2024 Election Preview: Only 29 Months to Go!
By Spy Political Editor David Bloviator with
Izzy Stone in Washington
The race for the 2024 Republican Presidential nomination, which you may have thought was over before it began thanks to the overwhelming lead enjoyed by the Former Loser Grifter, is on and you can feel the insurrection [Surely, – excitement? – Ed.]
Last week in these pages we took a look at what passes for courage and insight among Washington hacks (like Kevin Dowd's sister) and former Republican luminaries, who are now willing to tell us, after years if not decades shilling or apologizing for Republicans, that the FLG is – bad. We also noted that their obloquy did not extend beyond said FLG to other Republicans, who, with rare exception, have either backed his insurrection or kept their mouths tightly shut.
At one of the formerly obligatory stops on the Republican campaign trail – a mob of intolerant white bigots who slather their hatred with thick gobs of alleged Christianity like mayonnaise on Annie Hall's pastrami sandwich – some of the loudest deplorables had the ignominy of following the FLG's full-diapered defense of insurrection.
It took three Washington Post reporters to describe the incredible scene:
On Friday afternoon, Trump delivered the headline speech at the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s annual Road to Majority conference, which served as a preview of what the 2024 GOP presidential field could look like. But Pence — along with other possible presidential contenders — chose not to attend. Aside from Trump, no other speaker mentioned the Jan. 6 proceedings during the conference’s initial days.
Well, why would they? If you're thirsting for Republican votes, there's no upside in appeals based on the rule of law, protection of democracy, or the enduring value of the American Constitutional order. Just ask Liz Cheney, about to be retired by Wyoming Republicans, or South Carolina's Tom Rice, whose vote for impeachment based on the FLG's 1/6 insurrection was greeted by Republicans in America's treason capital – not well:
(graphic from The New York Times)
Republicans can count ballots correctly when they want to, so there was not a discouraging word among the Republican wannabes at Hatefest '22.
Of course, some of the leading Republican, um. luminaries, were smart enough not to follow the FLG roast, including Cancun Ted Cruz, Ron DeathSantis, Li'l Marco Rubio, and no-show at the DC Necktie Party Mike Pence. Don't worry; we'll get back to them.
But a number of second stringers couldn't resist the “chance to begin testing messages with one of the most influential audiences in Republican presidential politics: evangelical leaders and activists.”
Let's meet some of our contestants:
Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.)...predicted that Republicans will win majorities in the House and the Senate in November, and then, holding his hands up he added: “And then in two years — I have a dream,” a reference to the Rev. Martin Luther King.
As SNL's Ego Nwodim once noted, “That's all Dr. King ever said.”
Did we mention that Tim Scott is a Black Republican? You might think that's a disqualifier but you'd be underestimating the appetite of white racists to hear Black people validating their hatred. Ask Herschel Walker, the demented wife-beater who's tied with Sen. Warnock in the George Senate race, but speak slowly and clearly.
Next up was not Tim Scott's cousin, that titan of Medicare fraud, Rick Scott (R – Fifth Amendment). Surely he would address the issues facing the country head on, right?
Scott suggested the country needs corporal punishment. “A switch is a southern form of encouragement,” he said, after explaining how his mother used to hit him with one to push him to focus more on school.
You might think this is a ridiculous bit of misdirection, but sadly you'd be wrong. Scott knows full well how to give a crowd of self-appointed Christian evangelicals a woodrow: call for child abuse. As Talia Lavin '08 tells us,
 |
| Thank you Republican Jesus! |
I started researching evangelical Christian corporal punishment quite recently, though I had known for years it was and remains a common practice in millions of American households. Knee-deep into parenting guides that read, to me, like alien and sadistic torture manuals,... I put out a simple Tweet, asking people who had had such childhoods to reach out to me for a research project.
The response was immediate, and wide-ranging, and intense. Within 48 hours, one hundred people had reached out to me, sharing pieces of their stories on email and DM..—and the responses contained so much candid anguish I marveled the words didn’t etch holes in my screen.
Yikes. Guess Don Jr. and Eric don't realize how lucky they were that their father neglected them.
Nikki Haley, who faithfully shilled for the FLG's shambolic disloyal foreign policy as UN Ambassador had the incredibly big clanging brass balls to praise the Ukrainians for their patriotism, but said nothing about the President who corruptly tried to extort the President of Ukraine for political gain without objection from her.
The other three FLG taint-polishers waiting for their beloved former President to stroke out on his 20-piece fried chicken basket – Cruz, Rubio, and DeathSantis – wisely passed on taking eighth billing, but they've been supportive of the continuing insurrection perpetrated by the FLG, when they're not jabbering about the menaces of doors in public buildings and vaccines for toddlers.
Which leads us back to the point we were trying to make last week: it's not just the FLG, it's the entire f***in' Republican Party that's in on the effort to end democracy in these United States. And why should we care?
Because if the FLG finally snorts his last Aderall, his party's Presidential nomination will be won by one or more of these loathsome individuals whose values are just as evil as the FLG's. The result, according to two leading academic bloviators, one of whom holds the same job once inhabited by Henry Kissinger (Government Professor at a well-known university in the Boston area), is a dire future for our democracy:
Which got us to wondering about all those Republican heroes who like to proclaim their apostasy when it comes to the Treasonous Toadstool, like this guy:
Never Trump.
— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) June 16, 2022
What do they think about all those spineless Republican hacks who have failed to speak out against insurrection and in fact advocate policies that are as as bad as if not worse than those of Pres U Bum? Funnily enough, you don't hear too much. Sometimes a discouraging Tweet will be heard but if any of the Never FLG crowd has Tweeted Never DeSantis, Never Cruz, Never Rubio, or Never Pence, we haven't seen it.
Even Cheyenne's answer to Joan of Arc hasn't ruled out supporting any number of loathsome pro-insurrection Republicans. Republicans who are willing to point out that the whole party needs to reconstructed tend to be those who have no future in Republican politics, like retired right-wing Judge Michael Luttig. As dusk falls over his career and his country, the retired appellate judge, like Minerva's Owl, spread his wings and observed
Over a year and a half later, in continued defiance of our democracy, both
the former president and his political party allies still maintain that the 2020
presidential election was “stolen” from him, despite all evidence -- all evidence
now --that that is simply false. All the while, this false and reckless insistence that
the former president won the 2020 presidential election has laid waste to
Americans’ confidence in their national elections. More alarming still is that the
former president pledges that his reelection will not be “stolen” from him next time
around, and his Republican Party allies and supporters obeisantly pledge the same.
That's clear enough (although Judge Luttig was remarkably parsimonious in his use of the word “Republican”). Too bad that so few Republican stalwarts, including those who seek the Presidency and those ready to trouser millions flacking for them, can bring themselves to state the obvious truth about the irretrievably corrupt subversive conspiracy that is the Republican Party and the depraved cowardly grifters who seek its highest honor, second only to a round of golf with their Supreme Leader.
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