Texas is showing the future Republicans want: One in which they respond to large public challenges by retreating into their alternate information universe and insulating themselves from accountability with redoubled countermajoritarian tactics. My latest: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
Unsurprisingly, Rep. Lauren Boebert succeeded in taking the phony anti-elite posturing to towering heights of stupidity.
And Rick Perry did a bang-up job exposing the utter bankruptcy of the conservative response to Texas as well:
Texas, the pandemic and the economic collapse herald a future that will demand more empiricism, better government and a recommitment to democracy/public service.
But the GOP is retreating deeper into Foxlandia and ramping up the anti-democratic tactics:
Here @ryanlcooper develops the point, noting that GOP lies about Texas aren't just typical Foxlandia lies. They also reveal the hollowness of conservative ideology and show that "whining is the beginning and end of Republican governance":
The GOP civil war in Pennsylvania has taken a dark turn, invading the 2022 GOP Senate primary.
The rage of MAGA is raining down on former Rep Ryan Costello, who dared to suggest that excommunicating Pat Toomey might be bad statewide politics for the GOP:
Bannon's threat to have Trump run for House Speaker and then impeach Biden sounds comical.
But a lot of elected Republicans are not that far from this level of crazy. One of the party's organizing ideas right now is the mythology of the stolen election:
If you want to understand Rush Limbaugh's poisonous impact on our politics, you couldn't ask for a better guide than @rickperlstein, the great historian of the New Right.
First, @rickperlstein notes that even back in the late 1980s, it was already clear that Limbaugh had a genius for making reactionary whites feel like they belonged to a movement, like they had a home:
Everyone is laughing at this GOP quote about Pat Toomey:
"We did not send him there to do the right thing. We sent him there to represent us."
But the idea that "representing" GOP voters means impunity for Trump is the mainstream GOP position. New piece: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
This is a bad development. It's becoming commonplace to hear Republicans claim that *representing GOP voters* requires maintaining fealty to the stolen-election myth and demands refraining from holding Trump accountable for inciting violent insurrection:
It's telling that Trump lickspittle Lindsey Graham says Lara Trump represents the "future of the GOP."
The future of the GOP belongs to those who maintain fealty to the alt-narrative of 2020, that Trump was the victim of a series of monstrous injustices:
Damning new facts show Trump may have known Pence's life was in danger when Trump attacked Pence during the insurrection. Democrats simply must call witnesses. If Trump knowingly pointed this loaded gun at Pence, we need to know the full story. New piece: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
I talked to a former Secret Service agent, who explained to me what Trump might have known about the danger Pence was in when Trump whipped up the mob against him.
This former agent says witnesses could help reconstruct what Trump knew and when:
Mark it down: Most elected Republicans will end up comprehensively absolving Trump of any and all responsibility for inspiring the attack. His role will be erased entirely. @LindseyGrahamSC's abject toadying on Fox shows where this is all going. My latest: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
@LindseyGrahamSC News accounts keep claiming Dems have "failed to persuade" GOP senators to break with Trump. This framing is all wrong. It implies most Republicans have principled objections to the case against Trump. Everyone covering this trial knows that's nonsense:
@LindseyGrahamSC People have rightly ragged on Graham's "what did Pelosi know and when did she know it" idiocy.
But it's also worth noting that the underlying argument -- some preplanned Jan 6, and this exonerates Trump -- is also nonsense. These known facts demolish it: