10-year-olds in this school behind me?” CNN’s Alisyn Camerota asked Texas state Rep. James White as he stood outside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde.
“We have this thing called the Constitution,” White responded pivoting from guns to mental health. Republicans have no answers, just empty talking points used to evade addressing the problem massacre after massacre.
There were and will be calls for Democrats to do more, or at least something. Twitter lit up Wednesday night.
“Some people have trouble reconciling the virtually limitless powers American presidents wield over war and security with how important they are on most domestic policy,” began Slate’s Jordan Weissmann. Other reporters chimed in.
Adam Jentleson (“Kill Switch,” former chief of staff to Nevada Sen. Harry Reid) responded to Fallon, “The leaders of our party are not built for this moment. They’re too old and too wedded to outdated ways. They still believe in institutions that failed long ago. They still beg Republicans to do the right thing, only to be humiliated again and again. We need generational change.”
Here is Sen. Chris Murphy, 48, Democrat of Connecticut.
And here is Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, 71, bringing all the passion he can muster.
Jentleson is correct. Boat-rocking, coloring outside the lines is frowned upon once politics becomes your paycheck. National Democrats and most at the state level are operating from a playbook decades old and obsolete. Their political reflexes are gone. Thinking outside the box is virtually nonexistent.
There’s an “abused spouse” sense to how many Democrats approach interactions with the GOP. “Let’s not do anything to make father angry. You know how he gets.”
Who wants to elect that to lead them?
UPDATE:
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