Looking back at this week, most significant development in "what the GOP stands for" is probably Romney-Cotton endorsing a minimum wage hike "while ensuring businesses cannot hire illegal immigrants." That's European party of the right energy nbcnews.com/politics/congr…
"Welfare state and higher wages, sure, but not for illegal immigrants" is the territory Rs have carved out post Trump. That's a climb-down from "welfare state, no," the pre-Trump ethos.
Do it yourself, take a look at the arguments and amendments flying at the Democrats' most popular bills. You rarely see one without a GOP effort to make Democrats vote against denying benefits etc to "illegals," which in campaign ads will become "they voted to give illegals" etc.
In the world where Sanders was the nominee, the ad you see a ton of is "he'd raise your taxes to give Medicare to illegal immigrants." (Which would have been true, undocumented immigrants would get coverage under M4A.)
Now, in power, do Republicans and Republican governors try to cut welfare/health programs, add work requirements, etc? Yes, but look at what they emphasize when they're fighting from the corner.

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More from @daveweigel

18 Feb
Oh no. Oh no. Oh, no no no no no.
Can't find tweet but I'm 99% sure I dunked on Adler with the "Mayor Quimby in Jamaica" screenshot.
Cruz has not been telling people "do not travel to Mexico" from a place in Mexico but Adlergate was a huge story, I'm legitimately surprised that it didn't affect his vacation/optics plans.
Read 5 tweets
17 Feb
I tackled this in the Trailer - Biden being president changes the calculations, but a lot of people lost their shirts after seeing "re-open" rallies at state capitols last year and thinking "this is the New Tea Party." (Including Trump!)
Trump's message that Biden wanted to "shut down everything" was potentially effective, Biden beat it by saying he wanted to "shut down the virus."
Read 4 tweets
16 Feb
This thread captures the emerging “Reichstag Fire” theory that Pelosi purposefully rejected security so that the Capitol could be attacked. Unsure how her support for a 9/11 Commission-style probe fits into this
Honestly, this feels inevitable. If an event seems to benefit one party politically, a conspiracy theory develops that the party secretly planned the event. Same fever dreams happened after Oklahoma City bombing, and more famously after 9/11.
Conspiracy theories also work better if they seem familiar. Pelosi giving some sort of “stand down” order to let a riot happen — shades of the “did Clinton issue a stand-down order and let Benghazi happen.” It’s a cozy conspiracy blanket.
Read 5 tweets
11 Feb
The original "Dean Scream" was Neil Kinnock shouting "we're all right!" a bunch of times at a rally before the 1992 UK election.

No, I don't know why you follow me, either.
It was considered a huge gaffe (Labour lost an election they were expecting to win) for Kinnock to be super excited.
I can never decide whether Kinnock was a great orator (the speech Biden plagiarized was very good tbf) or just Welsh. You want gravitas? Welsh accent, buddy.
Read 4 tweets
9 Feb
The mismatch between what you can remove a president over (nothing, apparently) and what you can remove a mayor or governor or whatever is so vast. Rod Blagojevich was impeached and barred from holding any office again by his own party!
This really it's partisan; it's a function of a presidential system, where voters elect a quasi-sovereign who, in addition to governing, represents the nation like a king or queen. Same with Bill Clinton - a governor in his position would have quit so his LG could take over.
We all hate the "West Wing" now, but there is a very true plot point in an early season where a focus group finds that people would want their governor to resign if he concealed an illness... but, it turns out they're forgiving if a president does it.
Read 4 tweets
1 Feb
It’s not *surprising* but it’s interesting to watch how the Georgia wins transformed the parties’ negotiating power and style. Just like seven weeks ago an emerging CW was that Biden would have to sacrifice Neera Tanden but maybe Susan Collins would let him confirm Blinkin
Rs spent two months assuming they’d have Senate, dictating limits for Biden. Then they lost the Senate but the expectations for what “working across the aisle” means haven’t fully reset. So you get takes like “Biden plan is DOA if moderate Rs balk.” But... it isn’t!
The missing piece here is that people are *also* used to a Dem House caucus where Pelosi needs to mollify Blue Dogs, and the House Dem majority is narrower than 2009. But it’s far more liberal, after bad cycles and maps for Dems removed all their conservatives.
Read 4 tweets

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