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A GOP insider is fed up with Trump enablers
PUBLISHED ON MEDIUM POLITICS *** It used to be said that many Democratic voters, especially in the South, would choose a “yellow dog” before casting a ballot for a Republican. The term originated in the late 1800s. It didn’t matter who the candidate was or what they actually sought to achieve in office. They only thing that mattered was they were a Democrat and not a godforsaken Republican. I suppose that describes me now. That’s not a small thing to say. Supporting Democrats goes against my political DNA. I’ve advised and directed hundreds of Republican legislative, congressional, statewide campaigns — including presidential campaigns. I was the executive director of the Michigan Republican Party for many years and operated at the highest levels of the Republican National Committee. Yet after 30 years earning my living in Republican politics, a Democratic candidate needs to demonstrate just one thing to win my vote — a pulse. A white guy’s primer for other whites in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder
PUBLISHED ON IN THE MICHIGAN ADVANCE *** Listen up, Goldilocks. No one has the time or patience for your moral relativism and false-equivalencies bullshit anymore. Too hard. Too soft. Too damn bad. ‘Just right’ is for children’s stories. This is the real world. Please stop with the “it’s horrible a defenseless black man was murdered by the police, but these disruptive and angry demonstrations aren’t helping and need to stop.” Try instead, “It’s too bad these disruptive and angry demonstrations are necessary, but we need to finally stop the systemic problem of murder and abuse of blacks by the police.” You don’t get to decide how black and brown people, or white people who support them, protest injustice and combat racism. It’s time you grow up and realize you don’t make those rules. It’s not about your comfort or contentment. Your role now is to listen, learn, try to understand, and perhaps join them — not to set the parameters for people of color to accommodate you as they demand cultural change and legal justice. If you can manage that, things can get better. If you can’t, buckle up sister, because it’s gonna be a rough road ahead. Warren Zevon, Patty Hearst, and Marshall Applewhite help us understand how the Republicans have lost their stinkin' minds.
PUBLISHED IN THE MICHIGAN ADVANCE *** Warren Zevon wrote the lyric “Patty Hearst heard the burst of Roland’s Thompson gun and bought it,” in a 1978 song, referencing the kidnapping and radicalization of the heiress by the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA). If Zevon were alive today he might update that lyric to read, “The GOP read the worst of Donald’s Twitter thumb and no one fought it.” The $64,000 question is why have they so entirely acceded to Trump’s MAGA cult? The state party’s transformation didn’t start with Trump. But his weak polling could plunge MIGOP into wrack and ruin.
PUBLISHED IN THE BULWARK *** Simon & Garfunkel sang “Michigan seems like a dream to me now” as they went off to look for America. That lyric could well be running through the noggins of those in the Trump campaign and the Republican apparatus come fall, as they hope to reprise Trump’s shocking victory in the state in 2016. A state that was on very few people’s radar in 2016 has become the center of the political universe this year, as our governor, Gretchen Whitmer, feuds with the president and as legions of political reporters travel to our state’s diners in an attempt to understand what they missed the last time around. Read what they have to say in their own words — sort of.
PUBLISHED IN HOW PANTS WORK, A MEDIUM.COM HUMOR PUBLICATION *** Our Dearest Progeny, It’s us. The Founding Fathers. Ye know, the blokes with the powdered wigs and knee-breeches. We’re breaching (see what we did there?) the time-space continuum to implore you lot to stop buggering up the American system. We wrote the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and other historical cack. We also put our pence where our pens were (no pun intended). We risked our very arses, along with our lives and fortunes, to unite the Thirteen Colonies, struggle to win the war for independence from Great Britain, and build a durable government framework for the new United States of America for ourselves and our posterity (that’d be ye lot). Pat on the back time: We were bloody awesome. The British were being minging dicks. We had to chuse to accept tyranny or battle it. Some tossers said, “Ooh, it’ll be too arduous and perilous, can’t we just keep the King?” However, we chose liberty and fought for it — and we won. Then we established a republican government incorporating the ideals of personal freedom, individual liberty, and democratic expression where people bestowed limited powers upon the state, not the other way around (though we did screw the pooch on that slavery and 3/5ths business; and with wommin voting). No one had ever attempted such a government before. No one has replicated one since. It worked reasonably well, with hiccups here and there, for 240 years. These United States became the most desirable, prosperous, and powerful nation in the history of this Earth. Until you bloody gits bollixed it all up. |
Jeff TimmerMichigan political consultant. Strategist. Communicator. Provocateur. Erstwhile GOPer. Trump critic. Skilled in smartassery. Archives |
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