Thursday, January 06, 2022

"Please get out of the new one/If you can't lend your hand..."

The FBI says 2000 people showed up at the Capitol a year ago today. As President Biden pointed out today, over 81 million people turned out to vote for Joe Biden. Facebook didn't reach them, apparently. Bad as it was, it wasn't bad enough. And those "Republicans bred for a new era"? Goes back at least to the victory of LBJ in '64. Rick Wilson was born in '63. He worked for Republicans his entire career, until 2016.  Newt Gingrich announced his "Contract with America" in 1993, and used it to move from a bomb-throwing back-bencher to Speaker of the House, the same path eyed by Matt Gaetz, "Gym" Jordan, Louie Gohmert, and others in the House today. "Bred for a new era"? Wilson was part and parcel of that "new era." Just sayin'.... This is the true thing in the entire thread, the bit of insight: the purpose of terrorism is to terrorize. And the target of that terrorism is not America or American democracy or even the American government: it's the GOP.

"Over the past year, Trump has grown so emboldened by the undying support of conservative voters, right-wing media, and GOP heavy-hitters that he’s already started planning for a second term, whether he gets one or not," the report states. "Earlier this year, according to two people familiar with the situation, the former president began asking friends and golfing buddies who they thought he should choose for senior administration posts and cabinet positions, should he re-ascend to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave after the 2024 election."

Because his poll numbers are so high?  Because he's so popular in exile?  No; because he's terrorized the GOP into being his lap dog.
Let me say I think President Biden just took a sledgehammer to those "arguments." I also (although Wilson wrote this before Biden spoke) didn't hear anything from Biden or Harris about puppies or hugs. Honestly, short of passing laws declaring such donations acts of treason (never happen, IOW), what else did you expect? Kinda trying to figure out, still, how the "coup" is "unpunished." Stone got a pardon, but short of public execution, he was gonna be a player from prison as much as from wherever-he-is. Has nobody seen a Martin Scorsese movie? Does no one know how the Mafia works from prison almost as freely as it does out of prison? Do we really think punishment solves all our political problems? Sorry, but if that's all the advice you got, Mr. Political Consultant, you got nothin'.

I mean, you got about as much as this guy, who's already wishing he hadn't canceled that press conference nobody was gonna attend: Let me just quote a few comments on MSNBC on Biden's speech today, in closing:

"It was clearly the most forceful rebuke that he has delivered in his year as president against Trump, against Trumpism, against the lie over the election and against the divide in the country that we're experiencing," said Washington Post reporter Phil Rucker. "It was a rhetorically very forceful speech, it was the kind of remark that I think a lot of Democrats have been hoping to hear from Biden for some time. What we saw here was President Biden clearly believing that his predecessor, Donald Trump -- the threat of American democracy and using that moment the anniversary and the attention that it has around the country to try to galvanize Americans to understand that threat and to fight to protect what he perceived as democracy and peril."

New York Times reporter Peter Baker noted that Biden has worked so hard to try and keep his eyes focused on the future and not look to the past. That clearly changed in one speech.

"I think what he's seen in the last year is that you can't simply pretend that President Trump has gone away because he hasn't gone away, he is still not only a force in American politics, he is the leading figure in the Republican Party and if he wants the nomination in 2024 to run for the presidency again," Rucker continued. "I think most people believe he will be the like least person to win that nomination for the Republican Party. You cannot pretend that he doesn't exist anymore. This is the most full-throated denunciation by the sitting president, the former president of what we've seen from him."

Ruhle noted that it wasn't the typical "folksy Joe Biden" to which Americans have become accustomed.

No shit, Sherlock.  It worked, too.  As CNN noted, that speech is gonna leave a mark:

"It does show where we have come a year from January 6th, where some people maybe thought we would be in a different position in the United States," said correspondent Kaitlan Collins. "But clearly, the president of the United States feeling the need to go on the anniversary of this and say his predecessor is a liar is notable."

"Yeah, I've never heard an American president accuse a former president of being a liar along these lines, a threat to American democracy," said Blitzer. "He didn't mention Trump by name. He didn't have to mention Trump by name. He referred to the former president over and over again."

"He just called the former president of the United States twisted," Gloria Borger later added. "I mean, this is, you know, Joe Biden unbound here. It's just -- it is remarkable how he directly went after the former defeated president."

"Former defeated President."  That one can replace "former guy." 

I'm done.
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