America: If you love it, hate it
Oliver Darcy on Tuesday wrote, “Conservatives are going into self-exile.”
The Formerly Republican Party, like Formerly Twitter, “is now led by far-right media forces hoping to cash in on attention from raging culture wars, sealing off its adherents from the rest of society.”
One wonders what’s left of America for Republicans to love. Red-hatted Make America Great Again believers are systematically excommunicating anyone and everyone not not eaten up with gnawing grievances. They have demonized DEI efforts (diversity, equity and inclusion) and seem bent (apt?) on making their clan “the most restrictive country club in America.”
In the 1960s, the conservative slogan was, America: Love it or leave it. Today the message is, America: If you love it, hate it.
Darcy writes:
From a bird’s eye view, the state of affairs among MAGA Media diehards as it sits today is remarkable. A subset of America actually purports to boycott Disney, the world’s preeminent entertainment company; Bud Light, once America’s most popular beer; Target, the quintessential brick-and-mortar shopping destination; Pfizer, the pharmaceutical company that produced life-saving Covid-19 vaccines; Major League Baseball, the nation’s favorite pastime; and now Taylor Swift, a generational icon and one of the most successful musical artists of all time.
“There’s something striking about watching the far-right tying itself in knots and attacking Swift and [her boyfriend Travis] Kelce that demonstrates how badly the far-right media has alienated itself from most of society,” Charlie Warzel, a staff writer at The Atlantic who covers the intersection of politics, technology, and culture, told me Tuesday.
The culture MAGA Republicans are at war with is America. What does that make them?
MAGA’s political wing of miners and sappers means to sabotage any effort to put the government they serve to work making Americans’ lives better.
Steve Benen teased his latest blog post on Blue Sky:
Democrats: Republicans are deliberately refusing to solve problems because they care more about elections and partisan games.
Republicans: Yep, pretty much.
NBC News reported overnight:
The House voted Wednesday night to pass a $78 billion tax package that includes an expansion of the child tax credit, sending it to the Senate, where its path is uncertain.
The Republican-led House passed the bipartisan measure 357-70, using a fast-track process that requires a two-thirds majority. The legislation received broad support from each party: 169 Republicans and 188 Democrats voted for it, while 47 Republicans and 23 Democrats voted against it.
Steve Benen writes this morning that for this House-sponsored bipartisan achievment to amount to much it first has to get by the Senate and Chuck Grassley:
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, cast doubt Wednesday on passing a bipartisan tax bill, saying it could make President Joe Biden “look good” and improve Democrats’ chances of holding the White House in the 2024 election.
Grassley said re-electing Biden could hurt Republican hopes of extending Trump-era tax cuts.
Not even subtle
Benen adds:
The problem is not that the Iowa Republican opposes the underlying legislation; the problem is that his principal concern is avoiding governing successes that might make President Joe Biden “look good” in an election year.
Can’t have that, Benen explains. Because “reducing child poverty is fine, but helping the Republican Party’s electoral strategies is better.”
Some might be tempted to believe that both parties think this way. That’s wrong. As recently as 2020, congressional Democrats put aside partisan considerations and worked to put money in Americans’ pockets during a crisis — without regard for whether it might improve Donald Trump’s re-election prospects. The focus was on families’ needs, not partisan tactics.
Four years later, Grassley’s instincts push him in the opposite direction. He isn’t even being subtle about it.
What’s more, he’s not alone. About a month ago, Republican Rep. Troy Nehls said he’d oppose a different bipartisan compromise for the same reason. “Let me tell you, I’m not willing to do too damn much right now to help a Democrat and to help Joe Biden’s approval rating,” the Texan said. “I will not help the Democrats try to improve this man’s dismal approval ratings. I’m not going to do it.” Nehls echoed the same sentiment this week.
How about that? Republicans are boycotting their own jobs.
