Rep. Jim Jordan held one of
the weaponized circus House Committee hearings Wednesday, featuring
Attorney General Merrick Garland. Superficially, the hearing is supposed
to get to the bottom of … nothing. It is a chance for the Republican
Party, made up of Trump sycophants, to muddy the waters around the
disgraced former president’s four indictments, while getting a chance to
say the name “Hunter Biden” a few times.
Reps. Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell decided that enough was
enough, and used their time to break down how much of a cow-pie circus
this entire Republican enterprise is. Schiff painted the big picture:
“We meet today at a momentous time in our history. The country is about
to go through a great trial. By this, I do not mean any of the several
trials of the former president, but rather a trial of the proposition
that we are a nation of laws committed to the rule of law and that no
one is above the law.”
Schiff then broke down how this “essential ingredient” of any
democracy was under threat by Jordan, whom Schiff said was “trying to
use the committee's power of subpoena to compel criminal discovery—in
effect, making the committee a kind of criminal defense firm for the
former president.” What Jordan is trying to accomplish, according to
Schiff, “would establish the principle that the rule of law should apply
to almost everyone, just not the leader of his party.”
Continuing his remarks, Schiff said, “According to this
alternate proposition, if you were the president of the United States
and you lose your reelection, you can violate the law and Constitution
to try to stay in power. And if you are successful, well, then maybe you
get to be president for life. And if you fail, there is no
repercussion. This proposition is also well-known to the world, and it
is called dictatorship.”
At one point, Republican Rep. Thomas Massie
suggested the attorney general could be held in contempt of Congress
for refusing to answer questions about ongoing investigations—something
Garland reminded Massie would fly in the face of our Constitution’s
separation of powers. Swalwell jumped off of this during his time,
reminding everyone that “the guy who's leaving the hearing room right
now, Mr. Jordan, is about 500 days into evading his subpoena, about 500
days.”
Swalwell didn’t let up on Jordan, “So if we're going to talk
about contempt of Congress, let's get real. I mean, are you serious that
Jim Jordan, a witness to one of the greatest crimes ever committed in
America, a crime where more prosecutions have occurred than any crime
committed in America, refuses to help his country and we’re going to get
lectured about subpoena compliance in contempt of Congress?” He
continued, saying that there is no credibility coming from Republicans
on the committee, and that Jordan and his fellow House Republicans were
busy holding these “clown show” hearings instead of passing gun safety
laws and helping support Ukraine’s fight against Russia. Swalwell used
the rest of his time to detail how many of those investigating Hunter
Biden were appointed by Trump, and how Garland has bent over backward
for conservatives in this matter.
Every pathetic conspiracy theory being peddled by the likes of
Jordan is so easily refutable by the most basic logic at this point. One
wonders if just the sound of conspiracy is all MAGA-Kool-Aid drinkers need in order to throw another $5 down the toilet of Republican fundraiser emails.
"Give me a minute. I know there's a brain in here somewhere."
The same rainstorm that earlier drowned a third of all the agricultural land and cost lives in Greece has brought incredible destruction to Libya,
where at least 2,000 are thought to be dead. It’s just one in a string
of deadly storms that have wracked the globe during a year that has also
seen record heat, frighteningly hot oceans, and record-low ice in Antarctica.
All of this is a result of the human-made climate crisis. A U.N. report
issued this week shows that in spite of significant progress, nations
are falling short of the goals necessary to prevent catastrophic change
that could trigger an unprecedented refugee crisis, threaten the world’s food supply, and destabilize governments around the globe. Storm clouds are right on the horizon, and the world is not moving fast enough.
But there are intriguing notes of change. One of those can be found in a report on electric vehicles recently published by Bloomberg.
That report looks at both how EVs are moving into all areas of
transportation, and what trends predict for the near future. Perhaps
most intriguingly, it shows how EVs are already cutting demand for gas
and diesel by about 3%, but the biggest impact comes from a factor many
might not expect.
The demand for EVs is accelerating in almost every area of the world. The best-selling car
in the United States is an EV (though it actually comes in fifth place
among passenger vehicles overall, behind four nonelectric pickups). EVs
top the charts in Europe and in China. According to the International Energy Agency, each year since 2016 has seen “exponential growth” in EV sales, and it projects a 35% year-over-year increase in EV sales by the end of 2023. European Union countries have approved a plan to ban the sale of gas-powered cars by 2035.
Public transportation and commercial transport are also getting more electric, with both electric buses and electric over-the-road trucks
becoming more popular. But even when you add up all the cars, buses,
and trucks that have gone electric in the last decade, that’s only a
third of all the oil that’s being saved by EVs.
So where is the rest? It’s in vehicles that are rarely seen on American roads.
Electric tuk-tuk.
This is an electric tuk-tuk in Mysuru, India. The driver of
this particular vehicle complained that there were not enough public
charging stations in his city, which is certainly true because the
popularity of these vehicles has exploded in what Bloomberg
calls India’s “Rickshaw Revolution.” Similar vehicles are rapidly
replacing gas-powered alternatives in nations across Asia and Africa.
The other big factor isn’t three-wheeled vehicles, but ones
with just two wheels. In the United States, electric motorcycle
companies have had a hard time
attracting the support of riders, largely because in the U.S., riding a
motorcycle is often a matter of style and culture rather than
necessity. (And because riding any two-wheeled vehicle on American roads
can be inviting disaster.) But around the world, electric scooters
are becoming hugely popular. Again, it’s largely Asia leading the way:
Electric scooters and motorcycles are replacing the gas models that had
been ubiquitous in the crowded cities of China, India, Indonesia,
Vietnam, Thailand, and elsewhere. More than 90% of world sales of
two-wheelers take place in Asia.
Why are these smaller EVs becoming so popular? Because they are
easier to maintain, cheaper to operate, and in many cases cheaper to
buy than gas versions. In crowded cities where most trips are only a few
miles and on streets where traffic rules can seem … creative, electric
scooters can be the perfect means of getting from A to B.
This
scooter traffic jam in Indonesia is due to the shift change at a company
that mines nickel, which is widely used in EV batteries.
In the U.S. and Europe, electric two-wheelers have also become
popular, mostly in the form of electric bicycles and scooters, either
those owned by individuals or those available from rental companies that
seem ubiquitous in some locations. Those green or orange e-bikes may be
irritating—so irritating that some cities have moved to limit them—but they take cars off the street and replace them with quiet, clean transportation that is genuinely making a difference.
Altogether, electric two- and three-wheeled vehicles displaced
just under 1 million barrels of oil a day in 2023, according to
Bloomberg’s report. And that number is growing more rapidly than any
other segment of EVs. For many, an electric scooter isn’t just an
alternative to a bike or motorcycle, it can replace a far more
expensive—and far more polluting—traditional car.
It’s another good reason to think about removing the grip that
oil has over transportation in the U.S. This would also be an excellent
time to think about whether in the great majority of situations in your
own life, an electric two-wheeled solution might be your best option.
Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish
New Year, was celebrated over the weekend. In the cases of Donald Trump
and entrepreneur Elon Musk, it was celebrated with grossly antisemitic
social media posts. The two men took significantly different approaches
to antisemitism, with Trump reposting on Truth Social a direct and
sustained attack on “liberal Jews,” while Musk tweeted an extreme
version of a classic antisemitic dog whistle.
These attacks don’t happen in isolation. Antisemitic incidents rose in 2022
in the U.S., following a global rise in such incidents in 2021, which
subsequently abated in many other countries but not here.
people, posting a graphic
offering “a reminder for liberal Jews who voted to destroy America
& Israel because you believed false narratives! Let’s hope you
learned from your mistake & make better choices moving forward!” As a
capper, it added, “Happy New Year!” before listing all the supposed
positives liberal Jews had overlooked when they didn’t vote for Trump.
Since it’s unlikely Trump read the fine print on the graphic, it’s not
worth looking too deeply into the politics on display, but suffice it to
say, the argument is thoroughly in line with the antisemitic premise
that Jewish people in the U.S. are, or should be, more concerned with
Israel than with the U.S. When it comes to Trump, the important thing is
that he chose to mark Rosh Hashanah with an antisemitic attack
suggesting that Jews who didn’t vote for him were voting to “destroy
America & Israel.”
Around 70% of Jewish people in the U.S.
are Democrats or lean toward the Democratic Party, apparently the
subject of ongoing rage for Trump. Jews have been strongly Democratic for a century,
Peter Dreier and Steven Windmueller note at TPM Cafe, and this
affiliation is based on a number of important issues—yet Trump takes it
personally, all while courting and defending antisemites, like the Nazis
who marched in Charlottesville in 2017. And we can’t forget that he
himself airs one antisemitic message after another, as Dreier and
Windmueller write:
In aspeech
in October 2016, Trump claimed that “Hillary Clinton meets in secret
with international banks to plot the destruction of U.S. sovereignty in
order to enrich these global financial powers, her special interest
friends and her donors.” He didn’t need to use the word “Jew” to evoke
the sort of global banking cabal familiar to anyone who has read The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,
the anti-Semitic forgery that has fueled anti-Jewish violence for over a
century. Trump’s comments were not an off-hand remark. The speech was
designed to fire up his white nationalist supporters. Trump’s frequent
references at campaign rallies and during the debates to Sidney
Blumenthal, George Soros, and Debbie Wasserman Schultz — Jewish
supporters of Hillary Clinton — were also no accident.
In Trump’s final2016 campaign video,
a clear appeal to anti-Semitism, he warned of “those who control the
levers of power in Washington” and of “global special interests” who
“partner with these people who don’t have your good in mind,” while
pictures flashed of Hillary Clinton and three Jews: Soros, then-Federal
Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, and Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein.
Musk’s Rosh Hashanah message drew on exactly that type of dog
whistle. “The Soros organization appears to want nothing less than the
destruction of western civilization,” Musk tweeted. Musk’s tweet came while he’s engaged in a running battle with the Anti-Defamation League, which hehas accused
of destroying ad revenue on the social media platform he bought for $44
billion. And he has threatened to sue the organization for defamation.
But the ADL is far from the only observernoting a rise in antisemitic tweets since Musk’s takeover. According to the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a human rights nonprofit:
In total, analysts detected 325,739 English-language
antisemitic tweets in the 9 months from June 2022 to February 2023, with
the weekly average number of antisemitic tweets increasing by 106%
(from 6,204 to 12,762), when comparing the three months before and after
Musk’s acquisition.
Musk’s blatant antisemitism is no surprise in the context of what he’s overseen and promoted, and theaccounts he’s reinstated.
Like Trump, though, Musk blames Jewish people for seeing and calling
out the bigotry he promotes, taking it not as a gut check but as an
excuse to be more antisemitic. With some of the loudest voices using the
biggest platforms to attack Jewish people, no wonder antisemitic
incidents are on the rise.
Detroit’s three big
automakers failed to negotiate a new contract with the United Auto
Workers Thursday night, triggering a targeted strike that could spread
if a deal isn’t reached.
General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis, which
operates Chrysler and Jeep, are now facing an unprecedented “Stand Up Strike,”
which the UAW says is a new strategy to striking, with the potential of
more workers walking off the job over time if demands are not met. The
conflict between the companies and workers centers on profit-sharing and
the union’s demand for a 36% pay increase across a new four-year contract.
To put this into perspective, NPR
reports that filings of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
reveal that General Motors CEO Mary Barra made 362 times more than the
median worker at her company. Ford CEO Jim Farley made 281 times more
than his company’s median worker, and Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares made
365 times more. At the same time, since 2008, adjusting for inflation,
auto workers’ wages have decreased 19.3%.
On Friday, CNN asked Barra to defend her company’s position
that workers’ demands were too high, and she gave one of the biggest
nothing answers in the history of nothing answers. Barra, after being
reminded that she has seen a 34% increase in her
salary, claimed that 92% of her compensation is based on “performance of
the company.”
In the same breath, she went on to say that somehow a 20%
increase for workers, along with “profit-sharing,” amounted to a fair
deal. “So when the company does well, everyone does well,” she added.
According to the Economic Policy Institute,
CEOs for the top 350 U.S. firms made about 20 times more than their
typical worker in 1965. Between 1978 and 2021, CEO pay has increased
1,460% while typical workers’ wages have increased just 18.1%.
You don’t
have to be a Nobel Prize-winning economist to understand this isn’t a
workable model.
Ramaswamy, at his core, is sort of like a used car salesman who
suddenly runs out of vehicles to hawk and starts selling ricin gas to
terrorists. Sales are sales, right? What’s the difference between
selling pharmaceuticals and promoting creeping fascism? Just get out there and put the best possible face on the product. Right?
Of course, when your “product” is the wit and wisdom of Trump—and Ramaswamy has been clear that he views Trump as a giant among men, who has all the best ideas—it can be a tough sell. Especially when you’re supposedly running against your hero.
Ramaswamy, who will presumably talk to anyone who will listen,
appeared on “The Mehdi Hasan Show” on Tuesday. Hasan committed an overt
act of journalism, refusing to let Ramaswamy pivot to his talking points
before he answered a very clear, very easy question that has a really
fucking obvious answer: What did you mean by your own words?
HASAN: “You say [Trump] behaved in downright
abhorrent behavior that makes him a danger to democracy. What was it
that was downright … tell me what he did that was downright abhorrent.”
RAMASWAMY: “Let’s actually be really fair to your
audience. So on Jan. 10, 2021, thereabouts, days after that incident, I
wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal arguing that censorship was
the real cause of what happened on Jan. 6. ...”
HASAN: “Which isn’t true ...”
RAMASWAMY: “… Well, that’s what I wrote. I’m giving
you the facts of what I said. That’s a hard fact. That was published in
The Wall Street Journal.”
Vivek wrote something! And it was in The Wall Street Journal! That’s a hard fact, Mehdi. Ramaswamy deals in facts. Like the fact that he wrote a thing.
Are you trying to imply that he didn’t write the thing that he actually
did write in the publication where he did, in fact, write it? These are
all facts!
Unfortunately, the fact that he wrote it stands in stark contrast to
the fact that the “facts” he’s currently citing are not facts at all,
but rather bullshit.
In fact, CNN’s Daniel Dale happened to fact-check said facts, and found them wanting.
Facts First:Ramaswamy’s claim is false. He never argued in The Wall Street Journalop-edthat
censorship was the real cause of the January 6 riot. Rather, Ramaswamy
and his co-author criticized social media companies forbanningTrump and some of his supporters in the daysafterthe
riot. They argued that social media companies are violating the
Constitution when they censor users, and they warned that Silicon Valley
stifling the voices of disaffected Americans would lead to future
“terror” that would make the Capitol riot look peaceful by comparison.
They never argued in the op-ed that censorship was even a partial cause
of the January 6 riot – which they described as “disgraceful,” “last
week’s horror” and “a stain on American history” – let alone its primary
cause.
Well, that’s awkward. But never mind facts. Back to the bullshit.
HASAN: [Laughs]
RAMASWAMY: “When pressed on, was that condoning what
Trump did, my answer was no. There’s a difference between a bad
judgment and a crime, and we need to be able to tell the difference in
this country.”
HASAN: “Understood, and you’re avoiding my question.
What did Donald Trump do, in your view, that was downright abhorrent?
Second time I’m asking that question.”
RAMASWAMY: “I think that the thing that I would have
done differently if I were in his shoes, is that I would have declared
[for] reelection on Jan. 7. That’s exactly the thing I would have done.”
So is he saying he would have tried to steal the election
right up to, and through, Jan. 6, but would have ultimately relented
after several Americans died as a result of his actions? That Trump’s
only sin was not understanding that his illegal coup had failed and the
jig was up, so it was time to start the next one?
That’s kind of weird. Has he focus-grouped that talking point with suburban mothers?
HASAN: “That’s not what I asked, with respect. I’ll
ask it a third time. What did Trump do that was egregious, quote,
downright abhorrent, and a danger to democracy? Can you just explain to
our viewers? Your words.”
RAMASWAMY: “So, so, so you’re mixing two different
quotes, but what did I think was reprehensible about what happened that
day? Look, I think that the way a true leader should have handled that
situation should have been to actually say, this is me running for
reelection, not actually litigating what is already passed in behind us,
and I would have done things differently. That is not a crime, though,
what he did. And the reason I have been so vehement …”
HASAN: “I understand. You keep saying what you would
have done. I just want to hear from your mouth, no, no. Unless you’re
scared of him, why wouldn’t you say what he did that was downright
abhorrent?”
RAMASWAMY: “Mehdi, I’m not going to let you stitch, you’re stitching together three things from three different places.”
“I said Trump was abhorrent and a danger to democracy in totally
different places! Stop twisting my words around, Fake News Media!”
HASAN: “I’ll read the quote. Let’s put up the tweet, let’s put up the tweet. ‘What Trump did last week was wrong.’”
RAMASWAMY: “Do you want to have an actual conversation?”
RAMASWAMY’S JAN. 12, 2021 TWEET
DISPLAYED ONSCREEN: “What Trump did last week was wrong. Downright
abhorrent. Plain and simple. I’ve said it before and did so in my
piece.”
HASAN: “Yes, I want you to answer my question,
Vivek. Three times I’ve asked it. What did Trump do that was downright
abhorrent? It’s a simple question. It’s your words. It’s onscreen. What
did he do that was downright abhorrent?”
RAMASWAMY: “I believe that failing to unite this
country falls short of what a true leader ought to do. That is why I’m
in this race, is to do things differently than any prior president has
done them. That’s the hard truth, okay?”
I've heard that if you light a candle, stare straight into the
mirror, and say “Ramaswamy” three times, the ghost of Karl Rove shows up
and gives you new talking points.
I’d just assumed his soul has long been keen to pop out of that body.
Or vice versa. Assuming Cartesian dualism is really a thing, that is.
What did Descartes say? “I ratfuck, therefore I am an asshole?” (To
those dozens of haters who kept asking me what I’d ever do with a
philosophy degree—ha! Asked and answered, fucknuts. Move along, now.)
[CROSSTALK]
RAMASWAMY: “Well, the reality is none of that is a
crime, and the reason I have been so vocal is because when somebody
actually prosecutes somebody for a bad judgment—and I have been clear,
he made bad judgments, I would have made different judgments—that is a
distinction we have to draw.”
But that’s not what Hasan asked, is it? He asked, more than once,
what Trump did that, in Ramaswamy’s own words, was “abhorrent.” But
Ramaswamy can’t answer that because he is scared of Donald Trump—and his
base. And he wants to be his vice president, commerce secretary, royal
bath tub attendant, and/or Diet Coke gofer. Whatever’s available. So
long as he ultimately has a place within Trump’s inner circle/listless
sphincter.
Of course, Ramaswamy no doubt actually did think Trump’s actions on Jan. 6 were “abhorrent”—back in that brief window when it was still safe for Republicans to state the obvious.
But he sure can't say that now, because the voters he needs to win the
GOP primary—or to position himself as Trump’s ward and sidekick—won’t
hear of it. All they want to hear is that the election was stolen, and
Mike Pence deserved to hang for forestalling our glorious Thousand-Year
Trumpian Reich.
Hasan, on the other hand, is doing what every journalist confronted
with Big Lies, Big Liars, and fascism-dressed-in-jingoistic-pantaloons
should do: make these scoundrels answer the hard questions about Trump’s
ongoing anti-democratic crusade. Don’t let them pivot. Ever. If they
don’t like it, they can get off the stage. This is a democracy, after
all.
Thank you, Mehdi. And let’s have a lot more of this from our media. Please.
McKay Coppins, a journalist and
staff writer at The Atlantic, is the author of a forthcoming
biography about Utah Republican Sen. Mitt Romney. That book, “Romney: A
Reckoning,” appears to dovetail quite well with the senator’s plans to
retire, announced Wednesday. Also on Wednesday, Coppins published a piece in The Atlantic
featuring some excerpts from his book. They are eye-opening, to say the
least, not so much for what they reveal about Romney himself, but for
their frank and brutal assessment of Romney’s Republican colleagues in
the U.S. Senate, particularly their slavish fealty to Donald Trump.
According to Coppins, when he and Romney began to meet privately for
the book in 2021, the senator had not advised any other senators that
he’d begun working with a biographer, meeting most often at Romney’s
Washington, D.C., residence. Coppins acknowledges that he didn’t
expect the level of candor Romney exhibited towards him.
From acknowledging that a “very large” segment of the Republican
party “really doesn’t believe in the Constitution,” to his frank
accounts of other Republican senators’ true feelings about Donald Trump,
Romney doesn’t appear to have held anything back from his biographer,
often providing unedited texts, emails and documents for Coppins’
thorough perusal. Even though Romney had privately advised Coppins early
on that he wasn’t going to seek reelection, Coppins came away with the
impression that there was something “beyond his own political future”
that accounted for his startling honesty.
That “something,” Coppins believes, was “not just about the decomposition of his own political party, but about the fate of the American project itself.”
It appears that the greatest catalyst for Romney’s pessimism was the events of Jan. 6, 2021.
Coppins notes that Romney became noticeably preoccupied with world
history and the fall of global empires after he witnessed the
insurrection of Jan. 6. Romney concluded, in large part, that it was
history repeating itself, noting that the rise of particularly
oppressive tyrants inevitably preceded the dissolution of empires.
According to Coppins, Romney said, “Authoritarianism is like a gargoyle
lurking over the cathedral, ready to pounce.”
It’s clear that Romney sees Trump as that gargoyle. In one incident
Romney shared, he reached out via text message to then-Senate Majority
Leader Mitch McConnell after a concerning phone call.
“In case you have not heard this, I just got a call from Angus
King, who said that he had spoken with a senior official at the Pentagon
who reports that they are seeing very disturbing social media traffic
regarding the protests planned on the 6th. There are calls to burn down
your home, Mitch; to smuggle guns into DC, and to storm the Capitol. I
hope that sufficient security plans are in place, but I am concerned
that the instigator—the President—is the one who commands the
reinforcements the DC and Capitol police might require.”
According to Romney, McConnell never responded.
A significant section of the book addresses the evolution of Romney’s
own feelings toward Trump, which apparently rapidly descended into
complete disgust, culminating in Romney writing a 2019 opinion piece in
for The Washington Post excoriating Trump as unfit to lead the
nation. He emphasizes to Coppins that this sentiment was and is shared
by almost all of his Republican Senate colleagues.
Romney and Trump’s famous dinner after the 2016 election
From Coppins’ book:
“Almost without exception,” he told me, “they shared my view of
the president.” In public, of course, they played their parts as Trump
loyalists, often contorting themselves rhetorically to defend the
president’s most indefensible behavior. But in private, they ridiculed
his ignorance, rolled their eyes at his antics, and made incisive
observations about his warped, toddler like psyche. Romney recalled one
senior Republican senator frankly admitting, “He has none of the
qualities you would want in a president, and all of the qualities you
wouldn’t.”
According to Coppins’ account, when Romney would criticize Trump, his
fellow GOP senators would “express solidarity” with him, sometimes
saying they wish they had a constituency that would allow them to
express their true feelings. As Coppins reports, Romney also described
an incident where Trump attended a private meeting with Republican
senators, who remained “respectful and attentive,” only to burst out
laughing when Trump exited the room.
Romney also quoted McConnell as calling Trump an “idiot,” and saying
Romney was “lucky” he could say what he actually thought of Trump.
According to Coppins, McConnell denied this conversation. Romney also
confirmed what many of us have already assumed: His Republican
colleagues were cynically dismissive of the (first) impeachment
proceedings against Trump.
“They didn’t want to hear from witnesses; they didn’t want to
learn new facts; they didn’t want to hold a trial at all,” Romney told
Coppins. Romney also claimed that McConnell warned that a “prolonged,
polarizing Senate trial would force them to take tough votes that risked
alienating their constituents,” something that McConnell felt would
lead to a Democratic Senate majority. As Romney told it to Coppins, he
was appalled that there was not even the slightest pretense of
impartiality in Republicans’ strategy to handle Trump’s impeachment.
Coppins report, quite honestly, paints a picture of a Romney
desperate to actually do the right thing and approach the
Trump impeachment as an impartial juror would, and as he felt his
constitutional duty demanded—an approach which led Romney to conclude
that Trump was guilty. Even so, he spoke to his 2012 running mate and
former Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan on the phone, and Ryan
apparently did his level best to convince Romney that he’d be killing
his future political prospects by voting to convict Trump. According to
Coppins, after Romney cast that vote—the lone “guilty” vote cast by a
Republican senator in Trump’s first impeachment—he “would never feel
comfortable at a Republican caucus lunch again.”
Coppins’ biography also examines Romney’s reaction to the Jan. 6
insurrection, describing in detail Romney’s reactions to the Capitol
being attacked, even as he and his fellow senators were being evacuated.
At some point, Romney’s frustration and anger appears to boil over. As Coppins writes:
He turned to Josh Hawley, who was huddled with some of his
right-wing colleagues, and started to yell. Later, Romney would struggle
to recall the exact wording of his rebuke. Sometimes he’d remember
shouting “You’re the reason this is happening!” Other times, it would be
something more terse: “You did this.” At least one reporter in the
chamber would recount seeing the senator throw up his hands in a fit of
fury as he roared, “This is what you’ve gotten, guys!” Whatever the words, the sentiment was clear: This violence, this crisis, this assault on democracy—this is your fault.
Coppins confirms that Romney was aware of and disapproved of his GOP
colleagues’ plan to reject electoral slates and thus perpetuate Trump’s
hold on power. Late into the evening on Jan. 6, he had believed that the
harrowing Trump-incited assault on his own colleagues’ safety would
prompt them to abandon their plans. He was surprised when the unctuous
Josh Hawley nevertheless stood up and delivered his speech supporting
Trump’s position, a decision that Romney attributes to pure “political
calculation.”
But one of the most telling passages excerpted by Coppins addresses
not Trump’s first, but his second impeachment, and the refusal of
Romney’s fellow Republicans to convict Trump for instigating the
insurrection of Jan. 6.
According to Coppins’ account, Romney attributes this to his colleagues’ fear for their personal safety.
But after January 6, a new, more existential brand of cowardice
had emerged. One Republican congressman confided to Romney that he
wanted to vote for Trump’s second impeachment, but chose not to out of
fear for his family’s safety. The congressman reasoned that Trump would
be impeached by House Democrats with or without him—why put his wife and
children at risk if it wouldn’t change the outcome? Later, during the
Senate trial, Romney heard the same calculation while talking with a
small group of Republican colleagues. When one senator, a member of
leadership, said he was leaning toward voting to convict, the others
urged him to reconsider. You can’t do that, Romney recalled someone
saying. Think of your personal safety, said another. Think of your
children. The senator eventually decided they were right.
Coppins emphasizes that Romney believes his colleagues’ fear
was—and is—well-founded. Romney says he began to observe an increasingly
“deranged” quality in Republican voters, even among his most loyal
constituents back in Utah. As the 2022 election approached, Romney
grew increasingly appalled by the MAGA fanaticism exhibited by his
party’s senatorial candidates. He regarded J.D Vance of Ohio, whom, as
Coppins writes, Romney felt “reinvented his whole persona overnight,”
as particularly loathsome.
According to Coppins, “[w]hat Romney couldn’t stomach any
longer was associating himself with people who cynically stoked distrust
in democracy for selfish political reasons.”
By that point, according to Coppins, Romney had begun to
gradually let his colleagues know that he wouldn’t be running again. He
briefly toyed with the idea of making a third-party run for president in
2024, but abandoned it after concluding it would more than likely
siphon votes from President Joe Biden and possibly lead to a Trump
victory. Since then, he has had some discussions about forming a
quasi-political party with like-minded “centrists” such as West Virginia
Sen. Joe Manchin, with a view toward ultimately endorsing whichever
party’s nominee—Democrat or Republican—aligns most closely with their
own views.
Coppins suggests this idea is still in the “brainstorming” stage.
By taking himself out of the running, it appears Romney’s quest
for political relevance may be quixotic. But Coppins’ piece in The
Atlantic may be the closest thing to a fair assessment of what the
modern Republican party actually thinks about Trump, and why it behaves
in the sycophantic manner it does.
Back in the before times,
Democrats loved to hate former Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, partly
because of their pointed political disagreements with her but also
because she was actually a damn good messenger.
But Cheney’s politics aside, her messaging prowess worked to
Democrats' advantage during the Jan. 6 select committee hearings last
year: Cheney was always mission-driven,
on point, and in command of the facts. The committee she helped lead as
vice chair proved to be the most consequential congressional spectacle
in decades, arguably helping to deal Republicans a blow at the ballot
box last November and spurring a Justice Department inquiry into Donald
Trump's role in the insurrection.
Now Cheney is taking up a new role as we barrel toward another
election in which Trump appears poised to top the GOP ticket. Instead of
littering the Republican primary with another doomed Trump detractor,Cheney is dropping incisive anti-Trump messages into the political ether.
Cheney's latest addition to the political landscape came Tuesday,
when she sought to separate old-guard Republican defense hawks from
newfangled MAGA isolationists.
"Putin has now officially endorsed the Putin-wing of the Republican Party," Cheney tweeted over anAP News article
about Russian President Vladimir Putin blasting the criminal
indictments of Trump as "rotten" politically motivated prosecutions.
"Putin Republicans & their enablers will end up on the ash
heap of history," continued Cheney. "Patriotic Americans in both parties
who believe in the values of liberal democracy will make sure of it."
Cheney's rallying cry against "Putin Republicans" seeks to make
common cause among a politically divergent group of establishment
Republicans and Democrats who are united in their support for Ukraine,
rejection of Trump, and disdain for Putin.
Rhetorically speaking, "Putin Republicans" and "Putin wing" of
the Republican Party are also sticky phrases that could potentially
catch on, helping to create a definitive us (democracy stalwarts) versus
them (Trump/Putin backers) dynamic.
MAGA Republicans hate Cheney with a white-hot rage and reveled along with Trump inthrowing her out on her ear
last year. But her name still holds political sway with a very narrow
slice of the Republican Party—perhaps some 5% or so—and that's still a
meaningful chunk of voters in a general election, even if it's a
pittance in the primary.
Democrats would be smart to take note of Cheney's messaging and
even take it up, reinforcing it. It skillfully creates a permission
structure for old-guard Republicans to help reelect Joe Biden next year,
even if they don't particularly like him.
That’s a device Biden loves, as he has routinely shied away
from painting Republican voters with such a broad brush that he
alienates all of them.
Some of those conventional Republican voters could very well be
the difference between a one-term presidency and Biden's successful
reelection next year.
"Putin Republicans and their enablers will end up on the ash
heap of history." Liz Cheney.
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