Republican Coma Baby Lives! Maybe! But Probably Not! Or Maybe It's Been Dead For Decades!

Set aside the Republican Party for a just moment.  

I don't mean ignore it because no decent person can ignore a toxic, racist monster that came *this* close to killing this country and remains a very real threat to the nation, but for a moment set it aside and turn your attention to another important struggle battle that's happening right now, all around you.  

It's a battle over how to understand that toxic, racist monster. Over who gets to define exactly what that monster is and how it got that way.  Over who gets to write the official history of our time, and which of us will get sorted onto history's Naughty List and which of us will end up on the Nice List.  

On one side we find very recently woke Republicans.   Broadly speaking, their version of history is that everything bad started four or five years ago with Donald Trump, that whatever people may or may not have said or done prior to 2016 is not worth talking about, and that it's almost but not quite too late for the Republican Party to save itself.  

Their version of history has the virtue of being easy to understand and extremely attractive to the mainstream press which is why very recently woke Republicans absolutely dominate the media.

On the other side we find mouthy bastards like me who know that the rot on the Right began long ago hand have the receipts to prove it.  Who know that the GOP has been dead for decades, and that the rise of Trump is directly attributable to disgraceful conditions that have been rampant in the pre-Trump Republican Party all along and which the very recently woke Republicans and the mainstream media were not only completely comfortable but which they actively enabled.  

We mouthy bastards also know that the real root causes of toxic, racist GOP absolutely must be addressed on those terms.   The history of these times must be one in which we learn the lessons of the decades-long, downward spiral of the Right and not the radically abridged history of the very recently woke Republicans in which Donald Trump was a fluke and the past four years have been awful.  Because if the very recently woke Republicans and the mainstream media get away with falsifying the past yet again, the Right will just go right on doing what they've always done after a temporary setback: regroup, hide in plain sight while the mainstream press looks the other way, and come roaring back crazier and more violent than before.

Let me give you a tour of the battlefield to show you what I mean.

Consider this article in The Atlantic by lifelong Republican, advisor and speechwriter to Republican presidents and unreconstructed Iraq War Pimp, Peter Wehner.  

Peter is so damn woke that he voted Third Party in 2016!  

First, the headline (h/t Alert Reader Walt A. for sending this along):

The Moral Inversion of the Republican Party

Republicans are at risk of being devoured by the forces they placed in control.

Not "Republicans are utterly fucked because Republicans" but that they are "at risk" of the forces they unleashed.  

And what exactly are those forces?   And exactly when and how did they come about?  

Well, Pete'll tell you...eventually,   But before he gets to that, he has to talk a lot about Star Trek -- 

In the original Star Trek series, there was an episode in which M-5, a revolutionary computer created by Dr. Richard Daystrom, is designed to handle all ship functions without human assistance.

-- and then, later, he'll need to valorize Conservatism's Glorious Past! 

A few years before Madison, across the Atlantic, Edmund Burke, in his speech to the electors of Bristol, acknowledged that a lawmaker ought to put great weight in the opinions of his constituents and prefer their interest to his own. “But his unbiassed opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living,” Burke said. “Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.” ...

Sauce for the goose, Mr. Saavik!  Now, what about those "forces"?

Sure, but first,  ladies and gentlemen, Mr, Václav Havel!

But there is a different, higher view of politics with which Republicans should acquaint themselves. Few have articulated this view as beautifully as the Czech playwright and dissident Václav Havel, who became president of Czechoslovakia in 1989 and of the newly created Czech Republic in 1993 

 

In Summer Meditations, his first book as president, Havel offered the perspective of a person who, as a dissident, championed high ideals and principles but, as a practitioner of politics, faced the immensely difficult task of putting those ideals and principles into practice. The question he wrestled with is whether there was room for morality and simple decency in politics. Did his ideals, forged through decades of brave opposition to totalitarianism, have a place in public life? 

 

Havel readily acknowledged...

He went on to say...

Havel added this...

Fine.  Great.  The Czech Republic was a Land of Contrasts.  See, this what happens when you pay very recently woke Republicans by the word.  

So, you were saying something about those  "forces" that the GOP shouldn'ta, oughtn'ta tampered with?

OK, here we go (with emphasis added):

In the wake of Donald Trump’s insane conspiracy theory...

After they spent nearly five years empowering and supporting Trump and Trumpism—at best, looking the other way; at worst, publicly defending Trump and cheering him on—it is belatedly dawning on more than a few Republicans that they risk being devoured by the forces they placed in control....

McConnell is right, and I’m glad he spoke up. Yet for the entirety of the Trump presidency, with Trump peddling one loony lie and conspiracy theory after another, McConnell said and did nothing. And with a few exceptions, like Senator Mitt Romney, no one else said or did anything, either...

Peter is grudgingly willing to sacrifice half a paragraph about Václav  Havel or Star Trek or Edmund Burke to acknowledge that his Republican Party did, in fact, exist prior to "nearly five years" ago -- 

The base’s movement toward extremism preceded Trump, and inevitably complicated life for Republican lawmakers; they were understandably wary of speaking out in ways that would alienate their supporters, that would catalyze a primary challenge and might well cost them a general election...

-- before getting back to his extreme close up of very recent events:

Consider: Liz Cheney, a loyal Republican and member of the GOP House leadership, voted to impeach Donald Trump for his role in inciting the mob that attacked the Capitol. Since that vote...

And all in the service of letting his readers know that the Coma Baby Can Be Saved -- 

-- as long as can we all agree to focus exclusively on the past four years:

Republicans can’t erase the past four years; with rare exceptions they were, to varying degrees, complicit in the Trump legacy—the lies, the lawlessness, the brutality of our politics, the wounds to our country. But there is the opportunity for Republicans in a post-Trump era to forge a different path...

This is Peter Wehner's fantasy version of history.

Now compare this to a big slug of history in The New York Times by David Leonhardt.  Warning:  There is no Václav  Havel/Star Trek/Edmund Burke padding to soft the blow.  Instead, Mr. Leonhardt gets straight to business:

To understand the back and forth over President Biden’s coronavirus relief bill, it helps to look back at a little history.

In Bill Clinton’s first weeks as president...

Ruh roh.

In Bill Clinton’s first weeks as president he pushed for legislation meant to reduce the deficit, bring down interest rates and spark the economy. It received no votes from Republicans in the House or the Senate and passed only when Vice President Al Gore broke a 50-50 Senate tie.

And boom, we're off like a rocket:

... 

In Barack Obama’s first weeks as president, he pushed for legislation to halt the financial crisis and revive the economy. It received no votes from House Republicans and only three from Senate Republicans, one of whom (Arlen Specter) soon switched parties.

This week, when I first saw the Biden administration’s unenthusiastic reaction to a coronavirus proposal from Senate Republicans, I was confused. Biden views himself as a dealmaker, and a president typically benefits from forging a bipartisan compromise.

So why isn’t Biden pursuing a two-step strategy — first pouring himself into a bipartisan deal and then following up with a Democratic bill that fills in the pieces he thinks were missing? Why does he instead seem to be leaning toward a single bill that would need only Democratic support to pass?

The answer has a lot to do with history: For decades, congressional Republicans have opposed — almost unanimously — any top priority of an incoming Democratic president. Biden and his aides believe they will be playing Charlie Brown to a Republican Lucy if they imagine this time will be different.

The parties aren’t the same...

It goes on in that vein, because it turns out there were a whole lotta extremely important events, decisions, collaborations -- a whole lotta blind eyes turned and do-overs granted -- that led, step by step, over the course of decades to the "past four years".

This David Leonhardt reality-based recollection of the past.

And these are the front lines of the battle over what the official history of our time will be and what lessons we will take from all the pain and terror we have suffered at the hands of terrible people.

After:  Having read this whole thing, I know what you're saying to yourselves.   You're saying, "Whoa, two deep cuts from 1980s* movies?  Which share one and only one point of overlap?  Really?"  And I say yeah, because y'all are worth it.  

*Thanks for the catch.

No Half Measures