“Weaponizing Washington” and Other Blackface Bits
The Tea Partiers are back and this time they are White.
January 5
In 2015 it was about getting power. (1, 2) This time the stakes are higher, the tone, unabashedly racist. (3)
(Aside) Please clear something up for me. What is the political advantage to the Republicans in need of unanimity to prop up an inexperienced newbie as Speaker-elect?
To further humiliate McCarthy or to score some racist points back home?
Sadly, both apply.
Bryan Donalds is the latest “blackface” political stunt by the Party of Lincoln. And McCarthy is so unpopular that he is now more famous for not stepping down than crafting a successor. McCarthy is an apt metaphor for the decline of the Republican Party, unable to govern with even a slim majority, creating more resolve in the Democrats with every floor debate.
America in 2015 had experienced a generation of “me..me..me-ness,” the ascendency of the Tea Party and the stirrings of an anti-‘weaponized Washington.’ Trump, the candidate smelled anti-establishment folks ready to tear down institutions to score grievances, to spit at the handwringing, “snowflake,” liberals. A central driven two party “system” was no match for a populist movement whose target was Washington and who had “big government,” in its sights. Party regulars appeared hapless. Bernie Sanders, a politician/folk hero with no formal party affiliation, emerged overnight from the nascent left and was scaring the hell out of Democrats by showing how removed and corrupt their leadership had become.
America soon learned what 2015 portended: 2016, Trump, gliding down the golden escalator to announce his candidacy and eleven months later, to win in the Electoral College.
What’s different seven years later?
Plenty.
First, the Republican Presidential Candidate Trump did nothing to appeal and appease the divide in American politics. He made the division worse, more bitter and more entrenched. In 2022 the Office of the President is so debased after 4 + years of Trump that one is confused by which is less popular, the Office or the current occupant?
Second, Trump sustained the Republican orthodoxy by bringing together two scripts in America’s partisan narrative that had heretofore run in parallel — big invasive government and white anxiety.
Third, the 2022 midterm election demonstrated that cult loyalty makes for sluggish social progress. A head scratch is appropriate here as to where the US Congress is going, if ‘going’ anywhere applies.
But heh, this is a sentiment, not an opinion.
Fourth, what America doesn’t see are rehearsals for the latest partisan gotcha’s. Who can trash governing? Who can fill a void-in-progress? Who can dumb down?
Fifth, youth, women and POC provided the margin of victory for Democrats in 2022. The white, male, non-college educated segment is shrinking, described by one observer as “the browning of America.” (3)
A white anxiety is in play.
Sixth, ‘policy’ is a long way off, chaff in the assault on legislating. Moving public opinion by starving opportunity is short-sighted.
But, heh, it’s all short-sighted.
Seventh, ‘we’ are talking ourselves into lacking the ability to govern. And positioning chaos as a choice.
But heh, there’s fame, right?
Eighth, governing is to be avoided. It gets in the way of vengeance, power leveraging and ignorance. It’s following the polarization versus seeking the balance, the differential.
2024 cannot come soon enough.
January 6, 12:00 midnight.
Kevin McCarthy is elected Speaker of the 118th Congress on the fifteenth ballot, with 6 Republicans withholding their vote by voting “present.”
In stark contrast to Rep. Hakeem Jeffries’ gratitude to the House Democratic Caucus for supporting his leadership, newly elected House Speaker Rep. Kevin McCarthy introduced himself to the chamber audience by reminding Jeffries, that he, McCarthy also had 100% support — two years ago. Recalling his father’s ‘advice,’ McCarthy summed up by sharing that his father told him, ‘It wasn’t how you started but how you finished that mattered.’
Something ugly rubbed off on McCarthy after the March 2021 Mar-A-Lago meeting.
And it is roosting — for the time being — in the House Speaker’s chair.
January 7
Notes
2-https://www.vox.com/2015/9/9/9288373/john-boehner-coup-meadows
3-House Republicans Try Proving They Aren’t Racist, By Being Racist by William Spivey
4-Mara Gay, MSNBC, January 5
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