Former Texas representative Will Hurd wants to make the GOP more moderate. Good luck. Here is a taste of his interview with Emma Green at The Atlantic: Green: Are you frustrated that the oxygen gets sucked up by people like Lauren […]
Republican Party
Kinzinger: “Maybe” five members of the GOP actually believe in the “Big Lie”
Illinois congressman Adam Kinzinger, one of the few Republicans to vote to impeach Donald Trump for inciting the insurrection on the U.S. capitol on January 6, told CNN’s Jake Tapper that “maybe” five members of his party actually believe Donald […]
Noonan: “Liz Cheney Confronts a House of Cowards”
The Wall Street Journal columnist and former Reagan speechwriter pulls few punches in today’s column: It all comes back to the Capitol insurrection. It’s at the heart of the battle that is, four months later, tearing the House GOP apart. […]
Chait: “The next insurrection will be a Brooks Brothers riot”
Over at New York Magazine, Jonathan Chait responds to this piece by Dan McLaughlin at The National Review. Chait does not see much difference between the Liz Cheney wing of the GOP and the Donald Trump wing of the GOP. […]
Josh Hawley: Liz Cheney is “out of step with Republican voters”
The Missouri senator who gave credibility to the Big Lie in the days leading-up to the insurrection on the U.S. Capitol on January 6 has a message for Wyoming congresswoman Liz Cheney. (Get up the speed on the Cheney story […]
Cheney: “The GOP is at a turning point”
Here is Liz Cheney’s op-ed from las night’s Washington Post: In public statements again this week, former president Donald Trump has repeated his claims that the 2020 election was a fraud and was stolen. His message: I am still the rightful president, […]
The DNC is collecting opposition research on potential 2022 GOP candidates, including Mike “MyPillow Guy” Lindell
Yes, you read that title correctly. Here is Alex Thompson and Daniel Payne at the Politico West Wing playbook: The Democratic National Committee has quietly assembled a core team that is focused not just on the 2022 midterms but on […]
Change over time: A historical look at Liz Cheney’s years in the House of Representatives
It looks like Liz Cheney will lose her leadership position in the GOP caucus because she does not believe Joe Biden stole the 2020 presidential election from Donald Trump. The pro-Trump sharks are swarming. The GOP House leadership will not […]
What happens in a two-party system when one of the parties is delusional?
According to Charles Pierce, “the whole system goes out of balance.” Here is a taste of his Esquire piece on the GOP’s new initiation rite: It appears that the cult driving modern conservatism—and the Republican Party, which is its outward […]
“84% of Republicans believe history should celebrate our nation’s past, while 70% of Democrats think history should question it”
Our culture war is rooted in competing perceptions of the American past. Here is Peter Burkholder of Fairleigh Dickinson University and Dana Schaffer of the American Historical Association at Time: Our recent national survey of people’s understandings and uses of […]
Goldberg: “Republicans are mad at big business, but not mad enough to raise taxes”
Michelle Goldberg on Marco Rubio: Senator Marco Rubio is extremely mad at corporations for “bending a knee to woke progressive craziness,” and he’s going to do, well, something about it. On Sunday, in a fulminating New York Post opinion article, Rubio […]
Wehner: The Republican Party is a threat to democracy
Here is a taste of Peter Wehner‘s recent piece at The Atlantic: The Trump presidency might have been the first act in a longer and even darker political drama, in which the Republican Party is becoming more radicalized. How long […]
David Brooks: “The hyperpopulist wing of the G.O.P. seems to be crashing through the floor of philosophic liberalism into an abyss of authoritarian impulsiveness”
The New York Times columnist is worried about American democracy. Here is a taste of Brooks’s latest piece: Liberal democracy is based on a level of optimism, faith and a sense of security. It’s based on confidence in the humanistic […]
Biden Republicans
Are they similar to Reagan Democrats? Here is Will Weissert at the Associated Press: RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Jay Copan doesn’t hide his disregard for the modern Republican Party. A solid Republican voter for the past four decades, the 69-year-old […]
More than half of Republicans still believe Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election
CNN’s Harry Enten reports on the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll: A new Reuters/Ipsos poll finds that 55% of Republicans falsely believe Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election was the result of illegal voting or rigging. Additionally, 60% of Republicans incorrectly agree […]
Do GOP lawmakers REALLY want to vote against Biden’s infrastructure plan?
Ron Brownstein thinks it is a bad political move: With their opposition to President Joe Biden’s infrastructure plan, Republicans are doubling down on a core bet they’ve made for his presidency: that the GOP can maintain support among its key […]
Michelle Cottle offers a “dictionary for these polarized times”
The premise of Cottle’s piece at The New York Times is that Democrats and Republicans no longer speak the same language. Take, for example, the phrase “fake news”: Pre-Trump, most folks thought of fake news as media sources that trafficked […]
“The ‘only 5 percent’ counts as ‘real infrastructure’ talking point is utterly bogus”
I wrote last week: “The opponents of Joe Biden’s new bill think “infrastructure” is just roads and bridges.” Paul Waldman nails it: First, let’s be clear that the “only 5 percent” counts as “real infrastructure” talking point is utterly bogus. It defines infrastructure […]