By Izzy Stone
Washington Correspondent
Who doesn't love a parade? We do! And as we get ever closer to a midterm election with everything on the line, we thought we'd get the ball rolling with a parade.
Specifically, a parade of the horribles that will happen should Republicans take the House and Senate in 2022 because their hate-addled base showed up and Democrats didn't.
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| Parade of horribles: coming soon thanks to you! |
We hope the parade doesn't pass by, but with predictions of $6/gallon gasoline and endless whining from segments of the Democratic Party base who should know better (by definition, all of them) about the manifold shortcomings of President Biden and the nominally Democratic Congress, we're not optimistic.
As the parade warms up let's review who cares about this upcoming election:
Maybe more significantly, Democratic interest in the midterms has increased — from 50 percent of Democrats in March who indicated a high level of interest (either a “9” or “10” on a 10-point scale) to 61 percent now. That’s compared to Republicans, who were at 67 percent high interest two months ago, versus 69 percent now.
In the interest of stirring up the 40% of Democrats who don't seem to care who wins this fall, let's strike up the band and get this party started!
1. The impeachment of President Biden. Every Republican vying for influence or just an interview with Tucker “Where's Mommy?” Carlson is backing this horrible, so let's start here. Even though there's zero chance Biden can be removed (as long as 34 Democratic Senators remain alive and voting), it will be a spectacle that could run all year, dominating the headlines and cable news and setting the stage for taking Biden down in 2024.
Republicans ran this play before in 1999, and although it was a shambolic farce that revealed Republicans to be petty pious frauds, not one Republican suffered any consequences for the persecution. Right, Lindsay? And it dampened enthusiasm and support for Al Gore, while inspiring enough disaffected Democrats to follow the bold if demented leadership of Ralph Nader. You remember what happened next.
What grounds would there be for passing article of impeachment against Joe Biden? You're asking the wrong question. The fact is that the mouth-breathing GOP base is as hot for impeachment as Madison Cawthorn was for his cousin:
With numbers like that, the Republican House won't trouble itself much with the basis for any charges against Biden. If they do, the deep thinkers in their caucus are ready:
Today, Congresswoman [No free plugs from us – Ed.] introduced three impeachment resolutions against Joe Biden for his dereliction of duty in Afghanistan, his violations of immigration law causing a national security crisis on our Southern border, and his usurping of the Constitutional balance of power by ignoring the ruling of the Supreme Court.
Ah yes, the end of the Afghan war, which established media gasbags were telling us would define the Biden Presidency. As Hedley Lamarr would say: “Right as always, sir.”
Anyway, the point of impeaching Biden is not to remove him from office. It's to provide hundreds of hours of free airtime to every Republican whack job in Congress to advance their own careers. If the spectacle distracts the electorate from the corruption and subversion of Republicans, that's just an added bonus!
And that's just the beginning of the parade.
2. Government shutdown. We know this will happen because every time in the last 30 years when there has been a Republican Congress and a Democratic President, it has happened. Again, although the Conventional Wisdom has it that such a shutdown is bad for Republicans, we are unaware of any elected Republican who was unelected because he or she drove our government into the buffers.
It's fun for Republicans to shut down the government, an entity they don't really have much use for, except for the part with the heavily armed guys shooting at Black protesters in the streets. If millions suffer because government aid is cut off or government initiatives, like, say, inspection of baby formula plants, are suspended, who cares?
In fact, Republicans enjoy government shutdowns because they prove the Republican talking point that government can't do anything (other than protect the lives and property of white men). And the usual bloviators will both-sides a shut down and bemoan the lack of sensible bipartisanship that should have resulted in keeping government functioning as long as Democrats are willing to give up – their foolish opposition to asylum repeal on bogus “public health” grounds.
If you think that no one would be dim enough to spout nonsense like this after Republicans proved themselves in favor of overthrowing democracy, then read for yourself the musings of a proud Brandeis grad and retired columnist who married into a real estate fortune in the May 22 New York Times (We don't link to pisspoor content anymore).
And if you don't think Republicans will hesitate to shut down the US Government for any f***in' stupid reason, we call your attention to ancient history (December 2021) as recounted in The Guardian:
Where there's a shutdown there's a ....
3. Debt default. We know Republicans will cause the United States to default on its debt in a time of global political, military, and economic crisis because, once again, they've done it every time they hold Congress and a Democrat squats (in GOP eyes) in the White House.
During the Obama administration, the price for raisinig the debt ceiling was a ridiculous set of budget caps that proved so unworkable they were quietly abandoned after causing years of havoc and suffering.
Although Dems can be justly accused of learning slowly, they've caught on that there's no point to playing this game and we suspect the Biden Administration will respond to Republican extortion with a polite finger.
The resulting financial chaos will of course be blamed on both sides, but to Republicans any economic calamity is only pure gold for their 2024 campaign to win or steal the Presidency. Wall Street titans will rumble about how bad a debt default is, but the trailer-trash MAGA base (many of whom live on ironclad public pensions) doesn't care what Jamie Dimon thinks, for f***ks sake. As for Janet Yellin, who enjoys the special regard Republicans lavish on women and Jews,
one can only imagine the hearing at which her concerns were treated by House Majority Gym Jordan with the same seriousness he once gave to the cries of violated college wrestlers he coached.
There may come a time when the debt crisis starts to hit the pocketbooks of funders of Republican insanity, like Charles Koch or the Mercers, but before that happens, we'll bet that trillions of dollars of savings will have been wiped out and millions of lives will have been ruined by economic chaos.
4. Judges. If Clarence Thomas strokes out in 2023 or 2024, do you think that a Republican Senate will confirm any replacement? Or any appellate judge needed to repair bent circuits like the Fifth, Sixth, or Eleventh?
5. Global warming. With a Democratic House and 52 Democratic Senators Coal Mine Joe and Ditzy Kristen won't have a death grip on legislation to save the Earth from frying to a crisp. We might even get a crash program to wean us from fossil fuels thereby ending the unbearable curse of $5 gas going out the tailpipe in summer traffic jams.
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| But the Democrats are so disappointing! |
6. COVID. A million dead later, over a third of whom died to Republican opposition to vaccine and mask mandates (see below), and Republicans are still refusing to fund the measures needed to limit the death toll of the next wave of COVID, already upon us in the Northeast.
7. Abortion rights. Abortion will be gone well before the election, a human, moral, and legal tragedy that may nonetheless be good for Democratic turnout. Thinking that a Democratic Congress might be able to protect women from coathanger abortions and criminal prosecutions for leaving hellholes like Missouri to obtain health care? Good luck with Speaker of the House Elsie Stefanik '06!
8 Duck and cover. Somewhere in America the next victims of America's gun lust are shopping, davening, working, going to arithmetic class or just walking down the street, unaware that their lives will soon end in violence and agony. With Republicans intent on putting assault rifle vending machines outside every school and supermarket, the number of future victims, likely to be women, Black people, Jews, or children, can only increase.
9. Democracy. To cover up their corruption and extremism, and to fluff their base and their Tangerine-Faced Leader, the Republican Congress will pass new legislation making it even more unlikely that future elections will be won by the candidates with the most votes. Do you really think that Republicans won't pass every piece of s*** they can think of to block Democratic voters, and let their local henchpeople deliver Electoral College votes to the FLG? If so, why?
10. $4 gas. The price of gas is caused by many things. The identity of the party in power on Capitol Hill isn't one of them.
As the parade of 2023 horribles pass by, ask yourself whether you are looking forward to the reality they portend. If you're disappointed in the results the Democrats obtained with a narrow dysfunctional majority over the past two years, ask yourself if the Republican parade is worth making the point that you were too principled to vote Democratic. And if you can articulate what that principle is, be sure to tell the rest of us.
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