Ready For Yet Another Round of Democrat-Bashing By Your "Allies"?

Because that's what's on the menu over at The Bulwark.

At predictable intervals several times a month, Charlie Sykes' seething contempt for Democrats boils over, and that's when he invites some useful idiot like the American Enterprise Institute's token "Liberal", Ruy Teixeira, onto the podcast a little anti-Democrat political frottage.  

When he is not panic-peddling imminent Democratic party disaster for AEI, Teixeira writes garbage for Philip Anschutz's right-wing rag, The Washington Examiner and Rupert Murdoch's right-wing rag, The New York Post about how we ultra-Left progressives (who secretly control the Democratic party) have driven the real, salt-of-the-Earth "working class" Murricans out of the party, and continue to alienate them with our snobbery and by relentlessly pushing our crazy Commie agenda of [checks notes] lower prescription drug prices, reinvestment in manufacturing, trillions of spending on infrastructure and the massive decrease in child poverty, which was brought to you by decent Democrats and which was killed by 100% of the Republican party plus Sinema and Manchin.   

So you can see why Sykes fucking loves this guy and touts him as the greatest expert on the secret hopes and dreams of "working class" Murricans the world has ever known.  

Remember the New York Post's Salena Zito? She of the rats-nest hair and perpetual I-just-bit-into-an-overripe-persimmon expression who, after Trump was elected, suddenly became the go-to white working class whisperer for every pundit who couldn't afford to get to an Ohio diner personally? Ruy Teixeira is basically the male version of Salena Zito:  always on hand with the tattered remains of his "Liberal" credentials to kick the crap out of the Democratic party.

And if that were all Sykes and his lil' buddy were using their podcast to do, fine.  Given the priorities of the executives at CNN and MSNBC, the fight to keep clowns like Sykes benched and instead get actual, intelligent, coherent Liberal voices into "Liberal" media telling the true story of how the GOP lost its mind was over before it started. "They're our allies now," we were told.  "Quit carping about what they did and what they say," we were told.  "For God's sake, shaddap!  Democracy is on the line!" we were warned, and any salty comments of any kind  -- even from a tiny Liberal blog like this one -- even if they were true -- might tip the balance!!!  

But have you ever stopped to ask yourself why it never works the other way?  

Why no one (but me) ever wonders where all that righteous scolding and tsk-tsking and "Shut up because democracy is at stake!" finger-wagging goes when Sykes and company are taking turns doing flying elbow drops on Liberal straw men?  

How is it that these people --  who lost an entire political party because they were too stupid or too complicit to notice what was going on all around them for decades -- have made a very profitable cottage industry out of shitting on the people who were actually right about the Right all along?  Out of endlessly, bitterly complaining that the Democratic party isn't hurry-up-quick transforming itself into a place where they feel more at home, where Joe Manchin is the ideological center of the party, and AOC and Elizabeth Warren have been broomed out the back door?  How is it that this is happening all the time now and nobody (but me) is out there asking why the Hell aren't they the ones being being told to sit down and shut up because, y'know, democracy is at stake!

But again...fine.  I was prepared to listen lightly in full "whatever" mode -- aware of but ignoring it like I learned to ignore the rumble of the "el" when I lived in a shitty apartment on Roscoe in Chicago that was flush up against Brown line tracks. 

However, right out of the box, Sykes starts in with this:

Sykes:  Okay. It is time for Tough Love. I know you didn’t wake up today saying, Hey, I hope the Bulwark podcast has some tough love.   I, you know, "I..I want more fan service. I///I want you to tell me that everything’s gonna be okay." Well, I’m sorry. To tell you, you’ve probably come to the wrong place. We are joined by my good friend Ruy Teixeira,, senior fellow with American Enterprises, where he focuses on the transformation of party coalitions. Rui, you have been in progressive politics for a very, very long time. You bring a lot of street cred to this.  But as I was mentioning to you right before we started, there’s a lot of resistance, isn’t there?  To the tough love, trying to explain to Democrats why you have a problem on economics, why you have a problem when it comes to the working class. I... I just sense that there is this sense of denialism that’s kind of you know, built in, and we’re gonna get lots of comments saying, "Well, I don’t wanna listen to all of this because if we just put our heads in the sand, apparently the argument is. If we just put our heads in the sand about these difficulties, they will just go away. They will magically go away..."

And that's how the contempt for you and me and our political party always comes giftwrapped now by the recently-former Rush Limbaugh of Wisconsin.  As "tough love" that somehow only Never Trumpers are certified to deliver.  

But will we listen and heed this advice?  Nooooo.  Because, you and me and the 80 million rest of us are all in denial about what a fucking diagnostic genius Charlie Sykes is.  After all, he's on Liberal teevee and you're not, so shaddap!  

It goes on and on and on like that, and now were all the way back to the "economic anxiety" bullshit that pundits in 2015 and 2016 were slathering all over Trump and the Republican base to avoid talking about the fact that one of the pillars of the modern GOP is racism.  Hell, don't take my word for it.  I'm a Liberal, after all, and therefor notoriously elitist, snobbish and in denial.  Instead, let's ask veteran Republican strategist Stuart Stevens who wrote an entire book about it.

From Democracy, Now!:

Trump Is No Aberration: Veteran GOP Strategist Stuart Stevens Says Racism Is Party’s “Original Sin”

Or check out Mr. Stevens over at Mother Jones:

The Republican Party Is Racist and Soulless. Just Ask This Veteran GOP Strategist.

Stuart Stevens says he now realizes the hatred and bigotry of Trumpism were always at the heart of the GOP. 

But that simple, obvious, factual diagnosis of Sykes' recently-former party completely fucks up Sykes' thesis that Liberal snobbery and Liberals "crying wolf" about the racism in the GOP is what caused the Republican base -- Sykes' former loyal listeners -- to spontaneously fling themselves into the arms of a bleating lunatic racist like Donald Trump and to stay dog-loyal to him no matter what.  

Which is why he brings on useful idiots like Teixeira. 

Sykes:  ...What role does race play in the alienation of the white and rural working class.

Teixeira: Right. Well, my view is that race has something to do with it, but it it’s vastly exaggerated. 

So he can get answers like this:

Teixeira:  So you’re asking working class voters who are already uncomfortable about a lot of the apparent priorities of Democrats in the sociocultural area. Where Democrats are significantly to the left of where most of these voters are and are sort of determined to implement this Brave New World, whether working class voters are for it or not.

What "Brave New World" would that be?  The Biden/Lefty Brave New World of...trillions finally invested in infrastructure after four years of Potemkin nonsense under Trump?  Of repaired alliances abroad?  Of lower prescription drug prices?  Of a Biden administration-led boom in manufacturing jobs?

Or could it be that what passes for "news" among these innocent "working class voters" consists of Fox News and Hate Radio taking a shit in their skulls day after day after day for decades?  Of them passing their toxic opinions around among themselves, like mutating strains of political Ebola, getting stronger and more deadly with each iteration? 

It went on like that, raging against us stupid Democrats and how, y'know, caring about people and reading stuff of course drove the Republican base mad with rage.  And what ninnies we all were for not admitting that and doing...something...about it.  No specific ideas.  No solutions to a problem that men like Sykes spent decades creating and now want to pin on you and me.  Instead it was just a long, grievance-fueled ramble through the imagined sins of imaginary Democrats, veering further and further into the anecdotal and ludicrous.  Like this:

Teixeira:  And I wrote this recent piece, which you saw about the Democrats Oliver Anthony problem.

Sykes: The country western singer.

Teixeira:  Yes. I detailed some of the reactions to his famous song, Rich Men, North of Richmond because there’s a line in it, which seems to be critical. The people are on welfare. And are like eating a lot and really aren’t actually, you know, disabled. This was piled on like a ton of bricks by a lot of Democratic commentators...

And that long, deep silence you hear?

That's the sound of the all the tone police and righteous scolds and finger-waggers staying as still as the grave and as quiet as church music as these "allies" of ours shit all over us Democrats on their Liberal media sponsored media platforms.  

For goodness sake, don't they realize that democracy is at stake!

Burn The Lifeboats