Good morning,
It was one year ago today that Mitch McConnell delivered his scathing floor speech about Donald Trump, on the eve of Trumpâs second impeachment trial: Trump âprovokedâ the insurrection and âfed liesâ to people, he said. As Trump mounts his return to politics and makes moves to run in 2024, keep an eye on McConnell. He is known, or perhaps âknown,â to be cool to Trump. The important thing is whether heâll have the guts to say anything when it matters.
Every so often, a Republican lets the cat out of the bag on what the party is really about these days. New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu did just that in an interview with David Drucker yesterday in the Washington Examiner. Drucker says Sununu was pretty keen on running for Senate initially (he would challenge first-term Democratic incumbent Maggie Hassan). Then he started talking with GOP senators. He asked them what his first two years on the job might be like:Â
The governor said the message from virtually every GOP senator he chatted withâand he chatted with most of themâwas that they plan to do little more with the majority they are fighting to win this November than obstruct President Joe Biden until, âhopefully,â 2024 ushers a Republican into the White House. âIt bothered me that they were OK with that,â Sununu said.
More than that, Sununu was âbotheredâ by Republicansâ seeming inability to answer this question: âI said, âOK, so if weâre going to get stuff done if we win the White House back, why didnât you do it in 2017 and 2018?ââ How did the Republicans Sununu spoke with answer his challenge? âCrickets. Yeah, crickets,â the governor said. âThey had no answer.â
Thanks to Drucker and Sununuâs candor, we stumble into a rarely encountered truth: Republicans admitting that they have no agenda for the country other than to cut their donorsâ taxes and block any progress for actual people (pre-K, health care, etc.) that the other party attempts to undertake. Itâs just mind-blowing that nearly half the country backs these people.
Some surprising and heartening news from West Virginia, although it probably wonât change anything: Some Mountain State celebs (yes, they exist!) have signed a letter urging Joe Manchin to back voting rights. The letter is addressed directly to Manchin and says, in part: âWe are all certain that democracy is best when voting is open to everyone on a level playing field; the referees are neutral; and at the end of the game the final score is respected and accepted.â
The signatories: former NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue (who has no West Virginia roots); Darryl Talley, an All-American West Virginia University football star of the early 1980s who went on to a great career with the Buffalo Bills; Nick Saban, the Crimson Tide coach who grew up in West Virginia; and ⦠Jerry West himself. The NBA star is as close as you get to a god in that state. Thirty years ago, when Westâs exploits were fresher in memory and the state was more Democratic, this word from West might actually have had some impact on Manchin. Today, maybe not so much. Still, itâs heartening to see this intervention, perhaps most interestingly from Saban. I doubt most Bama fans will admire this.
Also on the Democratic obstructionist front, Emilyâs List, which sent a lot of money Kyrsten Sinemaâs way on her rise to the Senate, announced that it willânot might: willâcut her off if she continues to oppose filibuster reform. âShe will find herself standing alone in the next election,â they wrote. Thatâs a big deal.
Bidenâs press conference on his first year comes at 4 p.m. today. Despite the national mood, he does have things to brag about. So he needs to brag about them. Why are Republicans so much better at this? Because they get in line behind their leader, and Democrats tend not to. Not saying Democrats should turn into automatons; they should not. But the behavior of some of them over this past year has been pretty extreme in the opposite direction.
Oh, and, uh, the possibility of war: Antony Blinken meets Friday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Signs along the Russia-Ukraine border get more ominous. Obviously, Vladimir Putin and his generals have other things on their mind than American politicsâthings like the position of their divisions, which way the wind is blowing that day, whether itâs raining or snowing or what. But something tells me that if he can, heâll time an invasion to inflict maximum awkwardness on the U.S. president he wants to see defeated in 2024 by his friend and ally.Â
At NewRepublic.com today, read Timothy Noah on Bidenâs approval numbers and the five clichés of American political journalism; Natalie Shure on why the administrationâs decision to involve private insurers in covid test distribution was a bad idea; and Kate Aronoff on Norwayâs lesson for Build Back Better.Â
Hang in there, âMichael Tomasky, editor |
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