The Week In Review
Republicans are not just a hot mess, they're a party of zombies. Plus, Joe Manchin is in a pickle; we owe Donald Trump a thank you, and RIP Christopher Plummer
Before I begin my look back at the week that was, some quick housecleaning. I wanted to take a moment to thank all of you who have signed up for Truth and Consequences. Starting a paid subscription newsletter in the midst of a global pandemic and severe economic downturn is, to put it mildly, a tad daunting, but I’ve been humbled by the response so far and I couldn’t be more excited about the opportunity to do this newsletter.
Next week, the paywall on the site will begin to go up. Many of the pieces will continue to be available for free but an increasing number will only be available to paid subscribers. So if you like what you’ve been reading so far and want to continue receiving all of the content on Truth and Consequences I hope you will consider subscribing. I cannot do this without your help. With that mind I have helpfully placed a “subscribe now” button below!
Three weeks in to the new Truth and Consequences has been a major learning experience for me. I had initially planned, for example, to do Q&As and not a podcast. I quickly discovered that the time spent editing a Q&A transcript brought with it too great an opportunity cost. So podcast it is! However, running a podcast out of my apartment while one of my daughters was forced to do remote learning because she had to quarantine for ten days made it too difficult to do one this week. But have no fear it’ll be back soon.
I also was thinking of doing a weekly political roundup on Zoom and I still might. But for now, I’m going with this Friday week in review. In short, I’m figuring this out as I go along, but I would love your help. Please use the comment button below to pass along any suggestions you have, any content you’d like to see (or not see), and anybody you’d like me to invite on the podcast or to a subscriber Zoomcast. Also feel free to drop me an email or contact me on Twitter. I’m always happy to hear from you and will do my best to respond to each query.
Speaking of the latter, Truth and Consequences contributor Jeremy Rosner is going to have a new column up next week looking at the latest polling on COVID-relief. He will be the first guest on my inaugural subscriber Zoomchat to discuss the piece. We’re getting together on Tuesday night at 7:00 PM and you’re all invited to join us. I will send around specific details on Monday.
And now on to the news!
GOP in Disarray
One of the perennial tropes of political journalists is “Democrats in Disarray,” but over the past few weeks Republicans have fully embraced that mantle.
Right now, the GOP is the hottest of hot messes.
I’m not just talking about the utter embarrassment that is Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and the inability of Republicans to hold her accountable for her previous statements. Don’t get me wrong: that is bad. But let’s take a moment to consider what’s happening in the Senate. Last night, Democrats narrowly passed a budget blueprint that mirrors President Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-relief package. Republicans were able to pass a few amendments to modify the legislation, including a provision to make stimulus checks more targeted to lower-income Americans. But the final bill looks remarkably similar to that which Biden initially proposed.
The final Senate vote was 50-50 and the tie was broken by Vice President Kamala Harris. But the Republican strategy behind opposing the legislation is hard to discern. One argument they’ve used is that the package is too big and spends too much, but that doesn’t appear to be a view shared by a majority of Americans. Here I’m going to quote from Jeremy’s forthcoming column, “And it’s not just that voters want a ‘major’ stimulus package; they want it to be even bigger than the last one. Among the 77% who support another package, a 68-4% landslide wants it to be bigger than the $900 billion package enacted in December.” In 2009, Republicans used anti-deficit, anti-government spending arguments to oppose and criticize President Obama’s stimulus measure. I don’t think that’s going to work now and since the Biden bill is more than double the size of Obama’s it’s likely not going to work either to argue that it won’t be effective.
Republicans are reflexively opposing Biden’s plan but they are not providing Americans with a clear rationale for doing so. And by agreeing to more narrowly target proposed $1,400 relief checks, Democrats have taken one of the key GOP talking points off the table. I go back to something I wrote earlier this week, namely that doing COVID-relief via reconciliation puts Republicans in a tough political spot. They have to vote yea or nay. This bill is popular, will almost certainly spur the economy, and will put money in people’s pockets. Voting against it might play to partisan Republicans but it’s not exactly a winning strategy for the rest of electorate, particularly when you can’t really explain why you oppose it. When you combine that with that internal fight over Taylor Greene and the lack of a party-wide approach for pushing back on her particular brand of crazy that is practically the definition of political disarray.
The Walking Dead
For my latest Globe column I wrote about how the Republican Party has become a party of zombies. I’m serious about this. Zombies have no ideology or larger political goal. They only exist for the purpose of surviving, which unfortunately involves eating humans.
But that also describes the modern Republican Party (except for the human eating part, at least for now). As I wrote in the piece, “This is what the GOP has become: an organization dedicated exclusively to the perpetuation of its own existence and willing to make any compromise necessary — no matter how abhorrent — to continue wielding political power.”
Marjorie Taylor Greene is not the disease; she is the symptom of a party that can’t speak truthfully to its supporters and can’t draw a line in the sand at political extremism. As hard to imagine as it might seem, the post-Trump GOP is shaping up to be as bad if not worse than the one we’ve seen over the past four years.
On a more cheerful note, the Simpsons vs. the Zombies is always good for a laugh.
Joe Manchin Doth Protest Too Much
Earlier this week Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia voted in support of passing COVID-relief via budget reconciliation, after hemming and hawing for days and complaining about the lack of bipartisan compromise on the legislation. This is not surprising and it’s a good reminder that Manchin’s performative centrism should be taken with a grain of salt.
On the one hand, Manchin has enormous leverage in the Democratic caucus because as its most moderate member he can be the 50th vote to kill legislation he doesn’t like. But there’s a rub, as the 50th vote he can kill legislation that his party and caucus overwhelmingly supports. In other words, being the deciding vote puts him in a very difficult political spot.
As much as Manchin wants to assert his independence, as a Democrat he doesn’t gain all that much from torpedoing the legislative agenda of his own party and undercutting a Democratic president. For all the power he allegedly wields in the Senate he’d be in much better shape if Democrats had 51 or 52 seats. That way he could vote against legislation that allowed him to play-up his moderate, independent bonafides while not actually killing it. Kind of like the way he voted in favor of Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court … after it was clear that Kavanaugh would be confirmed no matter what he did. A commenter on Twitter said to me that Manchin has never single-handedly killed a progressive piece of legislation and that sounds right to me. His centrism is, in many ways, an act, though as a Democratic senator from a very red state one that he understandably has to play.
Joe Manchin might prefer if COVID-relief was passed in a bipartisan matter but he’s also not going to be the guy who kills it. Manchin has leverage, and that’s the problem.
Trump’s One Good Deed
You know what’s the most ironic thing about Congress debating $1,400 stimulus checks and Joe Biden drawing a line in the sand on that number? It was Donald Trump’s idea! I had to go back and look this up but before Trump threw a tantrum on Twitter in December and demanded $2000 stimulus checks in the last COVID-relief bill that number wasn’t really part of the debate. For example, Sen. Josh Hawley and Bernie Sanders had co-sponsored legislation allowing for each American to receive $1,200. In effect, we’re debating a proposal that Trump came up with and knowing the former president, likely pulled directly out of thin air. As weird as it is to say this … thanks Don!
Reading
I sent this out with the mothership newsletter on Thursday but for those of you who missed it, here are a few pieces to check out this weekend
One of the more underreported stories of the past pandemic year is the horrifying uptick in homicides across the nation. This reported piece by Jonathan Swan on the craziest meeting of the Trump presidency is quite something. The tension between House Republicans and House Democratsis reaching crisis levels. Will Wilkinson takes a deep dive into anti-wokeness. Say a prayer today for my friend Michael Kovrig who celebrated his birthday this week remaining stuck in a Chinese jail as a political hostage. The House impeachment brief is a stunning document of presidential malfeasance. Great piece by Max Boot on the cowardice of Rob Portman.
Friday Music
Last week in the Globe newsletter I mentioned that I had picked up an LP of Spencer Davis Group’s greatest hits. A friend passed along this amazing video of the band performing live on Finnish television in 1967. Steve Winwood’s organ playing and singing is simply remarkable.
On a more contemporary note I was talking to a friend recently about my favorite NPR Tiny Desk concerts and I mentioned this Lizzo set. I went back and watched it again and, damn, it’s incredible. Her confidence is intoxicating and her voice is otherworldly. Goosebump inducing.
Finally, RIP Christopher Plummer
What a great actor. I recently re-watched “The Insider” and while Al Pacino gets the limelight, Plummer steals the show. The way he fully embodies Mike Wallace in this role, warts and all, is a master class in great acting. I love how in this scene he goes from chastising Lowell Bergman for being a pain in the ass and refusing to compromise then goes completely off when he thinks CBS News executive have undercut him personally.
I prefer written material to podcasts.
Zoom when you have a newsmaker and a forum for feedback; we have cable news for three-minute opinion sharing and the opportunity to see a living image. But make sure that Zoomcast are available as video casts later.
Well I did it, I signed up. While I am sure that I disagree with you on a lot of issues, I am certain that I may find agreement with you on the Republican Party. You see I was a member of the Republican Party for 39 years and I am currently unenrolled. Was it Trump that had me leave the party? No, it was George W. Bush, who looks like a statesman now! The lie that was the War in Iraq and adding a benefit (prescription drug coverage for Medicare) without paying for it. The Trump era has completely soured me on party politics so that I don't think I can ever vote for a Republican again. Including Charlie Baker!