A Plan and a Problem
The Gang of 500 has lost a patron saint.
From Utah’s Deseret News, August 27, 2009:
Ted Kennedy was red-faced and yelling, pounding his Senate desk. Orrin Hatch waved his finger disgustedly at him as he returned verbal fire about a GOP labor initiative.
Then time for debate expired. Kennedy and Hatch shook hands and exchanged jokes. Their laughter echoed as they walked out slapping each other on the back.
Such was a typical day in the life of Washington's odd couple. The press for decades watched closely as they argued, often compromised, and made many laws as the self-proclaimed liberal and conservative became the unexpected best of friends.
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The vast majority of Red America knows that Joe Biden won the election in 2020.
The vast majority of Blue America knows that Joe Biden is in a process of decline that is, to say the least, suboptimal for the nation.
Illustrating the second point is this note I got from a Wide World of News subscriber:
After reading Peggy Noonan…I realized that Red America really does not understand why Blue America isn’t reacting greatly to Biden’s obvious decline. As a former Republican, current Independent never-Trumper, married to a Democrat, I can tell you that Blue America indeed sees the decline. They do have concern about the decline. They worry about the decline. Given that Trump was the alternative, none regret the vote or support that I know of.
And here is Heather Cox Richardson, striking a related theme:
The current Republican Party has two wings: one eager to get rid of any regulation of business, and one that wants to get rid of the civil rights protections that the Supreme Court and Congress began to put into place in the 1950s. Business regulation is actually quite popular in the U.S., so to build a political following, in the 1980s, leaders of the anti-regulation wing of the Republican Party promised racists and the religious right that they would stomp out the civil rights legislation that since the 1950s has tried to make all Americans equal before the law.
But even this marriage has not been enough to win elections, since most Americans like business regulation and the protection of things like the right to use birth control. So, to put its vision into place, the Republican Party has now abandoned democracy. Its leaders have concluded that any Democratic victory is illegitimate, even if voters have clearly chosen a Democrat, as they did with Biden in 2020, by more than 7 million votes.
In short, about the biggest problem in our politics now is that both tribes have messed up postures about vital matters, and pretend to believe something they don’t really (in one case) and deny they believe something they clearly do (in the other), but neither tribe wants to admit its blind spot, for fear that showing any weakness whatsoever is giving in to the other side in a manner that poses an existential threat.
I would like to make solving both sides of the equation Topic A at the Gang of 500 brunch today, but I would be laughed out of my booth by representatives of Blue and Red.
The nation still needs to fix this, however.
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A lot of the news business is spending Sunday waiting for Secretary Blinken and Secretary Austin to visit Kyiv – and for the French election results. The timing for both is a bit TBD at this writing.
Look for semi-full coverage in Monday’s Wide World of News.
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“Do I want to be speaker? Yes. But I don’t have to be speaker. My life will be fine one way or another.”
— Kevin McCarthy in an interview with the Associated Press
“Our fatalistic Kevin” has a plan and a problem.
The plan is how he is going to deal with having to (so far) failed to explain his actions and words around 1/6 and his recent lie to try to cover things up.
Here’s how last night went, with the McCarthy “plan” embedded in his actions and words, per the AP:
The release of the audio didn’t dampen McCarthy’s welcome at a California Republican Party banquet Saturday night in Anaheim, where he received a standing ovation from a crowd of over 500.
In a speech, he never mentioned the audio directly but took a dig at MSNBC and CNN, which aired clips of his remarks. “They’ve got more letters in their names than they have viewers,” he said.
He also praised Trump repeatedly, at one point saying the former president should have received the Nobel Peace Prize.
At this point, the near-total loyalty of the members of the House Republican Conference and support of Donald Trump notwithstanding, McCarthy’s problem is more potent than his plan.
For a trio of top Gangsters make plain that they think the potential Speaker of the House is a power hungry lying liar who lies, who too promiscuously kisses the ring affixed to Mr. Trump’s behind, and who is a human symbol of all that is wrong in the Republican Party and our nation’s politics.
So, basically, say Jonathan Weisman, Dan Balz, and Paul Kane.
Can Mr. McCarthy become speaker and thrive with that Iron Triangle both against him and reflecting the views of the Establishment Media?
For all the power of social media and MAGA(and maybe this is just my Lauriol Plaza orientation talking), I don’t think so.
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ESSENTIAL READING
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