Republicans’ political games are a bust
Opinion by
Columnist
July 29, 2020 at 10:45 a.m. CDT
The
lies, outrageous positions and fear-mongering spewed by President Trump and his
enablers might be infuriating, but just keep in mind they are politically
counterproductive. Forget about the reckless governance, which is a lost cause.
Be outraged, but also comforted that Republicans’ political pratfalls are
making it more likely that voters will boot them out.
Trump’s
facade of normalcy crumbled entirely on Tuesday when he whined that his
administration’s public health officials, Anthony S. Fauci and Deborah Birx,
had better approval ratings than he. “It can only be my personality, that’s
all," he said without
irony. Well, that and nearly 150,000 dead Americans. There’s
also his hawking of dangerous remedies. On Tuesday, he continued beating the
drum for hydroxychloroquine and to tout a discredited doctor who peddles the
antimalarial drug, says masks are not needed and believes that alien DNA is
used in modern medicine. Trump also falsely insisted large parts of the country
are free of coronavirus.
Here
was Trump at his worst — self-pitying, ignorant, irrational and utterly unaware
how he comes across to those outside his cult. What’s more, he unwittingly
confirmed how easily right-wing media characters lead him around by the nose —
no matter how absurd and unfounded their claims. Meanwhile, he seethes with
resentment toward actual experts who continue to present accurate — but
politically unhelpful — evidence of his failure to combat the pandemic.
In the
Trump enablers category, no one compares to Attorney General William P. Barr in
his willingness to throw caution, facts and manners to the wind to defend his
boss. His bristling testimony before
the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday was quintessential Barr. He hesitated
to definitively say that soliciting help from a foreign government is
inappropriate (he had to be asked twice) and claimed his intervention for a
lighter sentence for Trump confidant Roger Stone was appropriate. He declared
that law enforcement should be able to arrest and use tear gas against peaceful
protesters to restore “order.” He suggested it is legal to throw someone in an unmarked car without
probable cause. (It isn’t.)
Barr
might deny the existence of systemic racism, but he cannot account for why
federal agents were deployed to Portland to squelch Black Lives Matter
protesters and not to Michigan, where MAGA forces charged a statehouse, got in
officers’ faces and threatened the governor. Asked about disagreeable facts or
evidence of unfair treatment, he claimed not to be aware of such information —
ironically demonstrating how partisan law enforcement harbors implicit bias and
fails to equally apply the law through willful ignorance.
Within
hours of his testimony painting a picture of utter chaos in Portland, the
city’s mayor announced federal agents had left. Maybe Barr was
once again simply spewing campaign-type rhetoric in service of his boss? If his
effort was to convey Trump as a “law and order” candidate, the hysterical
testimony was a flop. Even if Barr would not retreat, the federal forces did.
Even
more noteworthy, poll after poll shows that Trump and Barr are entirely out of
tune with public opinion, which sides strongly with protesters seeking racial
justice. A Gallup poll released
Tuesday reports:
About
two in three Americans (65%) support the nationwide protests about racial
injustice that followed the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis
police in late May. Half say they feel “very” (23%) or “somewhat connected”
(27%) to the protests’ cause. ...
Americans are more likely
to say the protests “will help” (53%) rather than “hurt” (34%) public support
for racial justice and equality, while 13% say they will “make no difference.”
Republicans
are the exception to these trends, but even 22 percent of them side with the
racial justice activists. In other words, Barr is dishonestly hawking Trump’s
phony “law and order” message to no avail.
Barr’s
testimony was punctuated by the usual histrionics from Republican congressmen.
Ranking minority-party member and conspiracy monger Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio)
felt compelled to share a mash-up video of
violent scenes of protests. Meant to convey that we need Trump to keep the
peace, it did the opposite: This is what America looks like under Trump.
Democrats might want to feature Jordan in their ads: Is this the party
you want in charge?
That
brings us to Republican senators, who seemed determined to put out the most
unattractive and politically disastrous stimulus possible. The bill includes
$1.75 billion for a new FBI building across from Trump’s hotel, but no eviction
moratorium. It knocks down federal support for unemployment insurance, but
throws in a new deduction for business meals and entertainment. It includes
liability immunity for businesses, but no money for state and local governments
to prevent mass layoffs. You would be hard-pressed to come up with something
that would better highlight their disdain for working people, docility in the
face of Trump’s self-dealing and capitulation to corporate interests.
The
final blow was delivered by none other than Trump. In a singular moment of
clarity, he declared the proposal “sort
of semi-irrelevant." If there is to be a deal, it will have to be worked
out between the House and White House. So what purpose are Senate Republicans
serving here? The next Democratic ad might rightly ask why “sort of
semi-irrelevant” lawmakers should be in the majority.
Neither
Trump nor Barr nor Republicans in Congress have a clue what the public wants or
how they come across outside the right-wing media bubble. They remain
stubbornly divorced from reality and temperamentally unfit for the serious task
of governance. In less than 100 days, voters have the chance to drive them from
office and return sane, stable characters to government.
