How long will the Republican Party fall into traps set for them by the Democratic Party? Will the leadership ever wake up?
After the debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, the right-leaning commentariat railed in unison against the awful job performed by the two ABC moderators. “It was three against one!” “They fact-checked Donald Trump five times but never once Harris!” “They accused Trump of being bad and then forced him to defend himself.” And on and on. Every commentator on every conceivable platform complained about the lopsided performance of David Muir and Linsey Davis. News flash to the world: The Republicans agreed to this format. Someone signed off on it—was it Donald Trump or his daughter-in-law, Lara, who is the head of the Republican National Committee? This was no ambush: the Republicans agreed to have ABC choose partisan hacks to act as the moderators. And this is a problem that keeps recurring: the Republican leaders are taken for chumps.
Does anyone over at Republican headquarters recall CNN partisan Candy Crowley? Does anyone remember how she joined the debate on Barack Obama’s side against Mitt Romney? So over 12 years, Republicans could not figure out that the way that debates are arranged are not for their benefit? Virtually every major network is a leftwing mouthpiece of the Democratic Party. Why would they assume that their employees would give the Republican candidate a fair shake? This is a known problem and time after time Republicans walk right into it and get burned each time again. The moderators ask the Republican tough questions while tossing softballs at the Democrat. They join in on the answers on the side of the Democrat and use time control for the benefit of their candidate. This is ridiculous but cycle after cycle, the Republicans agree to this arrangement. Why don’t we try something new? Let’s drop the networks. Each side chooses one moderator. By this arrangement, we are guaranteed that both candidates will receive both gentle and hard questions, depending who is asking. But at least there will be one Republican-approved voice there to ask the tough questions that CNN and ABC refuse to serve up to their candidate of choice. Is it so hard to ask for a fair playing field?
But the problems are not just with the debates. The Republicans are like your little brother that you terrorized with short-sheets, broken favorite toys, and missing clothes. When Donald Trump and others complained quite loudly about the strange happenings of the 2020 vote, it occurred to me that he and Ronna McDaniel were the heads of the party. One can see them warning before November, 2020 that there were going to be shenanigans. Where were their poll watchers? Where was the army of lawyers on the ground to document election abuse? The Democrats played the Republicans by throwing out their people or controlling ballots without Republican officials present, and more. The Republicans came to a nuclear fight with a penknife. The Democrats, whatever they did, got it right past the Republicans and after 3 days, five Trump-leaning states all went for Biden. We were all played for suckers. This time around there are supposed to be poll watchers and lawyers on the ready.
The same power imbalance is true in Congress. The Democrats ran not one but two full impeachment investigations against Donald Trump, when nothing he did rose to “high crimes and misdemeanors”. These actions were in addition to the phony Russia investigation and J6 inquisition. Nancy Pelosi used bare knuckles on the latter: when Republicans proposed their members of the committee, she knew that they would ask too many uncomfortable questions. So in a first for Congress, she simply removed those members she did not like. The Republicans “retaliated” by removing all of their members. So, in master class #2, Pelosi put pseudo-Republican lapdogs Adam “tears” Kinzinger and Liz “I love Kamala” Cheney as the Republican fig leaves. These two now former Congresspeople gave cover for this tainted committee. They ignored relevant witnesses, electronic communications and video that Tucker Carlson had to dig up in their place. The Congress, like the debates, is one more place that the Democrats roll the Republicans. How many times have Democrats rammed through some legislation with the help of some gullible Republicans, only for the latter to find out later that the new law is a disaster? Joe Biden, who sold access to his office as vice president to enrich the Biden clan, will never be impeached even once by the less-than-intrepid Republican majority in the House.
One more place where Republicans get played by their opponents is with the press. Republicans often go to mainstream news organizations or TV programs and are shocked when their words are twisted or subsequent articles are slanted against them. How long did the fake “fine people” lie go on, when the original video showed that Donald Trump condemned the white supremacists in Charlotte that day? Ditto for J6 when President Trump told his followers to behave “peacefully”. The press is aligned against Trump and the Republicans, but they keep running to be interviewed by people who have no interest in helping their ideological enemies.
When I was at Harvard, the hockey team was one of the best in the nation. They were relatively small and skated fast. One of their biggest competitors in the Ivy League was Cornell. Their skaters were large and tended to slam the smaller Harvard guys into the boards. One night, Harvard’s captain was being smashed up like a pinata. At one point towards the end of the third period, he took his stick and placed it between the legs of one of the Cornell thugs. He picked up his handle and put the guy on his back. No ref saw it and he was not sent off to the penalty box. Republicans should play as clean or as dirty as the Democrats do. Demand that at least one moderator be selected by their people. I was pleased when Republicans started to remove Democrats from Congressional committees—exactly as Pelosi had done. Right-leaning news sites like this one exist and should be their go-to places for interviews, so as to get their ideas and opinions out unfiltered. “Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, shame on you.” If the Democrats have fooled the Republicans a thousand time, where does that place the party of Lincoln?
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