Shamelessness is their superpower, thus has been the completely accurate description of modern Republicans by blogger Digby of Hullabaloo. In any politically advantageous moment a Republican will instantly pivot to a position where history, truth and decency should have instantly stopped them.
It’s all about control, that’s what the gun control people want. When we control a woman’s pregnancy, never mind!
Joe Biden goes to Delaware every weekend when he could be working in DC. Donald Trump went to Florida every weekend in a sickening grift scheme where even golf carts got put on the bill, but never mind!
Hunter Biden is a nepotism problem. Somehow those grossly slimy and lying Ivanka and Jared Kushner kids ripped somebody off for a $67 million income during their White House stay, but never mind!
Republicans get away with this from political television problems, for history and context mean nothing to a medium where the instant present in pictures is everything. Many political issues are deep, complex and multifaceted with messy solutions, but being an instant liar of screaming hypocrisy and simplicity is obviously no problem for Republicans desperately trying for any political angle, they have no shame.
Another issue for our lousy corporate American journalism corps is its fealty and obeisance to conservatism and the Republican Party, one of the greatest con jobs of present conventional wisdom is that the American political journalism corps is liberal, my god what a joke, go tell that to Hillary but her emails Clinton.
American journalists are hopelessly trapped in a beyond-ridiculous both sides mental framework, both Republicans and Democrats behave in the same ways for their similar goals, it isn’t their job to police an alleged truth but to present both sides and let the reader/viewer decide. In such a non-confrontational environment Republicans learned long ago to abandon any shame in their tactics, there’s obviously no penalty for it.
By the way, Republicans wouldn’t have abandoned shame and the truth if they had any viable political life, but all they represent is utmost loyalty to the rich with tax cuts, fanatic militarism and repression to anyone they don’t like, which means anyone not straight, white and allegedly Christian. That’s truly all they have, it’s so very unpopular, so American politics is constantly soiled with this frantic Republican yap of blaming and scapegoating to distract from it.
But in this year of our Lord 2022 change is finally going to smash into this dynamic, for the rights that were ripped away by the Supreme Court in their last heinous term simply cannot be yapped away with no shame in lying hypocrisy, they’re too powerful.
I lost my 4th amendment rights this year, the Border Patrol can smash into my little house at any time for any reason without a warrant. Of course half the population lost their reproductive rights in a horrifying pathwork mess, and no amount of frantic lying on teevee can obviate the blatant truth that if you like Republicans you like repression and the loss of freedom.
Gavin Newsom instantly saw this and ran goading commercials in Florida, come to California where you can be an American with rights again, where citizens work on problems instead of harassing librarians.
Public conventional wisdom has already gelled on this, the obvious truth is simply too inviolate, voting for Republicans means losing your rights and having your neighbors turn into iron curtain snitches, books burning fiercely among all the frantic distracting lying. To be a Republican is to be a sad suckered American wannabee, they don’t have a clue about freedom, only hate, assault rifles and taking away your rights.
This new Republican political truth cannot possibly escape the political environment for 2022, it was one thing to yap about freedom on teevee for 40 years but quite another to do it so viciously in reality, and if Gavin Newsom sees it then many other Democratic politicians will too.
I’m not like the classic American journalism idiots at CBS News who somehow conjured up a so-childlike mental fantasy that they could predict the future, what this will mean for Democratic Party prospects this Fall I cannot say, but it can be said with utmost certainty that the conventional wisdom model of the Party in power doing poorly in the midterms has been utterly smashed, anything could happen. Taking away 4th amendment and reproductive rights was simply far too powerful, no amount of shamelessness on teevee can ever cloak it.