So on yesterday’s episode of “The Five” on Fox News, the panel talked about how the democrats are demonizing the GOP as a threat to democracy. Kinda rich, considering what they routinely say about the D team…
To prove my point, here’s Marjorie Taylor Greene at a recent rally appearance, saying Democrats want to kill you:
Is it any wonder that people on the D side of the aisle, then, suggest folks like MTG are a threat to democracy? Because they are.
Here’s the clip from “The Five,” with my commentary interspersed:
BILL HEMMER (HOST): Democratic heavy hitters out on the trail, turning up the hyperbolic rhetoric about America’s future if Republicans take control come Tuesday.
Me: This coming from the party which has been saying that the democrats are evil, hate God, love murdering babies, and will kill you. But sure… the problem is the democrats and their hyperbolic rhetoric… 🙄
VIDEO MONTAGE
PRESIDENT BIDEN AT MIAMI GARDENS, FL ON TUESDAY:
BIDEN: This is deadly earnest, man. Democracy is on the ballot this year, along with your right to choose and your right to privacy.
EDIT
BARACK OBAMA AT PHOENIX ON WEDNESDAY:
OBAMA: Then democracy as we know it may not survive in Arizona, that’s not an exaggeration, that is a fact.
EDIT
JAMES CLYBURN: This country is on track to repeat what happened in Germany, when it was the greatest democracy going, elected a chancellor who then co-opted the media–
VIDEO MONTAGE ENDS
BILL HEMMER (HOST): Wow.
Me: Let’s compare and contrast that montage of democrats to what MTG said. Which is hyperbolic and which is a statement of facts? Which side is claiming the other is a threat without any evidence, while the other really is a threat?
We have republican men like Bo Hines telling women who are victims of rape or incest that they’ll have to seek permission to get an abortion from a local board. Or Dr. Oz, who said abortion should be between a woman, her doctor, and “local political leaders.” That totally doesn’t seem like an invasion of privacy or anything…
You have Kari Lake, saying she thinks public schools in her state really don’t need to teach as much science, math, and history as they are now. Because who needs students to be prepared to be good citizens, capable of thinking critically and logically?
We have republican candidates, like Kari Lake, refusing to give interviews to the “fake news media” and only talking with friendly “journalists.” Meanwhile, Tim Ryan did a Fox News Town Hall with J.D. Vance, embracing the challenge of being in a crowd not on his side philosophically, and managing to win them over to his arguments. That’s what politics should be, and what it isn’t under republicans, currently.
Meanwhile, elected officials in the GOP have been promising to bring silly show trials to DC, theatening to impeach Joe Biden, pretty much everyone in his administration, and half of Congress. Not to mention bringing CEOs to answer questions about why they stopped buying ads on Twitter, or why they’re so woke, or whatever other nonsense they can come up with.
What America will look like under republican rule will be nothing short of a dystopian hellscape. Okay, that might be a wee bit of hyperbole, but it’s driven by the right’s rhetoric here…
BILL HEMMER (HOST): That’s rich! Should politicians try to turn down the heat with incidents like this happening? The FBI, said to be investigating a shooting at a North Carolina home belonging to parents of republican congressional candidate Pat Harrigan. That happened just last month at a home just north of Charlotte. A suspect firing a single shot through a window. The candidate’s children sleeping only a few feet away, thankfully no one was injured. No arrests, though, have been made and the candidate is sounding off on what happened there.
VIDEO CLIP
PAT HARRIGAN: I’ve received a very credible death threat. This was followed up by my opponent utilizing very poor judgment to actually shoot an ad out in front of one of my homes and display that home for all to see in the world. In the era of Steve Scalise and Brett Kavanaugh, and, now, Paul Pelosi–
EDITED
PAT HARRIGAN CONTINUES: My parents are watching TV at 11:00 o’clock at night, just sitting in their living room and a bullet cracks through their home, only twenty feet away from where my kids are sleeping that night.
Me: They were also on the second floor, while the bullet came through a first floor window… For the record, Harrigan’s parents like in Hickory, NC, which is about an hour away from Charlotte. Also, the shot was apparently fired from a dense woods nearby. So we have no idea if Harrigan’s parents’ house was the intended target, or if this was kids just randomly shooting a gun…
I’m not condoning what happened AT ALL. Violence isn’t right, whoever’s doing it. So don’t do it!
PAT HARRIGAN: This, this is politics at its worst.
CLIP ENDS
Me: I don’t disagree, if this was a targeted attack on Harrigan’s family, but we currently don’t know that, since there is no suspect in custody.
BILL HEMMER (HOST): He’s running for a seat on the west side of Charlotte, tough district to win; it’s favored for democrats. We’ll see how it goes.
Me: I’m wondering why Hemmer went with this example and not the one of the PA candidate who was allegedly assaulted in his own backyard, other than the one he went with was a republican, the one he didn’t mention was a democrat… Weird, right?
BILL HEMMER (HOST): A new seat in North Carolina. To my partner Dana, just because we have not spent enough time yet together. And there’s more coming up, by the way. [cross talk] Uh, what about going back to Nazi Germany. That’s, um…
DANA PERINO: Well, it’s [stammers] once you start talking about that, nobody’s listening.
Me: Well, certainly no one on the right is listening…
DANA PERINO: And the democrats seem just so upset with every other voter who is not taking things as seriously as they are.
Me: You mean like when people on the other side made jokes about Paul Pelosi, or worse, made lewd suggestions that Pelosi and his attacker were gay lovers?
DANA PERINO: They want to talk about Januaray 6th, [stammers] which, a major issue. It was. And there are people being prosecuted right now. [stammers] Everybody, right, in the meantime as they’re going to the ballot baox are going, “Well, we’ve got crime as an issue–“
Me: Crime isn’t sending women to the polls in record number, because we’ve always had crime. Try again, Dana…
DANA PERINO: We’ve got the border as an issue.
Me: For Fox and its audience. For the rest of us, not so much…
DANA PERINO: Some people might also want to talk about the fact that they’re, uh, paying through the nose at the pump. Also, found out today, like, a lot of people in New England, found out their heating bills are going to be 60% higher than they were last year.
BILL HEMMER (HOST): Yep.
DANA PERINO: All of this is coming fast and furious.
Me: It’s queer that she left out abortion… But then, RW media has been trying to convince itself and its audience that nothing will come of SCOTUS overturning Roe.
DANA PERINO: And they’re mad and saying that the Congress, if it changes from a democratic majority to a republican majority that all of a sudden is Nazi Germany?
Me: Um… when DeSantis goes after “woke” corporations in FL who are a major employer in the state; when Kari Lake talks about arresting federal agents who come to Arizona, when Lindsey Graham offers a bill to limit abortion for the entire country, it’s hard to not think about Germany in the 1930s. Add in the fact that many GOP elected officials and candidates not only refuse to talk to media outside the RW BoB but call such media “fake news” and the “enemy of the people,” how is this not how Germans ended up with the Nazi Party in charge? What these people want to do at this point is democratic or constitutional.
In short, Dana, what we’re hearing from republicans like Jim Jordan and others is that once the GOP retakes the House (or worse), we’re going to see show trials and impeachments, galore. All as payback for their presumed grievances. People who insist that their position should be about seeking retribution are close cousins to Nazis…
DANA PERINO: That’s a stretch, but also, the other thing is, I guarantee you, if things go the way it looks like they’re going to, at least especially in the House, what is President Biden going to say the next day?
Me: Really? He’s said in speeches more than once that you can’t love America only when you win. Winning and losing are all part of democracy, and one needs to accept when one’s side loses. Dana is suggesting Biden is a flaming hypocrite who won’t live up to his own words, and I say she’s wrong.
DANA PERINO: One, he’s going to say it’s not as bad as it could’ve been and I’m so great and everything. Okay, fine.
Me: Um… there’s only one president in recent memory who incessantly talked about how great he was and it’s not Biden…
DANA PERINO: But then he’s going to say, “But it won’t matter. Because I’ve got a pen and I’ve got a phone, and I’ve got the veto power.”
Me: Um, yeah… a president does have veto power. And if the GOP only takes the House, they’re going to have to get used to being completely impotent against the Senate and WH. Just like the democrats were in Trump’s last two years in office.
But I’d wager Biden would try to reach across the aisle an work with republicans, even though they’ve shown no sign of being willing to work with him…
DANA PERINO: That’s exactly what they’re going to say, so, how is that tyranny?
Me: It’s like she left something out of her thought process there. She also overlooks what the republicans have been saying about when they take control of at least the House. See above. And I’m sure you can add more examples. The right has made it very clear they’re about exacting vengeance on their political enemies. And that, Dana, IS tyranny.
DANA PERINO: That’s actually democracy.
Me: In the same way that “just asking questions” where you fill in the blanks with wild and obviously untrue speculation is “journalism”…
BILL HEMMER (HOST): Good question. To the one armed bandit over there (referring to Judge Jeanine, who has some kind of device on her arm), you’re listening to that Harrigan story out of North Carolina, it reminds you of Lee Zeldin, here in New York.
Judge Jeanine: Uh, yeah. [cross talk]
BILL HEMMER (HOST): What happened at his house.
Judge Jeanine: You know, I was watching that and I was thinking that there are two issues there. There is the uh, the hyperpolitical climate that we’re living in, with that bullet going through the home, and then there’s the crime issue. I would bet my bottom dollar that the person that shot that bullet through the home of Pat Garr–uh, Harrigan’s family is someone that’s got a prior criminal record.
Me: And here comes the wild, unsupported comments…
Judge Jeanine: You know, and I think it’s, uh, this perfect storm that we’ve got of chaos and anarchy in this country, where anything goes anymore.
Me: so now it’s not just democrat-controlled cities that are full of chaos and anarchy, but it’s Hickory, NC, as well…
Judge Jeanine: And, there’s no one who’s being held accountable, so let’s just get up and do what our gut instincts tell us to do.
Me: Um… gee… This from the party which refused to hold Trump accountable for inciting an insurrection…
Judge Jeanine: You know, Dana, I was thinking as you were speaking, um, will Joe Biden accept the results of this election?
Me: We’ve now reached the clickbait part of this segment which caused me to open up this video in the first place…
Judge Jeanine: Will he be someone who says, “You know what? I accept it.” Will he say, “You know, I got it wrong.” Gonna stand up and say, “I took a shellacking and, you know, maybe I’m on the wrong horse.” These people [slurring her drunken words], all of them, are like Chicken Little, “The sky is falling.” You know, Nazi Germany. Are you kidding? For anyone who is a Jew–
Me: Please, I beg you, don’t finish that sentence…
Judge Jeanine: –that is the worst thing you can say. How can you compare the politics of today to that horrific elimination of Jews in Europe during World War II?
BILL HEMMER (HOST): Fair point. Lotta Jews in New York are going for Zeldin.
Me: Um, what?
BILL HEMMER (HOST): Watch that story. We’ll see how it turns out. Jesse! Will you accept the results of this election? In 20–
JESSE WATTERS: Yeah, ’cause it’s gonna be a blowout.
Me: IOW, I will if my side wins. Otherwise, I’m gonna cry like a little girl and then spend the next two years bitching about a stolen (or “stollen”) election…
JESSE WATTERS: It’s not gonna be close enough to question. So I’m an amateur historian, there was one party that enslaved a race.
Me: Please kill me now. Seriously. Put a bullet in my brain. I really hate these people.
Guess what, Jesse. That was 150 years ago. The parties have flipped. It’s not the left that’s talking about enslaving people by forcing the to have babies they don’t want. It’s not the left that doesn’t want people to earn a decent living wage. But do go on with your idiotic point, Mr. Amateur Historian…
JESSE WATTERS (NOT GOOD ENOUGH TO QUALIFY EVEN AS AN AMATEUR HISTORIAN): –that started a Civil War. That put another race in internment camps. That censors speech. That raids homes.
Me: This has certainly devolved into the ridiculous…
JESSE WATTERS: Plants evidence.
Me: Lord, please give me strength not to reach into my laptop and cold-cock this guy…
JESSE WATTERS: Traps, censors speech, accuses other people of being cockroaches.
Me: WTAF? Okay, fact check time…
Here’s what Tiff and I think he was referring to:
“like roaches voting for raid” is a simile. It’s a turn of phrase; she wasn’t literally calling them cockroaches.
Meanwhile, I found two instances of people on the right using cockroach, as well:
The current governor’s race in Virginia is particularly interesting for a few reasons. The first is that the Republican might actually win. The second is that Terry McAuliffe is still hanging around, fulfilling his duties as the unkillable cockroach of the Democratic Party.
The Morning Briefing: Will McAuliffe Continue Being the Democratic Cockroach? October, 22, 2021
Okay, similarly a comparison…
Then there’s this:
Taking a swing at the network Williams joined, Trump said: ‘Lyin’ Brian lost his job over it. He went to MS-DNC, right? Then I guess he got fired.’ ‘He’ll show up someplace. They never – you know, cockroaches you can never kill them,’ the ex-president remarked to the audience’s laughter.
‘King of MAGA’ Trump praises Air Force One pilots, May 15, 2022
In none of those instances is anyone (even Trump) using the term cockroaches as anything other than a metaphoric comparison.
Who’s shocked that Jesse–who once again makes the false claim that the FBI plants evidence–just lied to his audience? Anyone? Anyone at all?
JESSE WATTERS: Now, I could call the democrats Nazis, but I won’t because I choose to show a little bit more restraint than that.
Me: This coming from the guy who has been speculating about Paul Pelosi’s sexual proclivities…
JESSE WATTERS: And I commend myself for showing such restraint. [cross talk and laughter]
Me: Oh good grief. He’s a saint among men!
JESSE WATTERS: I’m looking forward to what the democrats are gonna accuse us of next. So, Manhattan’s not under water, Al Gore. Blacks are not back in chains, Joe Biden. We’re still gonna have voting, Barack Obama!
Me: So far.
JESSE WATTERS: And we’re not gonna be Nazis next year, James.
Me: You’re crossing your fingers behind your back as you’re saying this, aren’t you?
JESSE WATTERS: So, it’s like the boy who cried wolf. And then he cried lion. And then he cried dinosaur. And then he cried Lock Next Monster. [sic]
Me: Okay… that metaphor really went off the rails…
JESSE WATTERS: What is worse than being an underwater, slave-owning Nazi? I’ve a feeling we’re going to find out.
Me: What part of metaphorical is beyond this cretin?
BILL HEMMER (HOST): We shall. Uh, President Biden’s apparently on the tarmac a moment ago. He’s out there campaigning in some districts you probably wouldn’t expect. He said we’re gonna win this time, I feel really good about our chances. [cross talk]
BILL HEMMER (HOST): I mean, sorry.
JESSE WATTERS: That’s really what he said? [cross talk]
BILL HEMMER (HOST): That is what he said a moment ago.
JESSE WATTERS: You got me!
BILL HEMMER (HOST): Let’s get the, uh, turn it around for ya. Harold, what do you think about going back to 1941?
HAROLD FORD: I don’t wanna go back to, uh, my prayers go out to this young candidate in North Carolina. And I hope we all, which we all have. Everybody in politics need to condemn this. And we’ve gotten to a point, unfortunately, which everyone has remarked about where the way you instigate a turnout for your own party is to personally castigate the other side. There was a time when you would talk about your ideas were better, and how the opponent’s ideas would not make the country stronger and safer and healthier and more whole.
Me: Gee… I wonder if this guy said any prayers for Paul Pelosi? Also, I’m just going to point out the gunshot happened two weeks ago and Fox News is only now starting to report on it. It’s like it really wasn’t a big story until they needed some “whataboutism” example to counter what happened to Paul Pelosi.
I can’t disagree with his point that people are castigating the other side to drive up turnout, while offering no solutions at all to our problems. But I see a helluva lot more of that coming from the R team these days than from the D side (who have been offering some solutions). It’s not helped by the fact that many Rs running for office this year are performative assholes who think getting a nice-paying gig in Congress will lead them to a life of fame and fortune.
HAROLD FORD: Today we say that AND we say the most awful personal things about the person you’re running against, which undercuts the whole purpose of serving and working with them because once the election is over, to your point, Dana, people have to come together.
Me: Um… like making fun of a guy who had a stroke a few months ago? Or making fun of an 82-year-old man who was beaten with a hammer? The right regularly call democrats evil socialists who want to destroy the country. They’ve run republicans out of the party for the grave sin of actually reaching across the aisle in a bipartisan way and working with the other side. They’ve done everything they can to demean and diminish Biden, including on a daily basis claiming he’s senile and that others are actually in control of his administration.
So spare me your fucking crocodile tears about how mean the other side is, okay? You’re just as guilty, if not more so.
HAROLD FORD: There’s a tradition in the country where presidents who get beat say we got beat, we gotta work together.
Me: Yeah, it would’ve been nice had literally anyone in the GOP done that when Biden won, rather than spending the past effing two years screaming about a stolen election.
HAROLD FORD: Clinton did it, uh, uh, other presidents have had to do it. Uh, including President Obama. And they did. Uh, some would argue that, perhaps, divided government makes it better for things to get done. I’m not necessarily, uh, believe the democrats believe that to be the case this go round, but one thing is for certain: if republicans get the majority, there will be some people I fervently disagree with, but there’ll be a lot of people, I hope, my party can fervently work with.
Me: Like who, Harold? Who do you think the republicans will be willing to work with? And we’ve seen how Rs govern. It ain’t pretty, and it ain’t bipartisan.
HAROLD FORD: And I hope the rhetoric, whatever happens next Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, whenever we have run-offs or whatever. When it calms down, everybody’s gotta make a commitment and say to the country, “Jesse, Dana, Bill, one arm, no one’s a bad person.”
Me: And yet we hear from republicans quite often about how evil the other side is… He’s parroting a lot of Biden’s speeches since this past June. You know, those speeches the right called the most divisive rhetoric any president has ever uttered. Yeah… except it’s not divisive when they say it…
HAROLD FORD: We may differ on things, but we can work together, otherwise we’re not gonna solve [cross talk]–
BILL HEMMER (HOST): Amen to that, Harold.
HAROLD FORD: –problems. We sit, put down the weapons if you disagree with somebody. This is not a time to be knifing and shooting and fighting people. Fight at the ballot box!
Me: That’s gonna be hard for people on the right to do, since y’all have spent the past two years telling them our election system is rigged against the R team…
HAROLD FORD: Not, not by shooting at someone’s home.
END OF SEGMENT
Me: It would’ve been really nice if, after Biden won, the R team had gone to him and said, “Hey, we want to work with you, for the good of the country.” Biden certainly extended a hand to them, asking them to work with him.
Instead, we got performative assholes like Lauren Boebert wearing a “Let’s Go Brandon” dress to some event. So please spare me this whole shtick. You demand the D team come with hat in hand, begging to you, but you won’t humble yourselves when the loser shoe’s on your foot.
A reminder: Here’s what the GOP has in store for the country if they retake either chamber:
U.S. House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, who hopes to become speaker if the GOP regains control of the House, told Punchbowl News last week that he’s likely to leverage the debt limit for reductions in federal spending.
“You can’t just continue down the path to keep spending and adding to the debt,” the California Republican said. “And if people want to make a debt ceiling [for a longer period of time], just like anything else, there comes a point in time where, okay, we’ll provide you more money, but you got to change your current behavior. We’re not just going to keep lifting your credit card limit, right? And we should seriously sit together and [figure out] where can we eliminate some waste? Where can we make the economy grow stronger?”
A GOP Showdown Over the Debt Limit Could Grip Congress and the Nation Next Year, October 28, 2022
Every time the GOP threatens to fight over raising the debt ceiling, what they’re really doing is holding us all hostage. That might be a hyperbolic metaphor, but there it is. Real people are affected by these government shutdowns. Millions of them. Some might be inconveniences in small ways; for others, it might be dire. Some will see a loss of income; others will have money delayed getting to them. But this is republicans playing with the lives of peons who are powerless to fight back. And they don’t care.
This is the party that thought it would be a fantastic idea for Florida to take legal asylum seekers from Texas and then just ship them to Martha’s Vineyard. Because cruelty is the point. Harming others is the point.
And if that makes me a person who says republicans are a threat to democracy, then so be it. Because they’ve proven they have been in the past and will be in the future. Two words: January 6th. There’s only one party which tried to overthrow the government because they refused to accept Joe Biden as the winner of the 202 election, and it wasn’t democrats.