Tag Archive: Christopher Wray

Republicans still playing defense by shoring up MAGA base

Republicans’ greatest fear

While the mainstream media once again are trying to influence the 2024 elections by inflating false concerns over President Joe Biden and the Democrats, a telltale sign is coming from the Republicans that they are worried about their own chances next year. This Republican concern has appeared in recent attempts to shore up the Republican MAGA base, rather than expand the GOP’s appeal well beyond their narrow base in order to win the presidency and other big elections in 2024. Most notably over the past week:

–New Republican U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson caved to the MAGAs and reversed course by backing an evidence-free impeachment inquiry by House Republicans against President Biden. Just a few weeks ago, Johnson said there was “insufficient evidence” to proceed with this charade, and no such evidence has come to light since then. However, Johnson angered extremist Republicans recently when he worked with House Democrats to avoid a federal government shutdown. Supporting the phony impeachment inquiry now is a way to throw red meat at these right wingers. Likewise, in a TV appearance, disgraced former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said that House Republicans who do not support Biden’s impeachment will face primary challenges in their own party, again meaning that Republicans should be deathly afraid of their irrational MAGA base.

Republicans run distraction playbook on Trump Georgia phone call

Donald Trump busted acting like a Mob boss on the phone

One of the go-to tactics in the Republican playbook is distraction. In particular, when Republicans are caught doing something wrong, they try to distract the media and the public by focusing not on the substance of their wrongdoing, but on who leaked the story of the wrongdoing. We saw that, for example, in 1997, when Republican U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich was caught on an intercepted cell phone call coordinating his response to ethics charges with Republican House leaders Richard Armey, John Boehner and others, in violation of Gingrich’s ethics case settlement. The Republican distraction by focusing on the interception of the call rather than improper call itself, was a success in that instance.

On Sunday, something similar happened with Donald Trump. The Washington Post released the recording of a recent telephone call from Trump to Georgia‘s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, on which Trump begs, cajoles and even threatens Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes” to change the certified result of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.