The Runback: Self-Immolation
House Republicans are consuming themselves with their defenestration of Liz Cheney
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Podcast Episode #32
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News and Politics
May 2021 Republican Presidential Power Rankings: There is a chasm between the top of the field and everybody else.
Breaking Down the Banks Memo: Strategy from Indiana Congressman is a road to electoral oblivion.
Sports
Emoji Grading the NFL Draft: Put your letters back in your Tyson Campbell Soup
National Championship Returns to York: 2021 United Wiffle®Ball Championship to be held October 23-25, 2021.
Shameless Plugs
My latest for The Capital: Despite his climate lawsuit, wealthy horseman Steaurt Pittman is a hypocrite on the environment
I appeared on Dr. Politics & The Political Architects Show on Friday discussing Liz Cheney, pens, and more.
The Monday Thought
The House Republican Caucus is really gonna go through with this aren’t they?
House Republicans are really ready to kick out House Republican Conference Chair Liz Cheney and replace her with Elise Stefanik.
In the name of conservatism, they are going to replace conservative Liz Cheney with Elise Stefanik. The same Elise Stefanik who has a 44% lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union and 48% lifetime rating from Heritage Action.
Ostensibly, the House Caucus wants to jettison Cheney for Stefanik because Cheney has not been sufficiently loyal to loser ex-President Donald Trump and Stefanik has. Never mind the fact that Cheney supported Trump in Congress more than Stefanik is. God forbid you bring facts like that into the equation.
Somehow Cheney is not sufficiently loyal and Stefanik, a Never Trumper, is loyal.
Stefanik is a former New York moderate who decided that she was a born again Trumper only when it was politically expedient.
No, this entire argument is predicated on the fact that Liz Cheney refuses to promote the Big Lie that Donald Trump and company are pushing. She refuses to say that the election was stolen from Trump. Instead of following the lemmings over the cliff, she is speaking the truth. And the Republican House Caucus is ready to throw them overboard.
A lot of this has to do with Donald Trump. Trump, ever the bumbling, emotionally immature manchild, has decided that defeating Liz Cheney is his top political priority for 2022. More than, you know, helping Republicans take back the House.
But they aren’t ready to throw her overboard because she’s wrong. They’re ready to do so because it’s politically expedient. Because if you believe what Congressman Adam Kinzinger says, Cheney is saying what most of the House Caucus believes.
That’s actually rather believable. It’s been a long time anybody confused most members of Congress with caring about anything beyond getting re-elected, which is why you get losers like Madison Cawthorn and Matt Gaetz becoming thought leaders within the movement.
The irony of all of this is the fact that these weak-kneed, yellow-bellied members of Congress who won’t speak the truth about the election or January 6th is the fact that they are endangering their political careers by continue to placate Trump and company:
So you would think that all of this is going on to keep the Republican base satisfied. Except, the Republican base is never going to be satisfied. Something that Ted Cruz learned in Virginia the other day.
Ted Cruz sold his soul to Donald Trump. Like Elise Stefanik, he was a Never Trumper who became a loyal Trump bootlicker. But instead of being thanked for his service to their Dear Leader, all they can do is attack Cruz for not doing enough to make sure their God got what they thought he deserved.
On top of all of this is this important fact that Kevin Williamson noted for the National Review:
One in six of the people who identified as Republicans on Election Day in 2020 no longer associate themselves with the Republican party — only 25 percent of American voters do. That’s the political price of January 6 and Trump’s post-election shenanigans. Any more unity, and Republicans will be holding their next convention in a corner booth at Denny’s.
That seems kind of important, doesn’t it? But not to people like Jim Banks who thinks everything is great and that they are on the road to Oz.
Congressional Republicans are in a process of self-immolation. They are setting themselves on fire for the sake of placating a failed politician and his minions at the expense of any sort of political viability in the immediate future. Republicans really need an adult to tell them to stop. Unfortunately, Liz Cheney is the adult and instead of listening to the adult in a room. And instead of listening to her, they are making her walk the plank.
Considering the boat looks like the Titanic, maybe it’s not all bad.
Repubs do love their boat parades...