Who's Zoomin' Who?

Republican talking points heading into the J6 hearings are remarkably consistent. pic.twitter.com/F56oNbEVIm

— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) June 6, 2022

My question is: who's paying attention?

If this week doesn't teach you about the rigid message discipline of the GOP, nothing will.

— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) June 6, 2022

Okay, the GOP has rigid message discipline.  And...? Still not seeing the argument for the Democrats becoming more like the Republicans in this way. All this does is shrink the number of people who agree with "the Party."  Because if you don't, you out.

Fine.  I was leaving anyway.

Democrats encompass people from AOC to Henry Cuellar. I don’t really want to see the Democratic Party shrunken to a small set of activists clustered around AOC, even as I agree with her politics over Cuellar’s. 

Or we could be afraid of Steve Bannon:

Steve Bannon has been fired from the White House and held in contempt of Congress—but he’s still scheming, and his quest to tear down American institutions just might be working, Jennifer Senior warns: https://t.co/xjCN4EPFdg

— The Atlantic (@TheAtlantic) June 6, 2022

Let's first stipulate The Atlantic is trying to drive eyeballs to its website. They know their audience on Twitter.  Morning Joe (I have the Sirius app, I listen in the gym.  Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.) noted Bannon has a podcast but BAnnon maintains he has a TV show because he's on, as they said, "Pluto TV," which may as well be as far out as Pluto, for all the audience it has.  I'm goin' by what they say, I've never heard of it.

Frankly, Father Coughlin was a more serious threat to democracy.  Or Jerry Falwell, or even Pat Robertson, who actually ran for the GOP nomination for the Presidency.  Except we didn't call it a "threat to democracy" back then; or even a nascent theocracy.  I do recall grey heads calling the civil rights/anti-war/feminist marches/gay marches of the '60's and '70's a "threat to democracy" though, or words to that effect (1968 was supposed to mark the U.S. as special because the political turmoil that year should have led to civil war or the collapse of the Republic.  Huh.).  Mostly they meant people didn't have enough respect for water cannons and police dogs and Richard Daley's uniformed thugs.  Ah, the golden days of democracy....

If it wasn't for the relentless efforts of Twitter, I wouldn't know Steve Bannon was still alive.  "Tear down American institutions"?  I think the Supreme Court is way ahead of him, and has a greater ability to do so.

Anyway....

250 GOP donors published an open letter in the Dallas Morning News (once the Texas house organ of the moss-back conservatives of Texas, people who think Greg Abbott is a squish and Ken Paxton is not right-wing enough).  They urged Congress to do something about guns.  As someone pointed out recently, Texas is not deep red; it's actually light purple.  Traveling from here to the Panhandle recently the Lovely Wife spotted an old Don Huffines sign.  He made a lot of noise in north Texas (where he lives) and was seen as a contender against Abbott in the GOP primaries (you know, where all the crazies vote).  He barely registered into double digits. Allen West, the firebrand of the Texas GOP (very, very briefly) flamed out even worse.  Paxton, OTOH, was forced into a runoff against George P. Bush, nephew of W.  Not really surprising Paxton won that runoff, but Abbott is sweating Uvalde more than a bit.  That's why he's  telling TEA and various state agencies over which he has no real control to "DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!"

Beto hasn't cranked up the campaign ads on that yet.  Time enough, though.  Frankly, the "rigid message discipline" of the Texas GOP ain't all that rigid right now.

And if Dobbs comes out before November (as it will), and Roe is overturned, Texans may well vote to get some of their rights back.  Don't think Abbott isn't afraid of that; Paxton, too.