Biden’s agenda could fall apart in the end – but the GOP is eating itself alive

As anyone could have predicted, much of the media is once again obsessed with the “Democrats are in a mess” storyline, a long-running that makes it easy to uphold the preferred conventional wisdom that the right can, but at least be, authoritarian fanatics aren’t they not the dizzying dingbats of the left. Republicans don’t even have to leave trains on time.

Right now, the Democrats are doing the most arduous political task of all: trying to pass complicated laws with a coalition made up of a handful of officials who look in the mirror every morning and see a superstar looking back on them. There isn’t a politician on earth who doesn’t have a healthy ego, but these are people who live for headlines like this: Manchin makes demands for child tax credits.

This is hardly a unique selling point for the Democratic Party. We just have to look back to the famous moment in 2017 when Arizona GOP Senator John McCain, who died of cancer and disgusted President Donald Trump, dramatically gestured thumb down and defeated the repeal of the Affordable Care Act. Still, it’s true that Democrats are particularly prone to haggling over laws, but that’s because they actually want to do things. The Republican agenda is largely limited to sustaining judges and lowering taxes, so they usually get these things done fairly efficiently without the need for negotiation.

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So the Biden agenda could fall apart in the end. It has always been a difficult task to do great things with such a small majority. But they could still do it, and if the process is messy and arduous, then progress just happens. If you want an example of a political party in a state of full blown internal chaos, just look to the right and see what’s going on in the GOP. Sure, Republicans are in lockstep in Congress, fighting anything and everything the Democrats try to do. But actually the party is eating itself alive, and so vigorously that the media are aware of it. What apparently sparked this new interest was this startling statement from Donald Trump last week:

There was no way to interpret this as anything other than a threat. Trump just made it clear that anyone who disagrees with Big Lie will be put on his “Don’t Vote” list. And, not that he cares, but the effect also has the effect that if the electoral fraud is not “cleared up” (whatever he means by it), GOP voters may not bother to vote .

There are many people, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who believe his shouting over electoral fraud cost Republicans two Senate seats last year. He wasn’t the only one. The right wing personality, Erick Erickson, said at the time:

“To tell everyone that the race was stolen when it didn’t cost Republicans two Senate seats. The all-in on the personality cult around President Trump harmed them. Donald Trump could have lost it, it had to be stolen from him. “

This is not just an assumption. In this Sunday New York Times article, Jeremy Peters notes that even a vocal supporter like Marjorie Taylor Greene was surprised to find in an internal poll that 10% of Republican voters in her Georgia district would not vote in 2022 if there weren’t any “Forensic Exam” would give “the 2020 vote. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s district will no doubt bring her back to Congress, even if 10% of her voters have voted. But in districts and states with more competitive races, this rate of GOP apathy could be a serious problem.

There are a few rare dissidents in the party and not just the usual suspects, Rep Adam Kinzinger, R-Il, or GOP Congresswoman from Wyoming, Liz Cheney. Senator Bill Cassidy, R-La, has shown some independence in the past, telling Axios this week that he would not vote for Trump in 2024, hoping he would not run for being in the House, Senate and Presidency four cases lost years and politics is about winning. I don’t know if Cassidy attended the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s closed session in Palm Beach, Florida last week, but according to the Washington Post, he heard Trump say he actually saved the party and told the assembled GOP Senators that “It was a dying party, if I’m honest. Now we have a very lively party.” That’s one way of putting it.

Trump insulted several “RINOS” in the party who he felt betrayed, naming Mitt Romney and Ben Sasse, among others. It’s a good bet that Cassidy’s name will be checked soon, as will Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, who told Meet the Press on Sunday that “rescheduling” the 2020 election would be a “recipe for disaster”.

Cassidy and Hutchinson are outliers in the party because they openly embrace reality. Most elected Republican officials throw themselves down trying to prove their loyalty, and the subsequent primary campaigns are already turning. Everyone by now is undoubtedly aware of Senator Chuck Grassley’s humiliating descent into Trump cultism. Fred Hiatt in the Washington Post tells the story of first-term Republican Senator from Tennessee, Bill Hagerty, former ambassador to Japan, a man who was once considered a man of integrity and independence who instead became one for no real reason Having become an energetic Trump grinder is a desire to please the man.

Nowhere is the tension higher than at the gubernatorial race in Virginia, where the big lie is the last thing GOP nominee Glenn Youngkin wants to talk about, but the only thing that seems to interest his constituents. He is a man desperately trying to escape the clutches of Donald Trump, but he cannot risk offending his followers and that ties him in a knot.

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Still, the GOP primary races are where the real action takes place.

Amy Davidson Sorkin reports to the New Yorker about an amazing Republican race in Alabama to occupy Richard Shelby’s seat between incumbent candidate Katie Britt and insurgent Congressman Mo Brooks. Brooks attacked Britt for saying she cared about standing with women and her response was that Brooks was not loyal enough to Donald Trump for once assisting Ted Cruz in the 2016 primaries when she was from the start Trump supporter was. It gets very ugly, very quickly.

Democratic scramble over their agenda is difficult and frustrating, but at least they are trying to do something for the people. The Republican Party makes the Democrats look like bloody amateurs when it comes to “messing up” and everything is done to make Donald Trump happy. It is not difficult to see which process is actually in the public interest and which is not.