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Stunning Republican ineptitude



Source: Wikimedia Commons


I suspect, in retrospect, that the extension of the debt ceiling was always going to end the way it ended. I also suspect that the media and the political class were in cahoots and doing their best to make high drama out of nothing, to get the clicks and the attention. But we did learn some things.

The weakness and political stupidity of the Republican Party were on full display. It would be harder to do a better job of looking like a bunch of dangerous idiots if their actual intention was to cause sane and decent human beings to run screaming from Republicans, begging the Democratic Party to save them (which Joe Biden quietly did, where the debt ceiling is concerned). Republicans did at least have the good sense to keep quiet about cutting Social Security and Medicare, but you’ll remember how Republicans stepped right into Biden’s trap back in January during Biden’s State of the Union speech, when he taunted Republicans into claiming that they weren’t out to cut, or privatize, Social Security and Medicare, even though they’ve been trying to do that since 1935 for Social Security and 1965 for Medicare. As usual, only the most radical Republican voices were heard (though Kevin McCarthy, as usual, talked out of both sides of his mouth and smiled for all the cameras). It was clear what the radicals wanted. They wanted to force a default and throw the world economy into turmoil and the U.S. into recession, then blame Democrats for it.

There was more than a little media malpractice, too. After covering the issue like some kind of existential showdown in which Republican radicals had all sorts of imaginary power to crush us all, the legislation sailed through the House (314-117) and the Senate (63-36). Suddenly everyone but Joe Biden looked very silly. What was all that fuss about?

But the circus goes on. The media still pretend that the 2024 election will be another Trump-Biden referendum. That ain’t gonna happen. Trump is going to prison, and before he goes to prison he’s going to have a hard time being in three or four courtrooms at the same time. And would I be the first person to predict that, if a viable Democratic candidate can get up to speed within the next six or eight months, Biden will decide to retire? Even if Trump weren’t going to prison, he’s a loser, and Republicans know it — especially those Republicans in the House and Senate who voted to extend the debt ceiling. Those Republicans know that there aren’t nearly enough MAGA types in the country to win a national election. Trump, you’ll remember, has never gotten a majority, though a lot of foolish people in 2016 threw away their votes (and, by 2020, knew better).

Today’s media economy requires a circus. The media will make a circus out of nothing if they have to. My expectation is that, soon, the biggest and greatest circus in American history will begin — Trump on trial for a long list of crimes, maybe even espionage. The Republican Party will split wide open. If some of those Republicans were sane enough to vote to extend the debt ceiling, they still deserve to go down and stay down, though half crazy is better than completely crazy. No matter how hard the media tries to invent some kind of false balance between Democrats and Republicans, they won’t be able to succeed, with a boring political genius in the White House and a Republican pig circus day after day and month after month. And let’s not forget: Republicans at the national level no longer have enough power to be dangerous, as much as they’d like to be. The debt ceiling made that perfectly clear.

Still, above the stench of everything that has happened in the past few weeks, I think I detect a wee whiff of something clean and healthy. It smells like the first young buds of a return to normality, because chaos isn’t paying off anymore.


Update: President Biden’s address to the nation this evening from the Oval Office was brilliant. If you missed watching it live, you should be able to find it on YouTube.


One Comment

  1. Henry Sandigo wrote:

    Bravo, great speech. I’ll hold you to it

    I read this a few days ago…its quite long so I’ll give you an excerpt – whomever wrote it is slightly unhinged.

    Dear xxxxxxx Lunatic, 

    At your recent press conference – more a word salad that had a stroke and fell down the stairs, you were CLEARLY so out of your depth you needed scuba gear

    Within minutes of going off air your minions were backpedaling faster than Cirque De Soliel acrobats

    In India a week ago, I couldn’t get past the bit about your being the most popular visitor in the history of xxxxxxx India — a country of a BILLION human souls that’s only 3000 years old, give or take.!!! Trust me – Gandhi pulled CROWDS.. You pulled a cricket stadium and half WALKED out

    Do you know how Fxxxxxx insane you sound, you off-brand butt plug? That’s like the geopolitical equivalent of “that stripper really likes me” — only 10,000 times crazier and less self aware.

    Friday, June 2, 2023 at 10:41 pm | Permalink

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