Charlie Sykes: So a little bit of a trigger warning here for some of you folks who want this to be a safe space. Who want more fan fiction about the Biden Administration. I'm guessing that Josh [Kraushaar] is going to be a bracing counter to some of that. His latest piece in the National Journal, is "Biden is Blowing a Golden Political Opportunity". Okay so you go through all the things that Biden is blowing or close to blowing, so again, trigger warning if you want the fan fiction you might want to go someplace else...
Alert listeners may remember that I made mention of John Kraushaar when he appeared on one of the other Bulwark podcasts, Beg to Differ, just three months ago where he radically rewrote the entire history of the Obama administration in order to force it to comport with his bullshit complaints about the Biden administration. This is from me, three months back -- It's Stuff Like This That Gives Me Trust Issues
And then comes the record scratch moment when the Alert Listener realizes that, like most Never Trumpers, Kraushaar has rewritten the past to suit his dogmatism so radically that there's no point in trying to reach him. This is how he "remembers" the first couple of years of the Obama administration:
Kraushaar: I think the political risk for Biden now, and we saw what happened with Obama when he when he went the partisan route in 2009, 2010.
Books have been written about the Republican plot to sabotage the Obama administration from Day One. Thousands of gallons of ink and millions of pixels have been spilled in newspapers and magazines on the subject. For all I know, Lin Manuel Miranda might be out there right now working on a Broadway musical called "Obstruction!". Even on this humble blog of mine I have bent a quill or two to the task of recording just how uniform and fanatical the Republican obstruction of Obama was.
...But an accurate and true history of the Republican Party before Donald Trump arrived directly contradicts the dogmatic insistence by most Never Trumpers that the GOP was a sane, reasonable and healthy political institution until Trump showed up and magically transformed it into a shitpile of bigots and imbeciles overnight.
And so Kraushaar simply adjusts the past to suit his present needs:
Kraushaar: The historical record will show that Biden really didn't try to reach out to folks like Mitt Romney and Susan Collins like, I think that... that there was a lot of spin about the Obama first year in office...
Kraushaar goes on to explain that since "moderate" Republicans like Adam Kinzinger and Mittens Romney were responsible for Biden winning, they really should be accommodated.
Kraushaar: Those were the winning votes... those were the winning votes for Biden that put them over the top in the election so you would think you want to keep your coalition together...
With the exception of a few, rare outliers, there is no appetite among the Never Trumpers to deal honestly with how and why their party came to be a knife at the throat of our democracy. It's too painful, too professionally costly, and would demand that they reject some of their most basic assumptions and dearly held beliefs. So they will continue to wheedle and equivocate and bargain and backslide like a hard core drunk facing the loss of the bottle.
Oops!
I'm terribly sorry!
I now realize since I that some of the same pusillanimous Never Trumpers who block me on social media also sneak over here to read this blog and invariably come away with upset tummies and singed eyebrows. So I probably should've included a trigger warning here for some of you Never Trumpers who want this to be a safe space. Who want more flattering fan fiction about The Bulwark crew and their fellow travelers.
Management regrets the error.
4 comments:
They can't stay away.
Must see what names being called, what lies convict them.
Jesus Rick fucking asshole.
That ought hold the little bastards. (H/t Bozo the Clown)
Well, like Dr. K just said, lies are all they have left.
-Doug in Sugar Pine
To be clear. Any concerns I may have with president Biden. Charlie Sykes never comes to mind to see what he has to say about Biden. I simply hold a higher standard of expectation and reliable insight with a proven historic record. Just me.
for those that do turn to Charlie and the like for their insider take as if it is anything that would inform me to the better.
I just think of poor Charlie's parents who spent so much money on his education and how he learned nothing. Tool up a career of Bullshit and climbed
only part way to the top of Bullshit mountain.
He (those like) Charlie do provide me with a inkling of value. What not to listen to and who not to take serious. Their unreliability astounds and I have learned from it. Only because I had early exposure to inoculate me.
Never Trumpers really are useless. They run ads trying to expose Trump as being bad but they also refuse to support Democrats in any way shape or form. So its like they appeal exclusively to people who want to write in "the ghost of Ronald Reagan" in the voting booth instead of doing something useful. Oh and they also appeal to MSNBC executives who want to have Republicans on the air to rag on Trump so they can try and avoid being seen as partisan.
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