Delegitimizing Government is the GOP’s Only Consistent Play

There’s a game being played right before your eyes. That game is designed to stir up grievance, to cause people to distrust the government.

Its a game the GOP has been playing since before the 1980’s. Its the same game they played when Ronald Reagan sold you the Cadillac Driving Welfare Momma, or when George W. sold you WMD in Iraq. The national GOP apparatus consistently sells a lie built on a half-truth, built on the self-fulfilling prophecy of their incompetent governance.

Its the same game they’re playing with these election disputes.

Disputing the election isn’t, for the GOP, about reversing the result. It’s about crystallizing for their voters the idea that if they don’t get what they want in the world, it can only be because someone else unfairly took it from them. It is a central tenet of the party.

Most of the GOP establishment, except for his most slavering lickspittles, loathes Trump and will be glad when he goes. But they need the sense of grievance of his voters; that’s what they’re fighting to preserve. When they think that’s safe, they’ll cut Trump loose with a shrug.

Originally tweeted by Mark Harris (@MarkHarrisNYC) on November 8, 2020.

A coup in plain sight

If the Velvet Coup of the 2000 election doesn’t still leave a bad enough taste in your mouth, the attempted coup happening right before your eyes should.

As Vox’s Ezra Klein lists the steps:

The Trump’s administration’s current strategy is to go to court to try and get votes for Biden ruled illegitimate, and that strategy explicitly resists on Trump’s appointees honoring a debt the administration, at least, believes they owe…

If that fails, and it will, Mark Levin, one of the nation’s most popular conservative radio hosts, is explicitly calling on Republican legislatures to reject the election results and seat Donald Trump as president anyway…

That this coup probably will not work — that it is being carried out farcically, erratically, ineffectively — does not mean it is not happening, or that it will not have consequences.

Trump is attempting a coup in plain sight – Ezra Klein, Vox

This is being supported by bootlickers who see their future in base Trump has cultivated.

If, in the process they can seem to discredit the very government they hope to lead, they’re half way to the 2024 GOP nomination.

And the whole gambit about the election being fraudulent, well, there’s a big plot hole.

https://twitter.com/peter_masiakos/status/1325565638555934720

RESIGN! You Didn’t Wreck the Election Hard Enough

Yesterday, Georgia Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler wrote a nasty letter to the Georgia Secretary of State.

They’re mad because they didn’t win, now they’re accusing a fellow party member of mismanagement.

So what did poor old Brad Raffensperger do?

He let too many black people vote.

https://twitter.com/themaxburns/status/1325900838905253888

I don’t know that I have much more to say about this but, DAMN!

Will Old Line Republicans Play Along?

Early indications are that old line Republicans, you know, the ones who just care about tax breaks and deregulation, aren’t playing along.

The Governor of Utah instituted a statewide mask mandate less than a day after the AP called the race for Biden.

But after 4 years of GOP leaders we thought were reasonable, genuflecting to the Trump Administration while it systematically destroyed all kinds of norms and democratic institutions, I don’t really trust anyone on that side.

If they come around, good for them. If they don’t, I won’t be surprised.

See, the GOP got taken from them when Trump won the nomination.

The garden variety GOP’er, who didn’t care about poor people that much, was replaced by a grievance culture they’d been cultivating since Reagan opened his 1980 post-convention campaign full dog whistle style.

Nope, not much reason to believe any current GOP leaders will turn away from one of the foundations of the current GOP.

Conclusion

If all this sounds grim, where the fuck have you been the past 4 years?

Its been grim as fuck all this time.

So grim, I literally had full posts rattling around in my head but unable to get through my fingers I was so disgusted with everything.

That disgust is getting a vacation this week, but as soon as Moscow Mitch and his merry band of douchebags starts obstructing the newly installed Biden Administration, it will be right back.

Because obstruction is the cause celebre of today’s GOP. They’d rather get nothing done and make a big show of it, than help one single person.

If that’s not clear to you now, take a look at the most recent COVID relief package.

Oh right, they’re more worried about how it looks to negotiate a bill, than passing one.

Comments

One response to “Delegitimizing Government is the GOP’s Only Consistent Play”

  1. […] the other day I wrote about one group’s efforts to delegitimize government. Maybe that was too narrow. In reality, the modern GOP has worked to delegitimize all kinds of […]

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