This could go in the biden or immigration thread too, but the author, Peggy Noonan, seems more focused on the GOP.
It was one of the few WSJ opinion pieces that I've read that made some sense...but, judging by the comment section, fell on deaf ears.
I want to talk about three separate things that to me arenât separate.
We are in a crisis on the southern border. It is a disaster. El Paso, Texas, is the latest city to be overwhelmed. This Monday, from the New York Times: âAfter nightfall on Sunday, hundreds of migrants stepped across the Rio Grande . . . a caravan of people mainly from Nicaragua whose crossing was among the largest in recent years along the West Texas border.â More than 50,000 illegal immigrants from Central and South America came in October alone. Some are sent to detention centers or shelters for a short time; most are released to disappear into America. In Del Rio, Texas, last year, 9,000 illegal immigrants, mostly from Haiti, camped under a bridge. Rural counties are declaring a âlocal state of disaster.â
Itâs all so dangerous. The fentanyl the drug cartels are bringing over the border is killing more Americans each year than we lost in Vietnam. Anyone can cross. In the year ending Sept. 30, Border Patrol has stopped 98 people on the southern border who were on the U.S. terrorist watch list. How many were missed?
Weâre on a holiday from history again.
The Democratic Party is committed to doing nothing. The party made its position clear in the 2020 presidential primaries, when candidates ignored border security and debated only who would guarantee broader social services for migrants. The Biden administration has shown energy in only one area, changing the subject.
The Republican Party is at least rhetorically committed to stopping whatâs happening at the border, but do they mean it? Are they serious? If they were theyâd be trying to win support in America for broad, coherent action, right?
Here we jump to Manhattan, to the already famous Saturday night dinner of the New York Young Republican Club. Gowns, tuxedos, important national speakers, a special night. Donald Trump Jr. said Republicans must finally investigate Hunter Biden. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, in the prime speaking spot, received the clubâs Richard M. Nixon Award, âgiven to a citizen who exemplifies the fundamental ideals of Americanism.â She spoke of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol: âI want to tell you something, if Steven Bannon and I had organized that, we would have won. Not to mention we wouldâve been armed.â She took other strange turnsââdefund the FBI,â Kamala Harris dresses in boring colors. Not a âsingle pennyâ should go to âa country called Ukraine whose borders are far away and most of you couldnât find it on a map.â She charged, âYou can pick up a butt plug or a dildo at Target nowadays.â Iâve never noticed that at Target. I guess it depends on what youâre looking for.
My point isnât that sheâs an idiot, though that appears to be trueâshe once called Hitlerâs secret police âthe gazpachoââor that the audience, which laughed and applauded, were idiots. It is that you donât talk like this and applaud if you are trying to win anyone over to your side. And if you are serious about making America better, you try to win people over to your side.
If the speakers at that dinner were even a little sincere about controlling the border, they wouldnât be swanning about or beating their chests like chimps but reaching out to those who share their alarm but arenât Trumpist. Instead, they stick with their own club, one that, at least in this instance, involves comparative wealth, a certain conception of glamour, and an insider feel. They seem to proceed as if they are all on the winning side, the side of what they all call the base. But they havenât won a big election since 2016.
There is one way in which they very much are winnersâthey changed the policies and attitudes of a great party, making it more populist in domestic and foreign affairs. This was a huge win!
But they couldnât absorb it intellectually or consolidate it politically. If you are a Trump candidate, you would do this by showing votersânot only Republicans but Democrats, independents, centrists, moderatesâthat a vote for you isnât a concession that they have grown radical or extreme or drawn to peripheral issues. No, a vote for you is a vote for a regular normal person of intelligence and good faith. A vote for you is a vote to address the issues that bedevil us, in a truthful and constructive way. A vote for you is a reassertion of a preference for normality.
The Trump wing of the party canât seem to do that. Maybe because they donât want to win, really; they just want to feel good and have parties and say outrageous things and feel like truer Americans.
And my third item, which the New York dinner left me thinking about. It has to do with the old Republican Party of New York. I saw that party up close in the early 1990s. I would go to events at its clubs, sign books, sometimes speak. I did this because I felt sympathy for them and a tug of old loyalty. In one club the demographic skewed older and female. The women wore hats and they knew Rocky and Happy and theyâd been friends with Jack Javits, and time had passed them by. They were 1960s moderate liberals who had been replaced and supplanted by people like meâReaganites, Kempites.
Someoneâs always being replaced and supplanted in politics, but those old ladies in hatsâin their time they had shown some guts, swimming against the tide, not becoming Democrats in a Democratic city, an increasingly left-wing city, but staying true to their basic principles. And you have to be human, even in politics, and show respect. The Trump forces took over by about 2017 and they were brutal in their triumphâgraceless, rubbing their foesâ faces in it. Some of the old ladies joined them. Some just disappeared into the city. It was all very French Revolution, a thousand Marats and Dantons overwhelming 10,000 weak and ridiculous aristos. It was also Manhattan losing to the forces of the outer boroughs and the suburbsâa whole rising wave of scrappy, comparatively less sophisticated voters who felt theyâd been ignored (they had) and excluded (they had) and would now take over (they did).
But unlike those old ladies in hats, they have no idea what is important to independents, moderates, centrists and non-Republicans, and no idea how to talk to them. So they canât win a thing statewide.
And they donât seem to care. Because they have great parties and theyâre right and theyâre the real people, not big phonies in hats.
The old ladies in hats were practical. Their entire project was driven by the simple insight that politics is a game of addition. You have to reach out and persuade. They didnât always know how to reach out; they were awkward in 10 different ways; but they knew reaching out was necessary. They werenât dizzy and glamorous, they had dignity and were serious. And when they lost their fights within the party, they didnât bolt, they stayed and joined the younger conservatives.
They didnât seem it, but they were tough, and they knew how to win. Those whoâve replaced them, much less so.
Ah yes.
Life Meritocracy.
Is YOUR life worth protecting?
Zero-cost fetuses are easily claimed to be worthy of life protection more than already-born fourth graders.
That is the Republican "Whose Life is Worthy" Game.
So you feel YOU should decide who should be saved and who should be left behind.... Mighty Omnipotent YOU.
...If Griner was a republican she would still be sitting and rotting in Russia ...
.... Not that I know for sure but Whelan is probably a republican and that has more to with why he is still there than anything else. jmo ...
You really gotta let it go. Sure, there are politics involved in politics, but the political myopia of decision-making is much lower now than it was under DJT. A republican had a chance to trade Whelan for Bout and did nothing (especially since he has such a great relationship with Putin?)... why should Joe worry about Whelan.
You're right that the Whelan situation is a bit more complicated than it appears, but that hasn't stopped most Republicans from referring to him as "A Marine"... ignoring the dishonorable discharge.
FWIW... I don't like the swap. I wouldn't have returned Bout for just Griner.
Republicans should remember that Whelan was detained in 2018, during the Trump admin. So Donnie didn't have much success there either... If he tried at all.
After a court-martial conviction in January 2008 on multiple counts "related to larceny", he was sentenced to 60 days restriction, reduction to pay grade E-4, and a bad conduct discharge.[9][10] The specific charges against him included "attempted larceny, three specifications of dereliction of duty, making a false official statement, wrongfully using another’s social security number, and ten specifications of making and uttering checks without having sufficient funds in his account for payment."[11] . On the other hand Bowe Bergdahl was worse, a deserter, and Obama gave away the store to get him back. Most of the prisoners swapped for Bergdahl have returned to the battlefield.
. Not that I know for sure but Whelan is probably a republican and that has more to with why he is still there than anything else. jmo ...
If she's a spy, how are we to know if she really carried drugs? A good counterintelligence could set her up. (All that said, I tend to believe the story on its face. Just that weirder things have happened.)
Griner would stick out like a sore thumb in Russia. She's 6' 9", Black and a professional basketball player. Not a great profile for a spy.
Russia has accused Paul Whelan of being a spy, which is why Russia refused to include him in the negotiations about Griner. Apparently the Biden admin has tried to get Whelan released but those efforts have gone nowhere.
Republicans should remember that Whelan was detained in 2018, during the Trump admin. So Donnie didn't have much success there either... If he tried at all.
If she's a spy that carries illegal drugs through Soviet airport security, then we should have left her there.
I think it's a pretty weak, overly political move for Biden. Whelan should have been part of any deal.
If she's a spy, how are we to know if she really carried drugs? A good counterintelligence could set her up. (All that said, I tend to believe the story on its face. Just that weirder things have happened.)
Certainly dont agree with how republicans are positioning this, and happy she is back (even though she brought this on herself), but it does look like we got the raw end of the deal.
Certainly dont agree with how republicans are positioning this, and happy she is back (even though she brought this on herself), but it does look like we got the raw end of the deal.
