I wrote this post on Saturday but never put it up. Oh well, it will surely work as an Open Thread, at least!
Now we know that there is one living honorable Republican – his name
NYT gift link to the opinion piece by J. Michael Luttig.
Donald Trump this month became the first former or incumbent American president to be charged with crimes against the nation that he once led and wishes to lead again. He cynically calculated that his indictment would ensure that a riled-up Republican Party base would nominate him as its standard-bearer in 2024, and the last few weeks have proved that his political calculation was probably right.
The former president’s behavior may have invited charges, but the Republicans’ spineless support for the past two years convinced Mr. Trump of his political immortality, giving him the assurance that he could purloin some of the nation’s most sensitive national security secrets upon leaving the White House — and preposterously insist that they were his to do with as he wished — all without facing political consequences. Indeed, their fawning support since the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol has given Mr. Trump every reason to believe that he can ride these charges and any others not just to the Republican nomination, but also to the White House in 2024.
In a word, the Republicans are as responsible as Mr. Trump for this month’s indictment — and will be as responsible for any indictment and prosecution of him for Jan. 6. One would think that, for a party that has prided itself for caring about the Constitution and the rule of law, this would stir some measure of self-reflection among party officials and even voters about their abiding support for the former president. Surely before barreling headlong into the 2024 presidential election season, more Republicans would realize it is time to come to the reckoning with Mr. Trump that they have vainly hoped and naïvely believed would never be necessary.
But by all appearances, it certainly hasn’t occurred to them yet that any reckoning is needed. As only the Republicans can do, they are already turning this ignominious moment into an even more ignominious moment — and a self-immolating one at that — by rushing to crown Mr. Trump their nominee before the primary season even begins. Building the Republican campaign around the newly indicted front-runner is a colossal political miscalculation, as comedic as it is tragic for the country. No assemblage of politicians except the Republicans would ever conceive of running for the American presidency by running against the Constitution and the rule of law. But that’s exactly what they’re planning.
The stewards of the Republican Party have become so inured to their putative leader, they have managed to convince themselves that an indicted and perhaps even convicted Donald Trump is their party’s best hope for the future. But rushing to model their campaign on Mr. Trump’s breathtakingly inane template is as absurd as it is ill fated. They will be defending the indefensible.
On cue, the Republicans kicked their self-defeating political apparatus into high gear this month. Almost as soon as the indictment in the documents case was unsealed, Mr. Trump jump-started his up-to-then languishing campaign, predictably declaring himself an “innocent man” victimized in “the greatest witch hunt of all time” by his “totally corrupt” political nemesis, the Biden administration. On Thursday, he added that it was all part of a plot, hatched at the Justice Department and the F.B.I., to “rig” the 2024 election against him.
From his distant second place, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida denounced the Biden administration’s “weaponization of federal law enforcement” against Mr. Trump and the Republicans. Mike Pence dutifully pronounced the indictment political. And both Governor DeSantis and Mr. Pence pledged — in a new Republican litmus test — that on their first day in office they would fire the director of the F.B.I., the Trump appointee Christopher Wray, obviously for his turpitude in investigating Mr. Trump. It fell to Kevin McCarthy, the House speaker, to articulate the treacherous overarching Republican strategy: “I, and every American who believes in the rule of law, stand with President Trump against this grave injustice. House Republicans will hold this brazen weaponization of power accountable.”
There’s no stopping Republicans now, until they have succeeded in completely politicizing the rule of law in service to their partisan political ends.
If the indictment of Mr. Trump on Espionage Act charges — not to mention his now almost certain indictment for conspiring to obstruct Congress from certifying Mr. Biden as the president on Jan. 6 — fails to shake the Republican Party from its moribund political senses, then it is beyond saving itself. Nor ought it be saved.
There is no path to the White House for Republicans with Mr. Trump. He would need every single Republican and independent vote, and there are untold numbers of Republicans and independents who will never vote for him, if for no other perfectly legitimate reason than that he has corrupted America’s democracy and is now attempting to corrupt the country’s rule of law. No sane Democrat will vote for Mr. Trump — even over the aging Mr. Biden — when there are so many sane Republicans who will refuse to vote for Mr. Trump. This is all plain to see, which makes it all the more mystifying why more Republicans don’t see it.
When Republicans faced an 11th-hour reckoning with another of their presidents over far less serious offenses almost 50 years ago, the elder statesmen of the party marched into the Oval Office and told Richard Nixon the truth. He had lost his Republican support and he would be impeached if he did not resign. The beleaguered Nixon resigned the next day and left the White House the day following.
Such is what it means to put country over party.
Read the whole thing. Gift link.
h/t MattF
Baud
I remember when Luttig was considered far right.
brendancalling
@Baud: he still is. The difference is he has some integrity.
bbleh
It would help if he didn’t look as much like William Shatner, just sayin’
Baud
@brendancalling:
A far right person with integrity is like a far left person who loves big banks and corporations. Does not compute.
The Moar You Know
He is still in denial. The Republicans have not been that party since the early 1970s.
Betty Cracker
(Obi-wan voice) There is another.
Jerzy Russian
Hmm, “… even over the aging Mr. Biden…”. Let’s see, on the one hand we have a man who can’t stop engaging in criminal acts, can’t shut the fuck up about it, and is apparently “wearing his underwear on the outside” bonkers. On the other hand we have a man who is a bit over 80 but is otherwise fine, and is basically the opposite of the first one. I will need some more time to figure out which one to vote for.
artem1s
Nope. No integrity at all.
He’s just another GOP hack opining over the days when the candidates knew better than to say the quiet parts out loud. He is just fine with a party that uses hatred of others to win elections. He just knows they can’t ever win the WH again without the DoD and military votes.
Baud
Isn’t everyone aging?
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Baud: Think of it like Worf from Star Trek: The Next Generation. He was a Klingon raised by humans who were trying to do right, who taught him to be proud of Klingon culture, who gave him an impression of the best parts of his heritage.
In short, his parents taught him to believe that the lies his culture spouted were actually true.
And when he came face-to-face with the pettiness, venality, and downright treachery that was woven into how his people actually behaved, it shook him to his core.
artem1s
@Betty Cracker: The daughter of the VP who helped engineer the Southern Strategy and looked the other way as Karl Rove employed televagicals and astroturfing Teahaddists to win elections says WHAT? Who decided to turn the GOP into the Party of Stupid in the first place, Liz?
Jerzy Russian
@Betty Cracker: Relatedly, I was thinking about the early Star Wars movies the other day, and you can’t convince me that Lucas didn’t make up the first and subsequent sequels as he went along, even though there are claims that he had all of the 9 movies mapped out ahead of time. One would have thought that Obiwan knew about Leia at that moment Luke is flying off to that gas mining place to save Han.
As for the answer to Representative Cheney’s question: stop nominating and subsequently voting for idiots. Then they won’t be elected.
nickdag
Wait wait wait wait.
Wasn’t this the guy who testified at the J6 Committee and then the next day said he’d vote for Trump again if Trump were the nominee?
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@artem1s: We are not our parents. She is right wing, but she has integrity.
RaflW
Due respect to Mr Luttig, but “a party that has prided itself for caring about the Constitution and the rule of law” fundamentally misstates the past 50 years at least. I don’t doubt that some (perhaps even, in bygone days, some largish) component of GOP voters took pride in the Constitution and thought law and order applied to all.
But in the rear view mirror, it’s all been bullshit since at least Ford’s pardon of Nixon. Sure, the GOP has been the “law and order” party, but that’s been the racist use of the law to impose order on Black, brown, queer and other disliked-hated groups.
So, sure, J. Michael, you can be principled. But the party left you in the dust a long ass time ago.
West of the Rockies
An excellent read! Thank you.
Someday there will be great books that detail the slow, methodical destruction of the GOP and conservatism. They will examine the psychological makeup of the party’s leaders and voters.
I wonder when truly the GOP became the vile, hateful, fearful criminal enterprise it now is. Nixon sucked, but you can say the EPA was created during his tenure. He started diplomatic ties to China, etc. (YES, he was corrupt and terrible.)
But Romney, whom we all disliked, seems head and shoulders better and more normal than Trump.
When did the party become this wretched, steaming dung pile?
Honestly, I think the cynical Southern Strategy was part of it, as was the rise of Limbaugh and his ilk (the enraged and resentful rightwing media machine), the connection and empowerment of the religious right, and then the party willfully, happily embracing stupidity (Palin, Trump, etc.)
And, of course, the party has always put cash and the wealthy over the environment, honor, and non-wealthy people.
Betty
The other good thing Luttig did was participate in the Independent State Legislature case. I think his forceful argument made Roberts and his two minions think twice about continuing their wave of destruction. He was apparently the alternative to Alito being considered for the Court. I wonder if he would have been half as bad.
Trivia Man
When I lived in NJ I learned about the Frelinghuysen political dynasty. 200+ years right in the thick of national politics. Rodney became chair of Appropriations… and couldn’t bring himself to denounce Trumpism. It cost him his seat.
in 1954 his father had the courage to stand against McCarthyism – his words ring more true than ever before.
”By remaining silent, we permit the public to believe that most republicans condone the senator’s tactics. By remaining silent, we lend credence to the view that we prefer to risk losing our freedom than to offend a questionable asset to our party.”
https://www.nj11thforchange.org/rodney_redux_frelinghuysen_s_dad_vs_mccarthyism
Cameron
@Baud: Beats me. Everybody poops, but everybody ages? Anyway, ‘everybody poops’ is more apposite to today’s GOP.
Geoduck
@Jerzy Russian: I believe Lucas had A series of movie mapped out, but he then decided he didn’t want to keep making Star Wars flicks, so he wrapped everything up fast with Return of the Jedi, and came back much later to do the prequels. At the time Empire Strikes Back was made, Leia was not who Obi-Wan and Yoda were talking about, but she had to be used in the end because there wasn’t anyone else in the existing cast.
Alison Rose
@Baud: Everyone except Paul Rudd and Cher.
RaflW
Further fisking: “The stewards of the Republican Party have become so inured to their putative leader, they have managed to convince themselves…” is a sadly all too common construction of thought which views Trump as the problem, not as the predictable apex of decades of ethical, moral and political decay among hundreds, nay thousands of Republican electeds, officials, apparatchiks etc.
Treating Donald as the disease, when he is the natural end product, is not going to lead to the change Luttig seems to hope for.
Josie
@nickdag: I don’t recall seeing that he would vote for Trump. I think you are confusing him with an official from Arizona?
Splitting Image
@Jerzy Russian:
I think that he had a general outline written, but changed details right up to the end of filming. There’s no way that he imagined Luke and Leia being siblings when he wrote the romantic scenes in the first two movies, for example.
I’ve always thought that the “No, I am your father” scene completely destroyed the point of the prequels. The general outline of the three prequels would have made a decent story if you didn’t know beforehand who was going to turn traitor. It’s weird to think that he filmed them all anyway following his original plan even after spoiling the big reveal which would have made them all work.
zhena gogolia
One other honorable (former) Republican just died, Lowell Weicker, the only Republican I ever voted for
Elizabelle
@nickdag: I think that was Bill Barr? And probably a few others. I don’t see Luttig voting for Trump, on penalty of death.
I noticed the one slam at “the aging Biden.” And when we hear “aging,” we should substitute “effective.” We are fortunate to have Old Handsome Joe’s judgment and experience.
Luttig is a youthful 69.
Frankensteinbeck
@Bruce K in ATH-GR:
That sounds more like our blogfather, who hit the rare and admirable moment of realizing his In Group didn’t give a shit about the things they said they did. Actually valuing helping people, he changed sides. That’s a mensch, right there.
@Jerzy Russian:
Lucas is an egotistical hack who whores out his properties* while patting himself on the back as an artist. When he figured he would never get around to making the final trilogy, he declared the Thrawn trio canon, then went to make the prequels that totally invalidated those books. He was always making it up as he went along.
*And you know what? Everybody needs money. If you have a chance to sell out and get fabulously rich, good for you. But don’t turn around and tell me you have some god-vision of high art after you do it.
RaflW
@Betty Cracker: My response to Liz yesterday was “Who is this we you’re talkin’ ’bout”?
If she means Republicans, ok. But if she means the US, she can fuck right off. It’s 99:1 R:D in terms of idiots, and I’m probably overly generous to the GOP to think there’s 3 Democratic idiots in all of Congress (ie: Manchin is an asshole, but he’s not stupid).
Rand Careaga
Au contraire, Mr. Luttig. It’s true that there’s not what we would call a legitimate path, but the party has been honing, ah, creative tools, mapping out alternate routes to power: gerrymandering, voter suppression, disinformation, fraud, intimidation, violence…oh, there are paths all right, and these people aren’t going to roll over just because they can’t secure a majority.
Kay
We have lots of college educated, moderate Republicans where I live and I think they were watching and waiting to see whether Trump and Trumpism was a wining formula (past the first fluke of 2016) and now that he’s lost 3 in a row they found their “principles” and think he should be replaced.
If the Trump GOP had won in 18, 20 and/or 22 none of these people woud give a shit about the “rule of law”. They just think Trumpism is a losing formula.
Rand Careaga
@Splitting Image:
Yeah, me too. A few years ago a checker at the local Food Hole said to me “You sound just like my father,” referring (I assume) to my voice and not to the content of our over-the-register idle pleasantries. I couldn’t let a straight line like that pass. “Luke,” I rumbled, “I am your father.”
eclare
@Betty Cracker:
As others have said, who is this “we”?
Cameron
I could have seen myself voting for Romney, but I was too young. George Romney, that is.
Ken
Lando Calrissian? Chewbacca?
I do think it would have been simpler and saner if Lucas hadn’t decided both surviving Jedi had to be the twin children of Vader. Plus, as Frankensteinbeck says above, the kiss in “episode 4” wouldn’t have been retconned into… disturbing territory.
eclare
@Alison Rose:
Ha! So true.
Amir Khalid
@West of the Rockies:
Didn’t Nixon fight tooth and nail against the creation of the EPA, of have I misremembered that?
Betty Cracker
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: Maybe Worf’s human parents read Klingon Fairy Tales to him as a child. (McSweeney’s)
Jackie
Attorney Neal Katyal, who won his argument with the Supreme Court on yesterday’s Moore v. Harper ruling gave Luttig huge credit as his co-council.
No citations – but Katyal was on several MSNBC programs yesterday celebrating his victory and every time he never failed to give Luttig kudos for his role and support.
Frankensteinbeck
@Amir Khalid:
I am too young to know, but I do remember that Romneycare happened because Democrats had a veto-proof majority and passed it against his wishes.
Citizen Alan
@Geoduck: There was also the fact that Harrison Ford was the real breakout star of the first 2 movies, and, IIRC, was not under contract for a third when empire Is started filming. Had ford not come back for return of the jedi, I imagine luke and leia would not have been siblings and would have ended up a couple.
billcoop4
Rodney was always a wimp and a wuss of the first water. Why someone from one of the oldest families in the Republic put up with parvenus like Gingrich is beyond me.
BC
different-church-lady
Nope, misses the mark: there is no political calculation. He just is. He just does. He’s a creature of pure instinct, and we’re at a point where his instincts mesh perfectly with a zeitgeist that has turned people who were fascist curious into fascist enthusiasts.
different-church-lady
@Baud: If you’re lucky, yeah.
different-church-lady
@Betty Cracker: Cheney longs for a return to the days when her party was thoughtful about being evil.
trollhattan
@Kay: Yup. The only sin is losing.
Remember, “You’ll get tired of all the winning”? That aged well.
Maxim
@Citizen Alan: But Empire clearly established Leia and Han as a couple and Luke and Leia as siblings, so that would have been hard to walk back if Ford hadn’t signed on for ROTJ.
Tim C.
@Frankensteinbeck: To borrow from a different IP, I know for a fact John wouldn’t put on the ring of power. He would remain himself and fade into the west.
If spinning out a Subaru into a field while driving naked, a mop in the passenger seat and five drums of Mustard in the back counts as fading into the west.
trollhattan
@Amir Khalid: Hazy recollection congress had a veto-proof majority in each house so Nixon signed it, knowing he couldn’t stop it. You know, “to get along.”
Maxim
@different-church-lady: And less blatant, more civil. See how polite we are? We can’t possibly be the bad guys.
different-church-lady
@Cameron:
Also if you’re lucky.
trollhattan
@different-church-lady: Truly a product of her parents, both of whom would eat barbequed Democrat if they had a chance.
rikyrah
Open Thread.
I like TikTok because of the random ‘Toks’ that I can find myself on.
In the past 2 weeks, I have wound up on
GardeningTok
LemonTok
ChocolateTok
EquestrianTok (I REALLY don’t understand this one)
DreamHouseTok
WaterTok (Learned a lot of different tricks on what to buy to flavor your water)
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: John Huntsman has weighed in against Trump. Some reporter asked him if Trump can win and if he would vote him, and Huntsman replied, “No and no.”
I think part of the reason current Republican office holders fear crossing Trump is that they want to limit damage in Congressional races. If Trump heads the ticket, it will likely cost them some in down ballot races. But if they go to war with Trump, they’ll be punished by Trump’s core supporters in the next cycle, and probably the ones following.
So Republican elites are not trying to make it into the next volume of Profiles in Courage, but rather the next volume of Profiles in Damage Control. I don’t think this strategy will work out in the short or long term though, at least not nationally. That party is just a mess.
rikyrah
@Betty Cracker:
I can’t take seriously anyone who voted with Dolt45 for 90% of the time.
Their issue with Dolt45 is that he didn’t speak in Frank Luntz-Approved language.
The policies – they had no issues with.
different-church-lady
@rikyrah: These things always seem to come down to, “There’s a right way to be shitty to people, and you’re screwing it up.”
HumboldtBlue
@Betty Cracker:
I reject this notion. Cheney backed Trump in every damn thing until Jan 6 and only then, because it deeply harmed the party, did she speak out. She’d vote for that fucker tomorrow if it helped the GOP, and she’s still in line with 99-percent of the GOP’s fuckery.
She’s just mad Trump didn’t steal an election without repercussions, like her father did in 2000.
Old School
@Elizabelle:
To me – old age is always ten years older than I am.
Bernard Baruch
geg6
@Jackie:
I noticed that, too. He made sure to give him credit. Gives me warm feelings for Neal. I love it when someone gives their collaborators credit when due. Not everyone does. Ask me how I know.
eclare
@geg6:
That is classy. One of the best people I ever worked with always, always gave others credit first when he was praised.
No surprise, people loved working with him.
Betty Cracker
Maybe I’m naïve, but I think Liz Cheney seriously had a problem with Trump trying to overturn an election he clearly lost by mob force and/or coup. Probably Kinzinger too. Doesn’t mean they’re nice people. Doesn’t mean they don’t suck on policy. Doesn’t mean their political philosophy isn’t appalling. Doesn’t mean Dick Cheney isn’t a horrid zombie ghoul. But by the standards of “honorable” outlined in the OP, I think Liz Cheney fits the bill, and possibly Kinzinger too.
mrmoshpotato
Fixed.
patrick II
@artem1s:
I think that, at some level, Liz is acutely aware of your observations and the fact that her father participated in his own crimes of stealing an election. A good part of Liz’s behavior is a subconscious rejection of her father’s behavior which she is acting out against Trump.
//end amateur psychology.
And I will just add there were only two differences between the Brooks Brothers riot and Jan 6. First, The Brooks Brothers riot was at the level and, second, it successfully stopped the vote count.
Scout211
Apologies if this has already been posted, but more good legal news.
Birth certificate rule is unconstitutional, judge holds state in contempt, liable for entire suit
The Thin Black Duke
Lucas used to be a good director (American Graffiti, THX 1138) until he hit the lottery with Star Wars (which originally was going to be a reboot of Buck Rogers, but he couldn’t secure the rights). However, Lucas is a terrible writer. During an argument between Lucas and Harrison Ford, Ford said, “You can write this shit, George, but you can’t say it.” I don’t think it’s an accident that the TV shows are so much better than the movies, simply because Lucas isn’t there to fuck them up.
Matt McIrvin
@Splitting Image: Back in the heyday of LiveJournal, I saw someone plot out an alternate prequel trilogy that ended in a fight between Anakin Skywalker–newly encased in the Darth Vader armor–and Christopher Lee’s Count Dooku. Dooku defeats and kills Anakin, then takes the armor and puts it on himself, assuming the identity of Darth Vader so he can secretly work to take the Empire down from the inside when the time is right.
Probably wouldn’t have worked for any number of reasons, but I’d have liked to see the audience reaction to that twist.
WhatsMyNym
Anybody that talks about Biden’s age should be reminded that trump is 77 right now.
Steeplejack
Dave from the Rustbelt
The problem was that a Nixon Administration dead-ender named Roger Ailes got together with a slimy Australian billionaire named Rupert Murdoch and created a right-wing propaganda media operation wrapped up in the trappings of journalism specifically to hide the truth from the Republican voting base and shield corrupt Republican politicians from the kind of accountability Nixon faced.
Matt McIrvin
@Rand Careaga: I think the 2022 election results and the 1/6 prosecutions have greatly reduced the likelihood of some of the most obvious paths to returning Trump to power. But they could still get there by dividing the non-MAGA vote against itself. I’m hoping that the threat of Trump is enough to keep that from making the difference, but I’m not extremely sanguine about it.
WaterGirl
@artem1s: Yeah, that jumped out at me, also. It’s partisan, for sure, and it’s bullshit. Politics ain’t bean bag, as they say.
But it doesn’t mean the guy doesn’t have the integrity to call the trump stuff what it is, which is an assault on our democracy.
I don’t have to agree with him on issues to think that he has integrity.
mrmoshpotato
@Betty Cracker: Oh Liz… Your father stole the 43th presidency and had an idiot as figurehead. STFU.
trollhattan
@WhatsMyNym: YES!
And, an old 77 in the rode-hard, put-away wet sense.
trollhattan
@mrmoshpotato: Also, selected self as VP, some kind of Cheney trifecta of evil shit.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Matt McIrvin: Live Journal. Wow. I used it a lot in my fanfic days. That was a while back.
rikyrah
@Matt McIrvin:
But Dooku was a bad guy. Why would he take down the Empire?
rikyrah
Question for BJ Jackals:
Do you think the McCarthy is gonna get caught up in the 1/6 Indictments?
Could he have been plotting with Meadows?
Jeffro
@Betty Cracker: I was about to say…Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger…there are a few.
(although that Cheney quote still rubs me the wrong way, since she didn’t apply it strictly to the GOP)
rikyrah
Question for folks..
I just put myself on a list for a FireTV that will be on sale during PrimeDays from Amazon. I honestly don’t know what the difference is between a FireTV and a Regular Smart TV.
Do I have to buy one of the FireStick Devices in order to have a FireTV, or is whatever the FireStick does already built into the FireTV?
I’ve been trying to read things on Amazon, but, it’s still not connecting for me.
Jackie
@Scout211:
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
AlaskaReader
When these so-called ‘good’ Republicans public denounce their Party and rescind their membership I’ll take a moment to reassess their value,
…until then, there’s not a Republican alive today who has any redeeming value whatsoever.
Jeffro
@Kay:
That’s odd…I did not realize my RWNJ brother had moved to your area… =)
It’s true though. The losing and the constant horn-blaring insanity from trump’s various tweets/pronouncements. Getting kind of boring (although they’ll always rise to defend him on some BS pretext). Oh well, next man up, right GOP? Right? Hmm I guess not just yet…sad!
mrmoshpotato
@Jerzy Russian: You forgot about Dump’s decades-long (and ongoing) sucking of Kremlin cock.
And this feels like a good time for the reminder that we can say penis on the new site!
PENIS!
Matt McIrvin
@Jerzy Russian: Leigh Brackett’s first script for The Empire Strikes Back didn’t even have the identification of Vader as Luke’s father–that came in when it was reworked by Lucas and Kasdan.
Lucas had an elaborate storyline for “The Star Wars” with all sorts of worldbuilding worked out long before Star Wars started production, but it bore little resemblance to what ended up on screen. And some major plot elements of Star Wars weren’t even in the shooting script and were added in post-production: most amazingly, the whole idea that the Death Star was about to destroy the Rebel base at the same time that the Rebels were trying to destroy it. If you look closely, you can see that the peril to the Rebel base is entirely portrayed through clever editing, visual effects inserts where the actors aren’t visible, and offscreen looped dialogue.
So, yeah, I’ve always regarded the idea that he had the whole saga microscopically plotted out in advance as absurd. He probably had some 10,000-foot-view ideas that he felt free to use or reject.
Brachiator
The GOP leadership has had an unfortunate change of heart. They believe that they should have stood with Nixon no matter what. Now, emboldened by Fox News and a base which is stupidly loyal to Trump, the GOP will parrot Trump’s lies and obfuscations and stand by their man. They don’t care how crazy they sound. And they always have the phony examples of Hillary Clinton’s emails and Hunter Biden’s laptop to point to as evil talismans.
For now, the GOP is even willing to ignore Trump’s failures to help other Republicans get elected.
Maybe they think they can steal the 2024 election if the vote goes against them. But for now, the GOP is happy to go down the drain with Trump.
And the political media, for the most part, isn’t willing to call this right wing insanity for what it is.
Jackie
@rikyrah: Only as a sniveling coward turned boot licker.
I doubt he was in cahoots with any MAGA – he was recognized as a pussy while minority leader.
Roger Moore
@West of the Rockies:
The seeds of the Republicans’ ruin have been with them for a long, long time. Back in the 1950s you had the John Birch Society and in the 1930s there was the crazy resistance to the New Deal. Even back in the 1850s, the party absorbed a lot of Know Nothings, and they’ve been an important part of the party ever since.
Geoduck
@Maxim: No, Empire did not establish that Luke and Leia were siblings, that didn’t happen until Return. Leia even kisses Luke at one point, though it’s mostly to make Han jealous.
Mousebumples
For podcast fans – Luttig was on Slate’s Amicus podcast with Dahlia Lithwick – about the ISLT case. Interesting listen.
He also impressed during the Congressional Jan 6 hearings. However, he didn’t seem as slow to speak on the podcast. Probably less potential criminal liability for improper word choice.
JWR
Has anyone been following this IRS whistleblower story? (I haven’t.) But this Gary Shapley guy seems quite irritated that no one’s listening to him. :( He claims to have information about prostitutes, sex parties, drugs and the like, and if he’d been allowed to follow the money, so to speak, he would’ve been able to implicate Joe Biden hisself! Sounds koo-koo birds to me. Here’s CBS’s 3 minute video from last night:
Captain C
@Splitting Image:
I think the necessity to have things line up with the Original Trilogy was one reason many of the characters in the prequels wound up carrying the idiot ball much more than you would otherwise think.
This is why the Machete Order (IV-V-II-III-VI) is probably the best order to watch the originals and prequels for newcomers. Start with Star Wars (A New Hope) and Empire, which doesn’t spoil the Big Reveal (as it would be spoiled if you start with Episode I), then watch II and III as a flashbacks to find out Vader’s origin (Episode I can be skipped and treated as one of the other Expanded Universe movies like Rogue One and Solo), and then watch Episode VI as the conclusion.
strange visitor (from another planet)
@Matt McIrvin: yeah, that would be marcia, lucas’ wife, who won an oscar for editing the thing.
imo the first was great bc the editing and music really made it work; the second bc of kasdan.
Baud
@JWR:
Frankly, I think implicating Joe Biden in sex party scandals might be a good way to neutralize the age issue.
Otherwise, I expect this is Tara Reade 2.0.
Ruckus
@Baud:
I am an old fart and have been paying attention to politics for longer than I’ve been an adult and able to vote. I’ve never seen republican politics to be very realistic for the majority of humans, because of skin color, reality, money, willingness to denigrate anyone who isn’t 100% in their camp. That many of them desire SFB in the Whitehouse once again after the disaster of his 4 previous years and his life as a citizen since tells us all we need to know and understand about current day conservative politics. They don’t want to lead, they want to dominate over every human that doesn’t look and think like them. And they will do stupid, asinine, moronic things that damage themselves in order to have power. Such as back ShitForBrains for another go at fucking up the country, the economy, our lives. SFB, while an ass of epic proportions, does at least understand, and while he will never admit it in any way, that he has fucked the pooch so badly, so often, and in every single way possible that he is really, really finished if he can’t become president again. It is his only chance at staying out of prison and likely being stone broke in the nearish future.
gvg
@The Moar You Know: That doesn’t mean they haven’t prided thenselves on it. It just means they were delusional. The better ones were delusional about the other Republicans. But they certainly went around boasting they were supporters of the rule of law. Remember that saying about be careful what you pretend to be because you might become it? It’s meant to be a warning against pretending to be bad to get along when bad people take over, but it can work the other way and it can turn out that some of the joiners believed the propaganda.
I have long thought that Jeffersons beautiful words about all men being created equal which HE didn’t really believe, resonated with all the little children that learned it in school who grew up and looked around and said? wait a minute, we aren’t living up to the ideals, and a slightly bigger share each generation decided to be better.
Anyway, there have to be some who care about what was said or it would never have been worth using to motivate their voters nor attack us.
Matt McIrvin
@rikyrah: Well, remember, Dooku was the leader of the Separatists who were fighting the Republic back in the prequel era. All this turned out to be a bogus war orchestrated by Palpatine so he could seize power. But suppose Dooku really meant it, and wouldn’t want to be subject to Palpatine’s Empire any more than to the Republic? The work becomes a shoot…
I think the author also had the idea that Dooku, an adept in the Dark Side, really wanted to “bring balance to the Force” and knew that Luke Skywalker was the one to really do it, but felt Anakin was too feckless to nurture those skills through opposition. So he’d become a counterfeit Anakin.
Yeah, it probably falls apart, but I’m not sure it’s worse than what we got.
Jackie
O/T
”NBC News: “Even though Moms for Liberty doesn’t plan to endorse a candidate in the presidential race, the 2024 candidates are coming to court the group — in large part because of the outsize influence its chapters have had on the local level. Candidates endorsed by the nonprofit have swept dozens of school board races and have begun making big changes in K-12 schools.””
I thought RFK Jr was their chosen guy.
JWR
@Baud:
Heh. I was thinking the same thing. ;)
Maxim
@Geoduck: Oops, you’re right. I was conflating that scene from Jedi with the one from Empire.
Matt McIrvin
@gvg: There’s a “fake it till you make it” quality in all the moments when the United States takes a little step forward in social progress. What works always seems to be to claim these are expressions of the values espoused by the Founders, even though they weren’t good at all at embodying those values themselves.
Splitting Image
@mrmoshpotato:
Definitely a quality of life improvement, but a few years too late.
The Republicans who could have been accurately described by a slang term for penis a few years ago all merit far more colourful insults now.
MattF
@JWR: Yeah, it’s… within the realm of possibility… that the ‘IRS whistleblower’ is not a totally reliable source. When an accuser’s story includes a conspiracy to shut them up, it’s a rather huge red flag.
Martin
Assumes facts not in evidence. Luttig is not honorable. He’s a legal fetishist. His argument is that the GOPs abandonment of rule of law is what disqualifies them. And yeah, sure, no argument. He doesn’t have anything to say about Dobbs as an anchor on the GOP though.
So I’m going to guess that he’s pretty much on board with Alito’s opinions and any number of GOP expressions – anti trans legislation, etc. Luttig was just on Amicus with Dahlia discussing Harper v Moore, and he was good, but throughout there was a hint of ‘Republicans are fine pursuing an anti-democratic agenda so long as they follow certain rules’. His argument is more process than goal, and because he thinks that Trump is a loser, he’s particularly critical of the GOP actions around him.
But Luttig was the role model of the kind of judge who would only hire Federalist Society clerks and would steer them all to Thomas and Scalia. Let’s not pretend he doesn’t have an agenda – he absolutely does. He might seem like he on team honorable, but he’s really just embarrassed that these republicans are doing it wrong. He’s not opposed to imposing and enforce minority rule, but these clowns are drawing too much attention to the act and the means to do it, and if the normies start to notice, they’re going to shut this shit down.
This guy is Prigozhin calling out Putin. He’s not a good guy, just a convenient guy for this moment, and once the moment is over he will remain what he always was – a guy trying to gently and carefully undermine any real democratic progress – but he’s the enforcer – the guy who recognizes you need to do it quietly and out of the public view, and if someone puts on the clown shoes and put it on the front page of CNN every day, that person is a threat to that effort – a greater threat than Democrats are, so Luttig feels the need to take them out, even if that momentary makes them an ally with Democrats. But he is not an ally, and he is not honorable. As the defender of competent villainry, he’s still a villain.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: Like the randy tale of Elizabeth Warren, Predatory Cougar?
Jackie
The *old man* has pushed through 100 District Court Judges – so far!
“President Biden and Democrats, largely stymied by Republicans from enacting their policy agenda, have transformed the Senate into a judicial confirmation factory that has just passed a major milestone in its drive to remake the federal courts, approving the 100th District Court nominee since Mr. Biden took office,” the New York Timesreports.
“The pace of the effort has surpassed the one set by Republicans when they pushed to reshape the courts during the administration of former President Donald Trump, putting the Biden administration 20 District Court nominees ahead of the Trump team at the same point in his term.”
👍🏻
gvg
@Ken: I took a course on them way back before the prequels and I am afraid it’s a pretty common theme in older hero mythology according to the professor. Mainly Greek that I recognized but he brought other cultures that I am not familiar with (India? Germanic?) Also twins are a hero myth thing. Supposedly the original trio was using all kinds of themes that were almost universal. I do know that the Greeks did have stories about accidental incest and lost heirs, so no the original attraction between Luke and Leia does not mean he changed his mind.
It doesn’t prove the professor was right either. After all these decades I don’t recall what his sources were. Oh yes, he also said Lucas was using a lot of Nazi versus Allies symbology especially drawing on the style of movies during and right after the war.
mrmoshpotato
@Baud:
Everyone but Dorian Gray.
Steve in the ATL
@Baud: Benjamin Button has entered the chat
Matt McIrvin
@gvg: The “Hero with a Thousand Faces” thesis of Joseph Campbell got a huge surge of interest when people noticed that Star Wars kind of followed the scheme that he claimed was a universal mythic pattern. I doubt that was conscious on George Lucas’s part before people brought it up, but of course the subsequent movies were made in an environment in which people were already talking about that.
Geminid
@Roger Moore: It was 1860 when the American “Know Nothing” party dissolved itself and most of its members went over to the new Republican Party.
One could say the Taft Republicans of 1952 were their descendents. The Southern party realignment of the 1970s brought this reactionary, nativist wing some powerful allies, and now their alliance is dominant.
cmorenc
@nickdag: no, that was Bill Barr who said that, not Luttig.
...now I try to be amused
@Matt McIrvin:
Political legitimacy has to be based on something. Recent experience seems to indicate that the result of the last election (i.e., pure democracy) is not good enough for some folks. The Constitution is the closest thing the US has to holy writ, and the people who wrote it are the closest thing we have to prophets. It’s all mythology but whatever works, I say.
Omnes Omnibus
@Martin: You have made an okay case that he is a conservative Republican. You have not made the case that he is not honorable. It is possible to be both honorable and wrong.
nickdag
@Josie: Oh, I think you’re right. Probably Rusty Bowers. Thanks for the correction.
For the others who replied to me, I definitely wasn’t thinking of Bill Barr. Though, to be clear, Barr is still an asshole of immense proportions.
Wapiti
@HumboldtBlue: Yup. She didn’t vote against him on the first impeachment.
burritoboy
Republicans most likely completely lost the thread when they gradually rejected Christian Democracy over the 1960s, and then sealed their fate by adopting a hardline type of 1. Chicago School economics and 2. neoconservativism in foreign policy over the 1960s-1980s, both of which collapsed in the period 2005-2015 or so due to the dual failure of the 2008 financial crisis and the failure of Iraq War II. That left them with no other option but to completely collapse into the worst forms of volkisch conservatism, which is what Christian Democracy had been built to try to avoid. While the progression is quite familiar in continental Europe’s historic experiences, in the English-speaking world, we really haven’t experienced volkisch conservatism in it’s most virulent form until now as the mass common experience. (Of course, it was a common experience before in limited geographies like the American South, South Africa, and other places. But the conservatives at the pinnacle of the global English-speaking polities – the British Empire and then the US – had previously been Christian Democrats or similar to the Christian Democrats.) So, yes, it was a series of choices over a 60-70 year period that gradually constricted where they would end up. It’s probably not very productive to debate when the last possible turning points would have been. (Luttig may or may not want to think about this, but I’m not sure how important it is for anybody else to think about it.) And a lot of the progression may even have been baked into the GOP’s class position from the mid to late nineteenth century (when the GOP elite fairly quickly becomes the leaders of America’s industrialization after the Civil War.)
Subsole
@The Moar You Know:
What he misses is the other half of the sentence: “unlike those soft, effeminate liberals.”
Everything, EVERYthing ties back to their sense of superiority. It really is all about building a perch they can look down on us from.
Conservatives care about America, in the sense that they care about being able to say they are more American than us. They care about Christ, in the sense that they care about being more Christian than us. They care about the economy and the military in the sense that they are better at it than us, and therefore more manly than us.
Without that implied superiority? That comparison? They wouldn’t wipe their asses with any of those concepts.
That’s why their breathtaking hypocrisy is so baffling to us and so natural to them. They see these things as an excuse/justification. That is the sole utility of, say, a mighty navy or a booming economy or a beaming church choir. We see these things as concrete things unto themselves, with utility outside of how we feel about them. They don’t. S’why they can throw them aside like an old rag and we sit here stunned.
artem1s
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
No she doesn’t. She’s been spewing the same rightwing hatred the rest of the GOP has been spewing. She’s only cares about her own ass and hates that TFG has horned in on their fundraising. As soon as he’s is gone she’ll go right back to spreading lies about abortion providers and LGBTQ and immigrants.
WaterGirl
@rikyrah: I have no idea! But I would GUESS that a Fire TV has a built-in equivalent of the Fire stick.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Kind of like the Senator from MA when accused of having the hot boy toy.
Subsole
@Elizabelle:
America is a weird place.
We all want to live forever, but we don’t want to get old.
WaterGirl
@Steve in the ATL: Hey are you in the market for a young dog? Or a young cat?
Subsole
@Geoduck:
Also kissed him during the Death Star escape in New Hope. For luck.
StringOnAStick
@burritoboy: That’s an excellent thesis and summary of the situation, thanks for posting that.
Elizabelle
@rikyrah:
I hope so. Although, even Meadows may have realized that Kevs is too dumb to entrust with anything of importance.
Also, didn’t McCarthy speak out against the insurrection, and later go back to bootlicking?
Tony Jay
@gvg:
The most ancient, reoccurring myths of the Greeks have many of the same or similar themes as those of the Germanic peoples and the northern Indians because they all came from the same Indo-European root culture.
Sky Fathers, divisions between two rival lines of gods/demons, divine twins, feuds with giants/titans, etc etc. You get the impression that differences in emphasis are mainly down to the whims of the various founder groups who split off from the core culture and the influence of the cultures they settled next to.
KrackenJack
@WaterGirl:
A Marine, no less. Who, IIRC*, had to be accompanied to his assignations by an officer with a portable defibrillator in case thing got out of hand.
* Or made up entirely
Martin
@Omnes Omnibus: I don’t think he has honorable intent. He still has an agenda and that agenda is not honorable. He opposes this *instance* because, yes, I think it goes against what he thinks the law should say, but also because of who is saying it and what their agenda is, and he doesn’t want that to sully things.
I guess there are different standards of honorable here. Is a man unwilling to beat his slaves honorable for not beating his slaves, or dishonorable for having slaves in the first place? I think saying someone is honorable only because they are consistent on the narrow thing they are wiling to examine while refusing to examine all manner of other acts is not a great definition. It’s not wrong, but I think it’s too easy.
Martin
@Elizabelle: Kev was outraged as it unfolded. But that doesn’t mean he wasn’t supportive of it beforehand, and he indicated he was supportive of it after.
I mean, Josh Hawley was clearly in support of it beforehand, and he ass-hauled his way through the building as it unfolded, so it’s not exactly unprecedented for people to have a visceral reconsideration of an idea when the finding out phase kicks in.
Kay
@Jackie:
Candidates endorsed by the nonprofit have swept dozens of school board races and have begun making big changes in K-12 schools.””
There are almost 14,000 school districts in the US so “sweeping dozens” of them doesn’t mean anything, especially because the far Right lose as often as they win on the school board level. The opponents of Moms For Liberty also “swept dozens of school board races”.
Our political reporters are easily bamboozled because they’re uninformed about basic facts of government- how big or small things are, how many, etc. They don’t know enough to add any value.
catclub
@artem1s: When she says ‘We’re electing idiots” she wants to include the whole country.
But if you listed Trump, Tommy Tuberville, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Boebert, and Biden, and asked which ones are idiots, would she include Biden?
Jackie
@catclub: I think Liz voted for Biden.
Not that that means anything re your question.
catclub
@Matt McIrvin:
Truman ordering the services be integrated is one example.
Report on NPR was that Vets denied benefits due to being dishonorably discharged under don’t ask don’t tell, can easily get benefits back from the VA. They could also get them back from the DOD ( which ain’t the VA) reclassifying their discharge.
Final comment in the piece was basicly. ” DOD is in a defensive crouch right now, since it has been accused of being ‘woke’ by the right wing, so it is unlikely to do the right thing.”
In other words they are cowards who won’t do the right thing because they are afraid. Depressing.
Ajabu
@artem1s:
Agreed. I just wished my aging 14 year old granddaughter a happy birthday…
Doesn’t have quite the dismissive tone to it, does it?
WaterGirl
@Ajabu: Not dismissive, but it sounds ridiculous. :-)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
interesting if true…
Giuliani Sat for Voluntary Interview in Jan. 6 Investigation
Jackie
Uncle Joe joins millions of Americans treating sleep apnea. Surely worth a few votes!
“President Joe Biden has begun using a continuous positive airway pressure, or CPAP, machine to treat longstanding sleep apnea,” Bloombergreports.”
“As Biden, 80, departed the White House on Wednesday to give an economic address in Chicago, marks from the CPAP apparatus were apparent on his face.”
Jackie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Ari Melber on MSNBC is covering that now (30 min time delay.)
Tim Curtin
@Baud: Consider how far right he actually is – he still writes “it’s time to take back our party” pieces in anno domini 2023. Nothing that has happened so far has caused him to doubt the fundamental decency of his chums, but the neeext few weeks miiiight do it.
ian
@Jackie: To which I say: Thank you Georgia voters!
brantl
SO. There’s one, anybody want to try for 2?
Ruckus
@Baud:
Isn’t everyone aging?
Some age at a much worse rate than others. SFB was a toddler for most of the time he’s been breathing but then he veered into total asshole for a time and now he’s run like a drunk elephant into dumbshit old fart. And dumbshit old fart is way, way, way down the scale of humanity, right above rancid, decaying pile of moron shit, which is his next stopping point, and which requires a license to exist that costs more than he has. A license to fit into the rancid, decaying pile of moron shit level aways costs more than the people that fit the description have or can steal at the moment the door opens for them to fall into it, although sometimes an exception is made if they give every cent they have, which has happened on more than one occasion because they really have no other choice. SFB has no other choice, he’s that far gone.
Ruckus
@Old School:
old age is always ten years older than I am
I LIKE that.
So to me President Biden isn’t old….. Hmmm, yep, I like.
Jackie
@Tim Curtin: I thought in general we ALL would like to see The Never Trumpers take back control of their party? Wrest back control from the MAGAts and GQPers?
Right now the mainstream republicans who’ve left their party are predominantly aligning towards the Democratic Party with common goals. Once MAGA is stomped to the curb, some former republicans will go back home; but others will have found new homes – either as Independents or GASP! moderate Democrats.
And things will “get back to normal.”
The Luttig wing of the GOP want to eradicate TIFG and his Deplorables as much as we do.
Jackie
@ian: And TIFG for delivering Georgia to us!😁
Geminid
@Jackie: I think the radicals who are in the driver’s seat now will have to get thrashed for two or three election cycles before the Chamber of Commerce types can wrest the steering wheel back. It could be a hollowed out party by then, stuck in the minority for years more.
Jackie
@Geminid: I’m ok with that!
If/when the minority takes back the majority, hopefully NATO, supporting and aiding democracies trying to remain so, is a goal both mainstream parties will (again) support 100%.
Geminid
@Jackie: The Georgia Senate runoffs on January 5, 2021 were probably the two most consequential Senate races so far this century. Raphel Warnock and Jon Ossoff did a lot to make Joe Biden’s first term a success, at a time when Democrats really needed that.
Jackie
@Geminid: We did, indeedy! That’s one of the few times I can honestly thank TIFG.
The rare other times are gaining Democratic governors and Senator Fetterman in 2022. Plus not losing any other senators, and keeping the House to a minute GQP majority.
AlaskaReader
@Omnes Omnibus: Republicans, by their very nature, are dishonorable.