1/ Washington's media culture really likes Kevin McCarthy. He's an affable, back-slapping dude. He's easy to have a beer with. He plays the role of the reasonable guy who smirks in private at the MAGA clownshow.
We have it from THREE events in the last year that Kevin's pitch...
2/ ...to major donors was "Hey, help me get my people through the primary so we have numbers against the crazies."
But for all that private reasonableness and bonhomie, Kevin's majority -- and yes, folks, redistricting and math means he'll have one -- ...
3/ ...will be majority MAGA. Trump's inevitable re-entry into the 2024 race (are you not paying attention?) will mean the MAGA majority of the GOP caucus will weaponize the House. There have been other previews, but this one is mine:
1. Impeachmentpalooza. Kevin will try to...
4/ ...hold the line, but Trump will demand it and he'll fold in a hot minute. Gym "I can't hear the screaming from the locker room" Jordan will preside. Biden, Harris, Blinken, the DHS folks, et al. It's Republican Oprah: "YOU get an imepachment and YOU get an impeachment!"
5/ 2. Expect TWO YEARS of nonstop Hunter Biden's Laptop horseshit. I mean, forever. It will fill the MAGA disinfo channels with ever more lurid madness on which to base their 2024 campaign. Again, Trump will DEMAND it and they will execute on it.
6/ 3. Fauci isn't going to enjoy retirement, because these goons are going to do an anti-vax passion play with him as the villain. "Why did you stop us from curing the Vid with bones, faith healing, and horse dewormer?"
7/ 4. Expect the DOJ, FBI, et al to come under withering attack as a way to intimidate the prosecution of Trump and the January 6th terrorists. This is the show that the many of the DC media will both-sides, and the country will suffer for it terribly.
8/ 5. Other investigations into any group or person who every opposed Trump are pretty predictable. (I, for one, await the subpoena!)
9/ 6. You should also look forward to a hundred DOA bills that are pure trolling. "Bring Back Leaded Gas Freedom Fuels" "Nuke The Caravans" "Build Duh Wall 2024" and so on. They're to feed the maw of the Fox/Facebook ecosystem.
10/ Kevin will try to do a bunch of vanilla bills to say he held to the Commitment To America he touted earlier this year. It will remind you of an unsuccessfully retired stripper giving dat ass one more shake before slinking backstage.
11/ Ends for now.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
1/ So here it is. He's back, and people are finally realizing that no amount of "He's the Former Guy" wishcasting was going to work.
No amount of "He CAN'T run if he's under indictment" copium is changing the grim reality of our world now.
Will it be tonight at 8pm?
2/ Lucy, football. Or maybe he'll cry havoc and let slip to mooks of war. Nothing -- save a shark attack, a meteor strike, or a medical crisis was ever going to stop his return.
Already, the replay of 2016 is in full flood. The Good Republicans, that vanishing tribe...
3/ ...are convinced the GOP is ready to move one. Ready to leave Trump behind. Ready for Ron or Glenn or someone, ANYONE else but the gibbering umber golem.
It's only demonstrates how profoundly they misread the MAGA takeover then, and now.
1/ Let me cover for a moment a 2024-ish matter, now that the last of LP's ads are rolling out.
Last night, Donald Trump road-tested his first open attacks on Tater DeSantis.
I absolutely LOVE the reaction by the Gentry Conservative Cruise Line Media Wing of the GOP and...
2/ ...the reaction by Fox and the MAGA media apparat. "Ron De Sanctimonious" wasn't Trump's A-Game, but here's what struck me most powerfully.
My first thought was, "Holy hell...it's 2015-16 all over again." I can't tell you how many stories ran...
3/ ...in the mainstream media, the conservative gentry media, Fox, and even the MAGA media of voters saying, "How dare fraud Trump attack True Conservative X with a silly nickname. Our party is BETTER than that and TCX is a conservative ROCKSTAR with an amazing record of..."
1/ The President of the United States makes an important speech about the dangers posed to our constitutional republic and democratic system of government.
It is reasoned, passionate, truthful, and timely.
The reaction by the political and media class is largely...
2/ ..."Whatever, bro. Did you hear about the crime ads and muh red wave?"
I get it; democracy and a functioning republic is an abstraction, a luxury good, a distraction from the horserace and easy both-sidesism.
Every nerd kid who goes to DC to work in media or...
3/ ...politics (raises hand) learns the inside game is fascinating and fun.
We're not in that game any more. We're in a new territory where the stakes aren't "What will the highest marginal tax rate be?"
Now, it's a matter of "will we be a nation with the rule of law?"
1/ So, as I warned, Trump is likely to be back here on Hellscape dot com any time now. E|on will want to juice the stock price, and rest-assured, Wall Street will take the bait.
There was a sense that his banishment made his cult less committed, his danger less pendant.
2/ That was never the case. Just not saying his name or looking into the maw of his power over the MAGAe didn't make it go away. He is the most powerful force in GOP politics by orders of magnitude and the inevitable 2024 nominee unless a shark, a blood clot or Melania kills him.
3/ He'll leave Truth Social like a fourth wife. Yes, he'll bag-walk in triumph for days and revel in the misery of people who just want him gone.
Who cares? This is where the fight is, and if he's here, you owe it to yourself to tell him to fuck right off.
1/ McCarthy's problem is the same as every single aspect of the legacy GOP and the gentry conservative media.
They're all perfectly conscious of the depravity and danger posed by the MAGA iteration of the Republican Party.
They live by three rules:
2/ First, live a double life. Pretend to donors you're from GOP 1.0, telling them behind closed doors it's you or the bloody-handed MAGA horde. "Hey, we gotta pass a tax cut and protect carried interest deductions, and you won't get that with Speaker MTG."
3/ In public, lick MTG's Bradypusian feet, proclaiming they taste as if she danced through a field of honeysuckle. This dance will end soon, because they won't NEED McCarthy, and he's too slow to get it.
1/ When I was a teenager, my father suffered a traumatic brain injury. Who was he before? Brilliant. Witty. Hyperverbal. Deeply well read. Outdoorsman. A man in full, as they say.
The accident profoundly injured him. Almost two years in and out of hospitals. A dozen major...
2/ ...and as many minor surgeries. In an out of a coma for almost a year.
It profoundly changed his speech centers. He was still the brilliant, witty, compassionate man...but trapped behind a wall.
3/ Over time, his speech returned but never with the old speed and fluency and verve. Cautious, precise, and slow replaced his machine-gun banter.
We were grateful just to have our dad alive. We were grateful that after being thrown almost 90 feet in a wreck that he just lived.