GOP is wasting a winning hand with Marjorie Taylor Greene, Trump

By Douglas Murray

Friday, December 16, 2022

 

It’s hard to think of a time the Democrats left so many scoring opportunities for the Republicans. Look at what is affecting ordinary households. And then look at the things the Democrats are making a priority of.

 

Earlier this week President Biden was at the White House warning of an America in which “a person can be married in the morning and thrown out of a restaurant for being gay in the afternoon.” Just where exactly has that happened? Can anyone name anywhere? I’ll bet not. But still the president rambled on, that “This is still wrong. Wrong.” To great applause. Because the president can always rely on a crowd to agree with him about things that don’t happen still being wrong.

 

Over on the other side of the country in California, what does one of Biden’s would-be successors concentrate on? Well, Gavin Newsom is considering how much money descendants of slaves ought to be given in cash. Gov. Newsom set up his reparations committee in 2020 and, amazingly enough, it has come back with recommendations that California state should pay descendants of slaves as much as $223,200 each. That would add a total of $569 billion in state expenditure. Which is more than the entire state expenditure of California last year. Newsom is now mulling the move. What priorities!

 

So a legislature that had no responsibility for slavery and is struggling to keep the electricity on this year is going to further bankrupt itself by this ridiculous gesture? One in which people who are not responsible for slavery hand over billions of dollars to people who have never experienced slavery. This is a priority — in a state which is struggling with power outages, chronic homelessness, crime and drug abuse?

 

MTG, Trump self-harm

 

Such moments should give the Republicans everything they need. And yet now, just as you think the Republicans can run it in, we see members of their own team commit vast, stupendous acts of self-harm.

 

Consider the behavior of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. When she first arrived on the scene I thought Greene was just one of those representatives every party throws up at some point. Someone who is simply mad as a box of frogs. A sandwich short of a picnic. That sort of thing. But Greene has used her time in Congress to make some of the worst possible alliances and give her opponents almost all that they need.

 

At the start of the year she could be found at a conference organized by a nasty little anti-Semite and troll of the right called Nick Fuentes.

 

This week she was back at it, here in New York, talking at an event sponsored by the New York Young Republican Club. There she gave a speech that might have been handed to her by Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi. Referring to the January 6th attack on the Capitol she said “I want to tell you something, if Steve Bannon and I had organized that, we would have won.” As icing on the cake for the Democrats she added, “Not to mention, it would have been armed.”

 

And there you have it. Another fumble. Soon The New York Times and others were zooming in on the “far-right conference” in Manhattan and using the discredited and dishonest “Southern Poverty Law Center” to label everyone in attendance as “far-right.” So the left’s search for right-wing bogeymen or women actually finds one. And then gets to rally their own base — and part of the political center — for the next round.

 

What is the Republicans’ big beast at Mar-a-Lago doing throughout all this? The man who has insisted that it is his life mission to save the Republic? Well apart from even now harping on about the “stolen” 2020 election, Donald Trump had a “major announcement” this week. He announced on his “Truth Social” account yesterday, “My official Donald Trump Digital Trading Card collection is here!” He promised “limited edition cards featuring amazing ART of my Life & Career.” I would defy you to look at this “art” and declare it “amazing.” But Trump went on to promise that at only $99 each these “great Christmas gifts” would sell out “very quickly!”

 

It is enough to make you weep. The Democrats are misgoverning not just at the city, state and national levels. As with the missed opportunity of the midterms this should be the perfect moment for the Republicans. They should find this the easiest political period in history. Inflation and cost of living are beating everyone down. The Democrats are obsessing about the most fringe policy issues. But whenever they need to justify this I guarantee they will do so by making MTG the most famous Republican in the land over the next two years. All while the alleged King in Exile is trying to make 99 bucks a shot on a crappy set of trading cards.

 

Someone has to save the Republican Party — and the Republic — fast. Here’s looking at you, Florida.