Failure Is Not An Option
For conservatives, there's always going to be someone to blame ... except themselves!
All I will say about Ted Cruz’s trip to Cancun as his constituents are suffering is a) I didn’t think it was possible for him to be more unlikable and b) if he had a scintilla of shame he’d resign. I was wrong about “a” and I’ll eat this laptop if “b” happens.* (see disclaimer below).
Also, this is the first week in six-and-a-half-years that I am not an opinion columnist for the Boston Globe. If you like what I’m writing or at least find it interesting enough to open this email, please consider a paid subscription so I can keep this going as long as I did my gig at the Globe!
When Bad Things Happen To Bad People
Rush Limbaugh died on Wednesday and I’m about to ignore the advice my mother once gave me as a child: that if you can’t say something nice about somebody then don’t say anything at all.
Limbaugh was a racist, a misogynist, a homophobe, and a jerk. He accused Michael J. Fox of faking his Parkinson’s disease; he called Sandra Fluke a “slut” because she advocated for free birth control; he referred to Barack Obama as “Barack the Magic Negro”; he once told a black female caller to “take that bone out of your nose and call me back”; he said of women protesting sexual harassment, “they’re out there protesting what they actually wish would happen to them sometimes”; and he said “when a gay person turns his back on you, it is anything but an insult; it’s an invitation.”
I remember as a kid in high school stumbling upon his television show and hearing him refer to leaders of the National Association of Woman as “gals” and then deride them as feminazis.” I couldn’t believe that someone could actually say something like that on television. I was even more stunned that there was a studio audience that would laugh and cheer when he said those terrible things.
But that was his whole schtick. Limbaugh delighted in angering, provoking, and hurting. The fact that people were outraged by his comments was a feature not a bug. The more liberals complained about the toxic things he said, the more his supporters rallied behind him.
For Limbaugh, politics wasn’t about disagreement - it was about destruction and dehumanization. In the crude racist, misogynist, and astoundingly cruel attacks that he directed at his enemies he sought to reduce them not to individuals who looked at the world differently or were flawed in the same ways that so many of us are, but rather to monsters. This was a man who mocked the idea that people should feel sorry for Joe Biden losing his first wife and daughter in a car crash. He didn’t just play down the AIDS epidemic, he used to read off the names of those who had died from AIDS while playing the Dionne Warwick song, “I’ll Never Love This Way Again.” He body shamed people for being overweight, mocked those addicted to drugs, and regularly derided women as unattractive. That he arguably embodied all three of these traits (he became addicted to Oxycontin himself) didn’t matter. Those on the other side of political debates with Limbaugh were less human than him and his supporters - thus no attack and no barb was out of bounds and certainly consistency was not necessary.
To put it as succinctly as possible, he was a terrible person who spread lies and sowed hatred. American politics - and America itself - is a worse place because of his prominent role in our political discourse.
Yet, Limbaugh’s larger legacy is that he is probably the most influential conservative figure of the past 30 years.
In a political party that is defined today by its unending list of grievances, Limbaugh was a proverbial pied piper. His extraordinary and depressing popularity as well as the veneration given to him by Republican politicians was a compelling reminder of the true id of the GOP. Donald Trump, who has failed to express any condolences for the close to half a million Americans who have died from COVID-19 took time on Wednesday to praise Limbaugh and remember him fondly. So too did Vice President Pence and a legion of Republican politicians and conservative commentators. Some, like Hillbilly Elegy author JD Vance, complained that “people could honor a person who changed media forever without being cruel.” He said these words about a man who blamed Robin Williams suicide on “a leftist worldview,” called Kurt Cobain “a worthless shred of human debris” and Jerry Garcia, after he died, “just another dead doper. And a dirt bag.”
But considering Limbaugh’s role in moving the modern Republican Party from conservatism to cruelty and callousness it is hardly surprising that so many would praise him, oblivious to the political wreckage he left behind. He helped to make their political careers by so horribly demonizing Democrats that they practically had to vote for a Republican.
The line between Limbaugh and a Republican Party dominated by Donald Trump is a straight, short one. Trump’s political ascendancy came about because he was a carbon copy of Limbaugh - cruel, obnoxious, and devoid of empathy. He had no actual ideas on governing, but he knew how to attack his enemies and whine about his alleged mistreatment. Both men showed what Republican voters truly cared about - and it wasn’t lower taxes, less regulation, and cuts to government spending. It was victimhood, racism, and fear. Limbaugh and then Trump gave conservatives what they crazed more than anything else - validation to hate.
I suppose the nicest thing I can say about him is, may he rest in greater peace than he left behind.
The Green New Deal Will Destroy Us All. How? I’m Not So Sure
The state of Texas is in a state of crisis. Record snowfalls and sub-freezing temperatures have caused millions to lose power. The city of Austin is ordering residents to boil water, stores are running out of food, but have no fear, Texas Republicans have found the culprit - the Green New Deal.
According to the state’s governor, Greg Abbott, the state’s crisis moment, “shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States of America,” he told Sean Hannity on Tuesday night. “Our wind and our solar got shut down, and they were collectively more than 10 percent of our power grid, and that thrust Texas into a situation where it was lacking power on a statewide basis. ... It just shows that fossil fuel is necessary.” Never mind that the Green New Deal has quite obviously not been implemented.
According to former Texas Governor and Energy Secretary Rick Perry, “If this Green New Deal goes forward the way that the Biden administration appears to want it to, then we’ll have more events like we’ve had in Texas all across the country.”
From Georgia, Marjorie Taylor Green weighed in, claiming on Twitter, “If passed, the Green New Deal will literally kill people,” which is quite an assertion as people in Texas are dying, as we speak, from something other than the Green New Deal.
There was also Rep. Dan Crenshaw, who wrote a long thread on Twitter complaining about wind turbines as the source of Texas’s problem, an argument picked by Fox News host and Area White Supremacist Tucker Carlson, who blamed the widespread power outages on “windmills.”
Obviously, none of these arguments are true. The real issue here is a failure to winterize energy pipelines, a completely foreseeable problem as Texas experienced a similar, though not as bad, deep freeze in 2011. The state’s response was to suggest but not require that the state’s energy companies prepare for the potentiality of another cold weather event, which unsurprisingly, they didn’t do. To make matters worse, Texas relies on its own power gird - the only state in the country to do so. Indeed, according to Perry this is a sign of Texas’s independence. “Texans would be without electricity for longer than three days to keep the federal government out of their business,” said Perry in a sentiment that I doubt few of his state’s residents currently freezing in their homes would endorse.
At its core, this is a failure of government and of a political party that puts a greater priority on cultivating grievance than, literally, making sure the lights stay on.
But I’m a bit more intrigued by the GOP response to all of this. They are, of course, not taking responsibility for a massive governing failure. That was a given. But they are actually going on the offense by weaponizing the Green New Deal, a progressive policy aimed at helping ameliorate the impact of climate change, against progressives. I’d be willing to bet that if I asked 100 Texas Republicans what the Green New Deal would actually do they’d inaccurately describe it. (If you’re curious here’s a good explainer with links!) But it doesn’t matter: the Green New Deal has become a signifier for what makes liberals and, in turn, Democrats bad.
The equation is pretty simply Green New Deal + Demonized Politician (Alexandria Ocasio Cortez) = Something Republicans Hate.
This phenomenon can also be seen in this equation: Obamacare + Barack Obama = Something Republicans Hate.
One could also put at the end … that would actually help them.
This is how Republican messaging works and you kind of have to tip your hat. It shows how extraordinarily effective the GOP can be at demonizing their opponents and their ideas, and of course not by pointing out why they are wrong - but rather by turning them into bad words. “Obamacare” became a stand-in for everything Republicans didn’t like about health care and was defined by the GOP electorate as “socialized medicine” and “big government” even though it was neither. The “Green New Deal” is a stand-in for all the things that Republicans have been taught to hate about Democrats - “higher taxes,” “liberal elitism,” “government spending,” “socialism,” “tree huggers” etc.
The sad thing is, the Green New Deal would likely be a boon in creating new green jobs, making energy cheaper and more efficient, and preventing disasters like the one unfolding in Texas right now. But Alexandria Ocasio Cortez supports it … so it can’t be good. Meanwhile, the people freezing in their homes are - if past voting trends are any indication - likely going to reelect the same Republican politicians who caused this current disaster because they will be convinced by them that the alternative would be worse.
What I’m Writing, Reading, and Listening To
Watching
On Friday, Kimberly Atkins and I talked about impeachment and Joe Biden’s under the radar screen first few weeks in office. Over the weekend, I asked if the conclusion to his impeachment trial is the beginning of the end for Donald Trump. On President’s Day I wrote about the most overrated electoral office in American politics - and the 45 men who have held it. On Wednesday I looked at the Politics of COVID-19 and why Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is unlikely to benefit all that much from his dumb luck in Florida not being ravaged by the pandemic (it’s behind the paywall).
Reading
This week I’m supposed to be on vacation, but as the post (and the one yesterday and Monday) reminds, I’m lousy at taking vacation. I have, however, been reading Rosa Brooks new book, “Tangled Up In Blue,” which details her experience becoming a reserve police officer in Washington DC. It is part memoir, part policy book, and part vivid tale of urban policing and it’s a great read. I was supposed to interview Rosa about it this week on the podcast, but two flight cancellations have delayed that probably until next week. In the meantime, you should consider picking it up. I’ve also been giving a deeper read to “How Democracies Die” by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt and I’ll ginning up a post on that for next week.
In the meantime, here’s a good piece on how truly awful Ron DeSantis is as governor of Florida. The Texas Tribune is crushing it on the deep freeze taking hold in the state - and why it happened. Nice piece by Marina Koren on the legacy of the Pale Blue Dot picture. Adam Kinzinger does not deserve the abuse he’s receiving. The lesson that the GOP is taking away from their 2020 defeat is that they didn’t go far enough in trying to steal the election. Things are getting much worse in Afghanistan. Ron Brownstein asks if the GOP’s extremist wing is too big to fail.
Watching/Listening
I’m on vacation! I’m not watching anything other than sports, and I have a great piece coming tomorrow from Ian Zimmerman on a couple of legendary blues musicians!
*I won’t actually eat this laptop as doing so would likely kill me or at the very least give me one hell of a stomach ache.
So how can Democrats turn the narrative to convince Republicans, Trumpers, Conservatives that Government can and does solve problems, that Medicare for all or at least expanding Obamacare by adding a public option will help solve our healthcare embarrassment, that the Green New Deal will address 2 of the major issues facing this country addressing climate change and jobs. That education and science are to be valued not scorned. That a sensible immigration policy can help fill millions of jobs that companies are not able to fill today. I think we have all watched how Republicans think, how media personalities like Rush and the talking heads on Fox News spew hatred. We/you have to go positive like the President is attempting to do. To go big to address the health and economic issues brought on by the pandemic. The President and the country need some big wins and fast to avoid the loss of congress in the mid terms. How can you and your readers use their voices to help? As opposed to criticize. It's time to ignore Trump and hate spewers as well as the do nothing cowardly Republicans and push the new narrative.
And both Limbaugh and Trump mirror Roger Ailes.
My 98 - year-old godmother, born and raised in Park Slope, lives in a gated community in Austin. "I cannot believe I have to live this way at this point in my life", she said in today's phone call. She is a HUGE Republican and has always been puzzled at why I wasn't.
I wanted to remind her that those governing Austin are her party who just didn't pay into the right systems to protect people. But I couldn't do it. I am Democrat,
Enjoy your vacation, Michael