Political reporters treat Republicans as 9-year-old children

Mark Sumner of Daily Kos discussed what is going in to choosing the next leader of Republicans in the Senate since Moscow Mitch is stepping down from leadership at the end of the year. Biden keeps talking about bipartisanship...

But as Republicans scramble to pick a replacement for outgoing Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, there are three big demands on the table: get rid of the seniority system for committee assignments, impose a term limit on leadership positions, and never, ever compromise. The death of bipartisanship is a base requirement.

Stopping the seniority system for committee assignments means members would be chosen more for their purity of beliefs. Mitch was wrong about many things, most wrong about the nasty guy impeachment votes and stealing two Supreme Court seats. But he was right about a few things, like the Ukraine aid bill. But for his successor...

Compromise makes government possible. A refusal to compromise makes it impossible. But the choice is only obvious for those who want government to work.

Sumner also wrote the nasty guy’s VP pick is likely North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum. He’s rich, though not in the billionaire range. Even so, he is an ambassador to the only group the nasty guy really cares about – billionaires. Burgum has another great quality he doesn’t care whether he gets the job.

But Burgum has given a clear signal that he’s willing to lie for Trump, be his bagman, and never step near the spotlight. That’s a combination that no other hopeful seems to match.

In a third post Sumner said that while billionaires love the nasty guy, corporate CEOs don’t. Out of the Fortune 100 CEOs, zero have sent money to the nasty guy, even though a majority are Republicans. The reason is simple. The nasty guy terrifies them. Even though Biden calls them out for their greed Biden has guided the best economy in decades. Biden has shown clear goals and consistent regulation. In contrast, the nasty guy’s economic plans are shown to be a disaster. In his first term the nasty guy attacked individual companies and their executives and he has talked of retribution. They like their corporate diversity programs and cringed when the nasty guy called the Charlottesville protesters “very fine people.” They’re afraid of Project 2025, ready to fill the government with incompetent idealogues who have no idea how business works.

CEOs may be dragging in far more money than they deserve. They may be failing to protect their companies by failing to stand up for employees. But, says [head of Chief Executive Leadership Institute at Yale Jeffrey] Sonnenfeld, CEOs are “not protectionist, isolationist or xenophobic, and they believe in investing where there is the rule of law, not the law of rulers.”

Fernando Oliver posted a cartoon of Lisa Simpson (forgive me if I have the name wrong, I didn’t watch the show) appearing to lead a seminar where on the screen are the words, “‘Billionaires won’t create jobs if we tax them,’ is a myth made up by billionaires so we won’t tax them.” In a fourth post Sumner talked about nasty guy surrogates laying the groundwork for tomorrow’s debate between the nasty guy and Biden. The example shown here is a surrogate declaring the CNN moderators are biased and the nasty guy would be in a hostile environment. So if the nasty guy doesn’t show or he clearly loses the excuses are already there. And if Biden commits a flub that dominates the news the surrogates can say the nasty guy wonderful because he won despite the environment. Yeah, the situation is that if Biden flubs it will be all over the news – even if he gets a date wrong or mispronounces a name. Yet, the nasty guy can flub a whole lot worse in lots more ways and the news will ignore it. I will ignore the debate, being satisfied with summaries I can read on Friday. In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Paul Glastris of the Washington Monthly who wrote that Biden is the oldest leader in NATO – he was born before it was founded – and as he has aged his clout and respect has increased.

It was Biden who warned European leaders in early 2022 that Vladimir Putin was going to send his military into Ukraine, a warning many of them initially refused to believe. When the invasion happened as predicted, it was Biden who rallied Western and other allied countries to Ukraine’s defense. It was also Biden who authorized a dramatic increase in U.S. natural gas exports to Europe as Russia cut off supplies. It was Biden who picked up the phone and called the heads of Finland and Sweden with a quiet suggestion that they join NATO. And it was Biden and his team who overcame the resistance of Turkey and Hungary to make NATO expansion a reality, thus turning Putin’s military quagmire into a geo-strategic disaster for Russia.

Dworkin added: “Experience matters on the world stage.” Dworkin quoted a couple tweets by John Stoehr and his Editorial Board:

Because the press corps' lens though which it sees politics is a family drama in which Trump is the child and Biden is the dad, and no one but a crazy person would question the mental fitness of a child. Dad, however ... If you're ever confused about how political reporters treat Republicans, stop seeing the Republicans as grown men and women and start seeing them as 9-year-old boys and girls. Things will make a ton more sense.

In the comments exlrrp included a meme from Turning Point USA that says, “If conservatives are being silence, then why don’t they ever shut the f--- up?” West Central Tribune posted a cartoon by Adam Zyglis that shows a classroom shooter and behind the stream of bullets are the Ten Commandments with “Thou Shalt Not Kill” legible. One kid cowering under a desk says to another, “At least our shooters will know they’re sinners.” A couple tabs that have been sitting there perhaps too long. In the comments of a pundit roundup from mid May kurious quoted an article from The Guardian about Justice Alito and the upside down flag. The Supreme Court should be a check on a radical Republican Party, but has become its ally.

The rule of law cannot be relied on to stem the tide of rising authoritarianism, because our legal institutions have been captured by the authoritarians… The justice is perfectly aware that he does not need to pretend to neutrality, or hide his partisan loyalties, or behave, with anything like a convincing effort, like his work on the court is motivated by the law and not his own reactionary political preferences. Alito knows that he does not need to maintain any pretext of integrity, intellectual commitment or seriousness in his work. The supreme court has accumulated enough power to itself – and the justices have done a sufficiently good job of insulating themselves from any accountability or consequence – that he doesn’t even think he needs to lie any more. He’s comfortable being a partisan operative right out in the open.

From about the same time Rep. Jamie Raskin tweeted:

Justice Alito turned the flag upside down. Donald Trump turned the Bible upside down. MAGA turned the Capitol upside down. The Roberts Court turned the Constitution upside down. Let’s set America right side up in November.