Two Sides of the Same Coin: Booting Liz Cheney and Recalling Gavin Newsom

The coup attempt on January 6th continues, with a broadside of lies about events of the assault on Congress and a high profile political purge.

Congressmember Liz Cheney’s defiance in the face of the GOP’s alternative reality is being treated as some sort of beginning for a new political movement. 

All but one of her Republican colleagues walked out of the House chamber rather than listen to her speech. The inmates are running the show now.

I won’t argue with the notion that her expulsion from the House leadership is a watershed moment. I will argue with those who think it represents a victory for either “side,”

Her real issue has nothing to do with policy and everything to do with a disagreement over who should lead her tribe down the road toward authoritarianism.

Follow the money on this storyline --which includes a pack of a hundred Republicans saying they’ve had enough of the Big Lie-- and you’ll see it’s going nowhere.

From Reuters:

• Over 100 former Republican officials will sign a letter on Thursday declaring that if the Republican Party does not break with former President Donald Trump and change course, they will back the creation of a third party.

• The letter, headlined: "A Call For American Renewal," is an exploratory move toward forming a breakaway party, two of its organizers said. The group is dismayed by what it says is a modern Republican Party driven by its allegiance to Trump, who continues to falsely claim the 2020 election was stolen from him.

These “reasonable Republicans” (by virtue of their failure to show obedience to the Former Guy) don’t have the kind of political infrastructure it takes to do much more than issue press releases or clever YouTube videos. 

They’re not running people for school board, or dog catcher, or county supervisor. Nobody is going to knock on doors to increase voter turnout for Rebels Without a Cause.

The nutcases backing the Former Guy DO have control of the party infrastructure. They DO have the mailing lists, the phone banks, and the donor data that make running for office and winning more likely.

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1392524853698306057?s=20

One hope for democracy may well lie with the judicial system. It’s not that I expect the Former Guy to be indicted or that his followers would care if he was. 

Some semblance of justice toward his band of bandits and associated bad people might do enough damage to keep them from winning over no party preference voters.

It seems obvious that Rep. Matt Gaetz, Rudy Guiliani, and maybe Mike Pompeo will find themselves charged with various offenses, ranging from sex trafficking to fraud to misapropriation of funds. Assorted bit players will also go down.

The party faithful, having come this far down the highway to hell, won’t be swayed by these events. The lies told in defense of GOP malfeasance will get bigger, bolder, and be fact checked until the cows come home. 

In Michigan, by the way, a GOP legislator has come up with a “solution” to those pesty fact checks. While I doubt this first stab will make it through the legislative process, it sets the tone for things that will come.

The Fact Checker Registration Act would require fact-checkers to register with the state and insure themselves with $1 million fidelity bonds. Any fact-checker who did not register with the state could face a $1,000 per day fine. The proposed legislation would also allow anyone to sue a fact-checker over “any wrongful conduct that is a violation of the laws of this state.”

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The solution to this political pollution is NOT to sit back and watch the silliness inevitable in any defense of the indefensible. 

And like any domestic dispute short of violence, getting in the middle isn’t a winning tactic. Let’s enjoy the dissident GOP videos, but not expect much more than personal profiteering to result from them.

https://twitter.com/JimBowey1/status/1392323072024219650?s=20

What will defeat the awfulness that has become associated with the Republican Party is political power. Every candidate for every office hiding behind that banner must pay a price.

One third of the electorate will vote for these candidates no matter what arguments emerge. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Florida Rep. Gaetz get re-nominated even as he’s on trial for child rape, distributing drugs, and engaging in unlawful interstate trafficking.

After all, the party will say, he’s one of “us.”

Ugh.

This brings me to the most immediate task at hand for Californians of good conscience, namely the recall Newsom effort.

Recent polling doesn’t look great for unseating Gov. Newsom, and currently unfolding events don’t seem to be playing out in a way favorable for Republicans. But their ultimate goal was never assured, and smart GOP leaders know that.

What the recall movement is all about is engagement; giving those with real or imagined grievances something to do, which involves building mailing lists for future outrage campaigns and keeping bread on the table for political consultants.

Come November, or whenever this special election occurs, these political nihilists need to be defeated in the biggest way possible. Their only path to victory involves voter apathy, and a near miss will get spun into a “historic effort.”

What was initially seen as a path to relevancy for the California Republican Party needs to end up as a resounding defeat. Instead of being energized, these fools need to be discouraged.

I’m not running out and signing anti-recall petitions. Nor am I sending Newsom’s defenders any money. (I’m getting plenty of junk mail already, and the governor’s wealthy allies can afford to pay to keep him in office.)

However, you can be damned sure I’ll be beating the drums as election days nears to get out the vote. It’s not a matter of voting FOR Newsom, so much as it is a vote against anti-democratic forces.

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Email me at WritetoDougPorter@Gmail.com

Lead Image via Wikimedia Commons