Nicole Lafond
Without any real policy agenda, Republicans in Congress have largely seized on various fronts in the culture war to distract from Biden’s successes. And GOPers at the state level are doing the same, with a new heightened focus on an element of their socially conservative base’s traditional values: Going after the LGBT community.
Lately, that’s meant a fresh wave of anti-trans rights bills.
While the Republican ringleaders of the Big Lie have seemingly fundraised in a big way following their efforts to overturn the results of the election, at least one Democrat is raking in substantial cash for doing, sort of, the opposite.
And Senate Republicans know it.
All hope of retaking the majority in the Senate lies with the former president’s ability to put aside his personal grievances for the sake of the Party.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) is learning that, in 2021, sowing distrust in basic functions of democracy can be good electoral politics.
Brian Kemp is up for reelection in 2022. And the true leader of the Republican Party, former President Donald Trump, has made it pretty clear that Kemp has fallen far outside of his good graces.
Asa Hutchinson’s veto of an anti-trans bill in his state, which we covered yesterday, proved to be for naught — it was promptly overridden by his GOP colleagues in the state legislature.
But his defense of his veto saw him position himself at a crossroads for conservatism, between libertarian values and the increasing desire on the right to punish one’s perceived enemies.
As Republicans fling one culture war after another at the wall to see what sticks in recent weeks, at least one GOP governor isn’t playing along.
While Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) statement decrying the “bullying” of Americans by corporations might mark a new low in the once-fruitful backscratching relationship between corporate American and the GOP, the tension between the two institutions has been building and moving us in this direction for some time.