The sooner that woman is OFF the political stage the better, although I imagine her successor will most likely be worse. Perhaps Harmeet Dhillon will help further tank the RNC .... and Lindell would implode it. Bring. It. On.
I guess this is what happens when the state parties get stocked full of MAGA faithful. Rona Romney was a dead woman walking with Cult45 in charge of everything.
Welcome aboard, Joe! Looking forward to more pieces. Cheers! 🥂
Thank you JVL and welcome Joe ! Admittedly I'm a bit envious that you are working with such an amazing team, I'd love to work with this team too. Looking forward to hearing your perspectives. Barbara B.
No animal eats its own quite like the Republicans. Trump's biggest threat appears to be that MAGA world is moving beyond him now. They're turning on his bootlickers.
I see a lot of information about the crackpots (Mike Lindell, et al) but just exactly when is anyone going to actually expose the truth about Tucker Carlson in such a way as to blast it out to the masses? It seems that the biggest loudmouths who spew their bullshit are just given a pass. Sure, he has an audience but seriously, just how large is it? I see reports about four million viewers in a country of over 300 million. Just how is he some celebrity? Just how is he given the status that wouldn't count as a blip on most platforms. He is a blight on this country and he and his ilk have been given way too much status with too few actually forcing him to back up his bullshit.
Being forced to talk to Mike Lindell for 3 hours reminds me of Sam Malone on Cheers when he said he would rather chew on tinfoil while shaving his head with a cheese grater when asked about a similar disagreeable task.
I can’t even give a rat’s a** about all 3 of them. Three straight election cycles lost and they are going to go further right??? Yahoo. Pretty soon those Regan era republicans are going to be independents or Democrats. Either way I’ll be a happy lady! We need hawkish, compassionate, non-crazy people voting to build a better Congress and Senate!!
"I was a Reagan-era Republican, as well. But this isn't that party.”
TCinLA already highlighted this quote. I think we all know this is true, but after reading Tim Miller's account of the TPUSA gathering and now this account of the RNC by Joe Perticone (welcome!), what strikes me is that the overall tone of reporting--here at the Bulwark and elsewhere--really has yet to treat the new GOP as it would an actual Republican Party: that is, an entity roughly comparable to the Democratic Party. The comment by Chris (above, somewhere, unless it's below) noting that Joe doesn't seem quite to have his own "voice" in this report spurred some further thoughts along this line.
The new GOP is more often portrayed as a curiosity, a circus, or more accurately, a sideshow, with the big tent still somehow occuied by the Reagan inheritors, like McConnell or Thune. But it seems to me that the sideshow's following is now paying the bills, despite the pause in 2022. Lots of Bulwark coverage of the new GOP treats the circus like a circus, with focus on the freak show elements. But in 2023, the MTGs will be figures with Party power, and looking at Tim's account, we can expect people like Matt Gaetz to be looking to strengthen the Party mechanism by doing better mobilization of conspiracy theory-vulnerable voters. I feel that it's time to signal the seriousness of what has happened by dialing down the snark (although I hope there will always be room for Not My Party). I'm sorry to write that, because the judicious use of snark by Charlie Sykes, JVL, Tim, and others at the Bulwark is what makes me turn to the site first thing (or nearly) in the morning. But we know that ridicule doesn't seem to have any reach within the voter ranks that are susceptible to MAGA, and at a certain point keeping it up could become whistling past the graveyard.
Joe Perticone's report--with the exception of a few spots, like his slightly snarky "Funnily enough" section--seems a good model to expand. It's a pretty straight report. I think it may have dwelt a little too much on Mike Lindell, who is still a fringe figure, and might have informed us more about Harmeet Dhillon, who seems like the sort of technocrat we might expect to play an increasing role. I very much appreciated what I did learn about Dhillon, but poking around on my own I'm impressed by how much her background and law firm seem not to align with the strange role she played in the Trump lawsuits. I'd like to understand more about the network, client base, financial ties and so forth that has allowed Dhillon to emerge in this way. McDaniel has always seemed an anomaly to me because her pre-NRC background was as a pretty low-level operative, without electoral background or an independent career base. If Dhillon topples her I think it'll signal a step towards the professionalization of the MAGA party--the new GOP. I don't see this as good news.
Welcome to the Bulwark Joe.
The sooner that woman is OFF the political stage the better, although I imagine her successor will most likely be worse. Perhaps Harmeet Dhillon will help further tank the RNC .... and Lindell would implode it. Bring. It. On.
I guess this is what happens when the state parties get stocked full of MAGA faithful. Rona Romney was a dead woman walking with Cult45 in charge of everything.
Welcome aboard, Joe! Looking forward to more pieces. Cheers! 🥂
Ah, yes. That makes sense.
Thank you JVL and welcome Joe ! Admittedly I'm a bit envious that you are working with such an amazing team, I'd love to work with this team too. Looking forward to hearing your perspectives. Barbara B.
No animal eats its own quite like the Republicans. Trump's biggest threat appears to be that MAGA world is moving beyond him now. They're turning on his bootlickers.
First, welcome to The Bulwark family, Joe.
Second, I actually give Lindell a little respect for looking for fraud committed against Democrats. Just a little.
I see a lot of information about the crackpots (Mike Lindell, et al) but just exactly when is anyone going to actually expose the truth about Tucker Carlson in such a way as to blast it out to the masses? It seems that the biggest loudmouths who spew their bullshit are just given a pass. Sure, he has an audience but seriously, just how large is it? I see reports about four million viewers in a country of over 300 million. Just how is he some celebrity? Just how is he given the status that wouldn't count as a blip on most platforms. He is a blight on this country and he and his ilk have been given way too much status with too few actually forcing him to back up his bullshit.
"MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell: 'A lot of them I talk to for two to three hours at a time. So this is taking a lot of time.'"
That's a lot of pillow talk.
Being forced to talk to Mike Lindell for 3 hours reminds me of Sam Malone on Cheers when he said he would rather chew on tinfoil while shaving his head with a cheese grater when asked about a similar disagreeable task.
Welcome Joe to The Bulwark!
This is not choice of options, unless terrible, more terrible and looney tunes is one's idea of choice
I can’t even give a rat’s a** about all 3 of them. Three straight election cycles lost and they are going to go further right??? Yahoo. Pretty soon those Regan era republicans are going to be independents or Democrats. Either way I’ll be a happy lady! We need hawkish, compassionate, non-crazy people voting to build a better Congress and Senate!!
Welcome to the Bulwark sir! 😊
Welcome, Joe!
"I was a Reagan-era Republican, as well. But this isn't that party.”
TCinLA already highlighted this quote. I think we all know this is true, but after reading Tim Miller's account of the TPUSA gathering and now this account of the RNC by Joe Perticone (welcome!), what strikes me is that the overall tone of reporting--here at the Bulwark and elsewhere--really has yet to treat the new GOP as it would an actual Republican Party: that is, an entity roughly comparable to the Democratic Party. The comment by Chris (above, somewhere, unless it's below) noting that Joe doesn't seem quite to have his own "voice" in this report spurred some further thoughts along this line.
The new GOP is more often portrayed as a curiosity, a circus, or more accurately, a sideshow, with the big tent still somehow occuied by the Reagan inheritors, like McConnell or Thune. But it seems to me that the sideshow's following is now paying the bills, despite the pause in 2022. Lots of Bulwark coverage of the new GOP treats the circus like a circus, with focus on the freak show elements. But in 2023, the MTGs will be figures with Party power, and looking at Tim's account, we can expect people like Matt Gaetz to be looking to strengthen the Party mechanism by doing better mobilization of conspiracy theory-vulnerable voters. I feel that it's time to signal the seriousness of what has happened by dialing down the snark (although I hope there will always be room for Not My Party). I'm sorry to write that, because the judicious use of snark by Charlie Sykes, JVL, Tim, and others at the Bulwark is what makes me turn to the site first thing (or nearly) in the morning. But we know that ridicule doesn't seem to have any reach within the voter ranks that are susceptible to MAGA, and at a certain point keeping it up could become whistling past the graveyard.
Joe Perticone's report--with the exception of a few spots, like his slightly snarky "Funnily enough" section--seems a good model to expand. It's a pretty straight report. I think it may have dwelt a little too much on Mike Lindell, who is still a fringe figure, and might have informed us more about Harmeet Dhillon, who seems like the sort of technocrat we might expect to play an increasing role. I very much appreciated what I did learn about Dhillon, but poking around on my own I'm impressed by how much her background and law firm seem not to align with the strange role she played in the Trump lawsuits. I'd like to understand more about the network, client base, financial ties and so forth that has allowed Dhillon to emerge in this way. McDaniel has always seemed an anomaly to me because her pre-NRC background was as a pretty low-level operative, without electoral background or an independent career base. If Dhillon topples her I think it'll signal a step towards the professionalization of the MAGA party--the new GOP. I don't see this as good news.
Didn't know where to put this, but while reading all the comments below, I started to get nostalgic for the Three Stooges and the Marx Brothers.