You have to understand: this does not make me heartsick. Although I can understand how it could make people heartsick. Other people who are not me.
[Former Speaker Newt Gingrich] told the assembled Republicans that Trump was an idol for lawmakers to emulate. In essence, he was working to normalize the idea of a President Trump before a Washington, D.C. establishment that is views him as utterly unacceptable.
“It was clear that Gingrich’s objective there was to persuade us to embrace Trump as the likely Republican nominee. For many of us, it was surprising to see the former speaker align himself with a figure like Trump who reflects few, if any, of our values,” said one of the [politician’s] chiefs [of staff] that was in the room. “He seemed to suggest that because Trump had the support of what is still a minority portion of those voting in the Republican primaries and was a business success that we should fall in line.”
I mean, if I had been a Republican in the 1990s? This probably would devastate me – not because I think that it’d work (based on the quotes in the article, and lack of endorsements, it went down like the proverbial lead balloon). no, I’d be devastated because Gingrich is a venerable hero for a lot of my colleagues for what he did twenty years ago. But for me… he was that guy who flipped Congress in ’94 and had to quit a few years later because of that weird impeachment thing and yeah, I’ve met him and he’s a smart guy and everything and I enjoyed the living life out of watching him smack around debate moderators in 2012. Still… what has he done lately?
Apparently, he’s stumping for Trump behind the scenes – and, in the process, apparently horrifying people by telling them that political violence is the handmaiden of reform. Or however Gingrich puts it. Anyway: if you were wondering how Donald Trump was going to degrade Newt Gingrich the way that he degrades every other political celebrity Trump comes in contact with… well, now you can stop wondering.
His sharing the sofa scene with Pelosi to support the fight against “global warming” killed it for me.
Yeah, Newt is a smart guy but with a history of occasionally having very questionable judgement. He took the entirely wrong side in the Scozzfava kerfuffle, too.
Yeah. No. I will not get in line. I will not vote for someone with weird mental ticks to have control of the nuclear football. I fail to see any way Trump is not AT least as corrupt as HRC. I don’t want to wake up some morning and find out Trump’s launched a nuclear war because Putin made some comment about how short his fingers are. Not sorry about it either.
I mean, he has a public record of supporting her. Why would anyone rational think this magically changed in the last couple of years?
I can see the post-election documentary on all of this now – “Doctor StrangeNewt, or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Trump”. The script practically writes itself, down to the final scene with Vera Lynn singing ‘We’ll Meet Again’…
He’s been chasing that sweet sweet high of relevancy ever since he lost the speaker’s chair. It’s what drove his sidling up to Pelosi and his Presidential run in `08. He used to be brilliant idea guy but he was/is too clever by half most of the time and his personal failings and his lack of self awareness of them make him one of the more useless pols.
Newt ran in 2012, not 2008. Shame too, he would have had a better chance in 2008.
You can make a decent case that the only truly competitive race for the GOP nomination in the consequential primary era prior to this year was 2008. 1972, 1976, 1984, 1988, 1992, and 2004 featured incumbent GOP presidents or the VP of a 2-term GOP president seeking the nomination (even if some of them did not coast to the nomination). 1980, 1996, 2000, and 2012 featured one candidate with an overwhelming advantage in money and organization going in (even if some of them did not coast to the nomination).
The lesson here is apparently competitive primaries produce awful results for our party, and we should make sure there’s a broadly acceptable clear front-runner going in.
They produce awful results because the winner-take-all system designed to lock in said front-runner allows a bad candidate with small but dedicated support to outlast fractured sanity.
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24-30-something % is not “winning” in my book.
There’s an alternate universe where Romney got the nomination in ’08, beat Obama, and we never heard from Obama again. I bet it’s a nice place.
I had little use for Newt back 20-odd years ago (Lord, has it been that long?), and I have less use for him now.
“For many of us, it was surprising to see the former speaker align himself with a figure like Trump who reflects few, if any, of our values.”
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And just what are these values?
Depends on which Chief of Staff for which Senator/Congressman was talking, surely. I mean, if it was Ben Sasse’s CoS, surely that’d be a different answer than if it was, say, Chuck Grassley’s or Kelly Ayotte’s.
I offer an .. alternative perspective.
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Gingrich is as flawed as, say, Bill Clinton – Newt’s got an ego that’s a mile wide if it’s an inch .. but. He also knows how Congress works, and I doubt Boehner – whose fingerprints are on the knife in Newt’s back, along with Santorum’s and Hastert’s – really changed all that much.
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The point to mentioning Gingrich isn’t, despite what the quote says, to persuade anyone .. it’s a straight-up threat, Newt is the horse head in Paul Ryan’s bed, he’s the “or else”.
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Given the buckets of excrement Boehner, Cantor, and now Ryan have put out, I .. don’t mind this at all at all.
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No, cat’s still not a Trump supporter.. just reading the tea leaves a little differently.
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Mew
Oh, Lordy!
Can you imagine the meltdowns of Newt being named Chief of Staff and Congressional Liaison?
…Why on Earth would Hillary Clinton do that?
… don’t you mean Joe Biden?
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(Cheshire grin)
I’ll believe it, only when i see it.
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She’s a horrible candidate who had never win a contested election.
She is unlikable.
She is flagrantly corrupt.
She is pathologically dishonest.
She reeks of entitlement.
She keeps wearing the same pantsuit because all the skeletons in her closet.
She has a glass jaw, and when challenged, tends I smack it herself.
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Trump is deeply flawed.
But I have no doubt that he can beat her like a drum.
Even with the media going full out in support of her.
I differ only in that I don’t know who would win in a Trump vs Clinton election .. or after.
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That said .. my bug-out plan is moving along nicely. How’s yours?
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Mew
Shelter in place is about my only option.
Fortunately, I’m in one of the best possible places to do that.
Unfortunately, my wife and one of my children are chronically ill, and my abilities to stockpile medical supplies for them is very limited. So I’m heavily rooting against any sort of widescale societal breakdown. (Of course, merely being sane would lead one to the same conclusion.)
Short version of my thoughts:
This doesn’t surprise me at all.
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Longer version:
Newt was never a conservative, unless defined so broadly as to mean “anti-leftist”.
He’s always been a Progressive of the old school. He fully believes in the Whig view of history. He views Plato’s Republic as the model for the Utopia that Progress will inevitably bring about.
His Utopia just looks different than the Left’s version. Without all the Hegelian and Marxist claptrap.
(Shall I take a moment to gratuitously note that Bush II was openly a Social Gospel Progressive? I believe I shall.)
He’s an ally, not a fellow traveler. It’s always good to be aware of where our mutual interests diverge.
Simple example. Newt thought HIPAA was a good idea.
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I *think* history will agree with him, but .. not 100% sure – I know most doctors who’ve tried to do medical coding *don’t* agree, but .. fragment of the overall population.
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HIPAA, and its’ coding requirements, are plainly progressive .. but they’re also fiscally conservative because efficiency and transparency.
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Not everything progressive is bad – I’m rather fond of the secret ballot and the 40-hour work week – but .. everything progressive should be *thoroughly* vetted.
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Mew