"Hope" is all we can count on to end the political clown show that is Trumpism

 

The clown show that is politics continues as the era of Trump plods along, whether it is on Capitol Hill or in state government. There is admittedly some grownup behavior in the White House these days, but when you have “kids” running around, sometimes it is hard to keep things in focus. Sometimes you wonder if it is even worth making a fuss over, since in “normal” times, day-to-day life continues the same way no matter who is in office. Still, this past year has been noticeably different than prior years, especially in places where lockdown orders were and still are in place. Some semblance of “normalcy” may come by summer if enough people are vaccinated and new strains of the COVID virus doesn’t cause a new wave of havoc.

Although Democrats in the U.S. Senate finally passed their $1.9 billion COVID relief bill without the help of Vice President Kamala Harris—one Republican had to leave to attend a funeral and did not vote—that didn’t mean that this still wasn’t a clown show. Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin ignored the plea of the Republican governor of his own state to “go big” on the bill, waffling back and forth on this and that for seemingly no purpose other than to be deliberately contrary and generate some media attention. Sen. Jon Tester among others expressed exasperation at Manchin’s antics; asked what he was doing, Tester said “I don’t know. I really don’t.” Even his Republican counterpart, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, admitted that “I don’t know what he is doing.”

Manchin is also flip-flopping on the filibuster rule, one day saying that he is 100 percent in keeping it intact, and the next day saying he supports making it “harder” to use by requiring members to actually to speak on the floor, which of course is in line with the “spirit” of what a “filibuster” is supposed to be. Ultimately he can be “forgiven” because in the end he did the right thing and voted for the bill largely intact. That is all you can hope for in a country where a large percentage remains in the grip of Trumpism/fascism, and many so-called “adults” in government remain fearful of Trump’s juvenile supporters, if not necessarily Trump himself.

Until the Republican Party learns a harder lesson that penetrates their thick skulls, there is Marjorie Taylor Greene. Greene is behaving like some smart aleck kid who was suspended from school, and to get even sneaks back into the school to pull the fire alarm, watching in glee as everyone’s life is disrupted because she doesn’t have anything better to do with her pointless existence. Even some House members from her own party have spoken up about their annoyance with her behavior since she started playing with the adjournment procedural vote rule that any house member can call, normally at close of business, but being used by Greene as a childish prank in the middle of the legislative and committee work day. Greene “justified” her behavior by claiming that the “extra hour” for everyone to gather in the House chamber and vote would give Democrats time to “come to the senses” about their “radical agenda.”

But at least we don’t have a president name Kristi Noem (yet), currently the governor of South Dakota. The Nation calls her the “deadlier, more delusional alternative to Trump.” Only someone “deliberately ignorant, or ghoulishly dishonest, would suggest that South Dakota is a pandemic success story” as Noem claimed at last week’s CPAC meeting. As a “champion of profits over people,” Noem did absolutely nothing to control the spread of COVID-19, the result being that South Dakota became the hardest hit state both in terms of cases and deaths per capita beginning in the fall not just in this country, but close to that in the world—and Noem has expressed absolutely zero sympathy for those who have died, nor contrition for her part in those deaths. Yet she and the right-wing media see her as a “rising star” in the party.

Meanwhile, I grew up in Wisconsin, and still a fan of its sports teams, so I remain somewhat curious about the somewhat rightward turn of a state that once celebrated its “progressive” politics of yesteryear, dating back to the time that Robert “Fighting Bob” LaFollette was governor, senator and the Progressive Party candidate sandwiched between two conservative major party candidates in the 1924 presidential election, where he received nearly 17 percent of the national vote and won his home state by 17 points over Calvin Coolidge. But Wisconsin is also the state that brought us Sen. Joseph McCarthy and now Sen. Ron Johnson, who some in the state say is challenging McCarthy as the worst senator in the state’s history.

Continuing to support Trump’s election fraud conspiracies and promoting false narratives concerning the January 6 insurrection by people who were clearly Trump supporters, Johnson further added to his list of senseless numskullery since he was first elected in 2010, when he upset incumbent Russ Feingold while riding the Tea Party wave. Last week he—like Greene—abused chamber rules, this time to force a reading of the entire 628-page COVID relief bill because, he claimed, the American people needed to know what was in it. That probably should have backfired on him, since there were a lot of things in the bill that even a majority of Republican voters supported. But it was just a childish stunt, and one that Johnson seems to enjoy doing, like a child.

In 2013, the Wisconsin Grassroots Network noted that Johnson’s approval rating in the state was a scant 28 percent, with many voters growing weary of his being in constant “campaign mode” and refusing to take legislating seriously. His constant refrain was that he was in the Senate for one reason, and one reason only: “I am here to repeal Obamacare.” Naturally, he failed to do even that.

By late September 2016, Democrat Feingold had a seemingly insurmountable 14 point lead in the Marquette Law School poll.  But suddenly his lead began to fall dramatically—to the point that within a month even the Marquette poll had him ahead by a scant 1 point; Johnson ending up winning re-election by a 50-47 margin. There were those who pointed to Johnson replacing his campaign team and highlighting his alleged help to unemployed people in Milwaukee through The Joseph Project, which is a faith-based organization that offered retraining for people so that they could find jobs outside of Milwaukee. Johnson lent his name to and some photo-ops with its mainly black participants; at the time, about 120 people had been given job interviews after completion of the program, of whom about 85 were hired, with a retention rate of 78 percent. Out of 140 people who actually received retraining, that meant that less than 50 percent actually found regular work—but that PR stunt proved just enough to help Johnson in heavily black districts to get him re-elected, along with Feingold being hurt by reports of misuse of PAC money. 

But there was another reality  that year: Johnson also rode the “wave” of Trumpism back to the Senate, and Wisconsin turned “red” for the first time since 1984—and just barely avoided doing so again in 2020. Johnson’s inane behavior in the past year clearly demonstrated that he was Trump’s servile stooge rather than a dedicated servant of the people of his state. The Morning Consult Political Intelligence poll says Johnson has a 61 percent “approval” rating among Republican voters, of which only 24 percent “strongly” support him heading into 2022. Johnson now claims that he might just decide it is better for him to “retire” instead of running for re-election.

After Johnson’s bizarre quoting of claims by a far-right poster as “fact” during the recent committee hearings concerning the security breakdowns on January 6, The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel editorialized that “Enough is Enough, Wisconsin”—Johnson must go, arguing that “featherweights” such as Johnson should be thrown out of office “so no one is ever tempted to follow their despicable path again.” Well, we can at least hope, because that is all we have for now.