Are Ted Cruz and the Republican Party interested in governing?
If you’re liberal commentator and all-things-Democrat protecting Fox News personality and part-time op-ed columnist Juan Williams, the answer is NO. Williams led his weekly piece on Monday with the tale of Cruz allegedly looking at his phone for Twitter mentions shortly after his recent vocal exchange with Democrat Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin in the committee room. Again, according to Williams, by vigorously questioning Durbin’s handling of Biden Supreme Court appointee Ketanji Brown Jackson, Cruz was solely in a quest for personal fame -- not at all in pursuit of truth about the nominee herself (is KBJ indeed a woman? She can’t define it).
How would Juan even know what Cruz was doing with his phone? Did Ted broadcast it to the room that he was glancing at his screen for Twitter hits? And even if that were his intention, what’s wrong with it? The Texas senator is one of a handful of GOPers who isn’t the least bit intimidated by the Democrats’ non-stop “woke” sell-job of KBJ -- or submissive to their mission of turning the United States into a broken-down and broke socialist cultural dystopia.
Don’t Democrats recall how they publicly examined then nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s teen journals in search of evidence that he was a beer swilling, girl abusing child of privilege? How many times did Kamala Harris check her Twitter page after she accused Kavanaugh of being a lifelong cad who mistreated women for cheap thrills and selfish satisfaction?
The kind of people who object to Cruz searching his Twitter account are the same ones who vapor locked over Donald Trump’s social media habits. If Twitter is an instantaneous read on the impressions of one’s supporters or detractors, what’s wrong with finding out at the push of a couple buttons how Americans are reacting to an incident? If you’re a politician who represents a state and its citizens, isn’t it better to know what the folks back home are thinking? Is it merely vanity… or is it really just good government?
Cruz likely realized that a dust-up with Durbin was the only way the biased and evil establishment media would cover the real issues behind KBJ’s nomination, so why not get Democrats on the record defending a woman judge who was accused of going light on sentences for users of child pornography? In the process, Democrats looked like champions of perverts and sex addicts. Good for Cruz.
Perhaps Williams was really advocating for all Republicans to turn in their devices at the end of each day so the FBI and Merrick Garland’s Justice Department could probe them to determine whether there was sufficient intent to govern in the hearts of each GOP lawmaker. Who knows, maybe Dick Durbin could decide the mystery and dramatically announce yea or nay by giving a Roman emperor-like thumbs up or thumbs down.
But Juan did have a point about one thing. Does the Republican party offer anything to voters besides opposition to whatever the Democrats are doing at any particular moment? The GOP -- or at least some of its members -- have learned to put on a pretty good show in recent years. In this, they’ve seemed to take a page from Democrats in being able to delve deeply into someone’s personal and professional history and make that person appear less than up to the job.
Democrats started the political fire; why should they complain now that it’s raging out of control?
What Williams really protests is Cruz and a small group of Republicans doing their jobs with vigor so as to generate enthusiasm in the party’s grassroots. No doubt Juan would much prefer Republicans sit dutifully behind their microphones and either stick to reading their staff-prepared queries or to passively accept whatever the witness had to say without any kind of follow-up. Wouldn’t life be easier that way?
Besides, Democrats are looking for a villain of their own to compel the downtrodden and discouraged leftist party base to get off their haunches and express hope for victory in the upcoming midterm elections, which are only seven months away now. Who can they call? It isn’t Ghostbusters… it’s Donald Trump.
“What’s not clear … is whether anti-Trump energy can give Democrats sustained momentum — it’s a nebulous prospect for a party that’s seen its biggest priorities stalled while the costs of everything from gas and groceries continue to shoot up.
“Focusing on Trump and other GOP rabble-rousers will hardly be the only item in Democrats’ midterm playbook this year. The party would much rather run on what they’ve gotten done with their two years in power, particularly in battlegrounds. But some Democrats still acknowledge that perhaps the best way to gin up their base is a time-honored trick that Trump himself has mastered: fear…
“It’s not the plan for everyone: The most vulnerable Democrats have little interest in nationalizing the election, since turning Trump into a villain doesn’t exactly help in GOP-friendly turf they must defend. Most are already planning to run mayoral-style races — playing up local issues and training their attacks entirely on their own opponents — to make it less of a referendum on President Joe Biden.”
Sure. Democrats can try and turn the conversation away from what everyone is talking about, and Juan Williams can hope to make his contention about the GOP and non-governing stick by starting out his commentaries with the very polarizing figure of Ted Cruz, but the real ambiguity concerns what voters will care about when they fill out their ballots or punch the electronic screens in the voting booth come November.
Last time I checked, Donald Trump’s name will not show up in any of those places. Liberals and Democrats are still attempting to bring down the former president by making outlandish accusations about Clarence and Ginni Thomas, or insinuating that Republicans are a collection of orgy-attending, cocaine snorting party animals according to an account from twenty-something freshman Rep. Madison Cawthorn, who made the remarks as a guest on a podcast.
American voters will have had almost two years of Joe Biden to assess whether they need to be scared or motivated by the specter of Donald Trump any longer. They’ll have heard soundbites from the ridiculous partisan and #NeverTrump witch hunt that is the January 6 commission. Nothing of value has come out of Nancy Pelosi’s personal vendetta against Trump. Democrats impeached him twice, and he’s still around to make their lives miserable.
They tried to make Trump the issue in last November’s Virginia elections, too. Old Dominion voters knew otherwise and elected a new Republican governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and flipped the commonwealth’s House of Delegates (the Senate wasn’t on the ballot, or it almost certainly would’ve turned GOP as well). New Governor Glenn Youngkin looks to get his way by compelling the legislature to enact his sizable tax cut package. What a difference good governance makes.
Even if Williams’ claim was correct (it’s not) -- that Washington Republicans aren’t interested in governing -- it doesn’t look to be true on the state level.
Judging by the polls, American voters don’t agree with Juan either. President senile Joe Biden’s overall approval numbers aren’t improving and he receives particularly pathetic marks for his handling of the economy. Three quarters of those surveyed in one recent questionnaire believed the country is on the wrong track. Are these folks going to buy the Democrats’ spin campaign about the Republican Party and Donald Trump?
Those few independent voters who are still persuadable will probably harbor pleasant memories of life under Trump’s guidance compared with senile Joe’s and his rolling embarrassment cackling gal pal veep Kamala Harris’s iron rule. Every public appearance that either of them makes is more newsworthy for mistakes they made than for what either was trying to speak on a topic.
Trump himself probably doesn’t like it, but he can’t steal all the headlines away from senile Joe’s band of bumbling incompetents and “woke” obsessed race hustlers. Americans don’t want to hear about the Disney corporation’s opposition to a bill that banned teaching sex education to kindergarten kids through third graders. They also aren’t wild about Democrats defending biological men who take part and dominate women’s sports.
If there’s a party that isn’t interested in governing, it’s the Democrats. Or if “governing” means what Joe Biden is doing, most Americans seem to think we’re better off with no government at all. Democrats in power means a completely open border, hyper-inflation, killing American energy jobs, focusing on crackpot race theories and “voter suppression”, climate change fantasies, losing wars (in Afghanistan) and Hunter Biden using his dad’s office to enrich the family, including “The Big Guy” himself.
Both parties accuse the other of being uninterested in “governing” while being preoccupied with individual fame and reelection rather than their constituents’ desires at the same time. With this strategy as their guide, Democrats will try to put Donald Trump at the center of the 2022 midterm campaign. It won’t work. Americans see the real senile Joe; and it isn’t a pretty picture.
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