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David Firestone at The NY Times has a brilliant and overdue piece on Republican hypocrisy on crime [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2023-06-27
by David Firestone, member of the Times editorial board.
If you think Republicans are still members of the law-and-order party, you haven’t been paying close attention lately. Since the rise of Donald Trump, the Republican definition of a crime has veered sharply from the law books and become extremely selective. For readers confused about the party’s new positions on law and order, here’s a guide to what today’s Republicans consider a crime, and what they do not.
I would gladly provide a link through The NY Times paywall — but for some reason the 10 ‘gifts’ I am allowed every thirty days never resets to 10. They are supposedly working on it — which is a huge shame because this is a must-read. I’ll give a sampling, so you can get the idea. The illustrations by George Wylesol are right on target as well.
UPDATE: ItsSimpleSimon has graciously provided a link through the paywall.
Not a crime: Federal crimes. All federal crimes are charged and prosecuted by the Department of Justice. Now that Republicans believe the department has been weaponized into a Democratic Party strike force, particularly against Mr. Trump, its prosecutions can no longer be trusted. “The weaponization of federal law enforcement represents a mortal threat to a free society,” Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida recently tweeted. The F.B.I., which investigates many federal crimes, has also become corrupted by the same political forces. “The F.B.I. has become a political weapon for the ruling elite rather than an impartial, law-enforcement agency,” said Kevin D. Roberts, the president of the right-wing Heritage Foundation. And because tax crimes are not real crimes, Republicans have fought for years to slash the number of I.R.S. investigators who fight against cheating.
And state and local crime? (I can’t resist posting the Wylesol illustration for this.)
The Republican view of crime in America.
Crime: State and local crimes, if they happen in an urban area or in states run by Democrats. “There is a brutal crime wave gripping Democrat-run New York City,” the Republican National Committee wrote last year. “And it’s not just New York. In 2021, violent crime spiked across the country, with 14 major Democrat-run cities setting new record highs for homicide.” (In fact, the crime rate went up in the city during the pandemic, as it did almost everywhere, but it has already begun to recede, and remains far lower than its peak in the 1990s. New York continues to be one of the safest big cities in the United States.) Crime is so bad in many cities, Republican state leaders say, that they have been forced to try to remove local prosecutors who are letting it happen. Some of these moves, however, are entirely political; a New York Times investigation found no connection between the policies of a prosecutor removed by Mr. DeSantis and the local crime rate. Not a crime: Any crime that happens in rural areas or in states run by Republicans. Between 2000 and 2021, the per capita murder rate in states that voted for Donald Trump was 23 percent higher than in states that voted for Joe Biden, according to one major study. The gap is growing, and it is visible even in the rural areas of Trump states. But this didn’t come up when a Trump ally, Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, held a hearing in New York in April to blast Manhattan’s prosecutor for being lax on crime, even though rates for all seven major crime categories are higher in Ohio than in New York City. Nor does House Speaker Kevin McCarthy — who tweets about Democratic “lawlessness” — talk about the per capita homicide rate in Bakersfield, Calif., which he represents, which has been the highest in California for years and is higher than New York City’s.
I’d love to share the rest of this and the illustrations that go with it, but I’ll limit myself to category headings.
Crime: What they imagine Hunter Biden did.
Not a crime: What Hunter Biden will What Hunter Biden will actually plead guilty to.
Also not a crime: What the Trump family did.
Crime: Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state.
Not a crime: Donald Trump’s mishandling of government secrets.
Crime: Any urban disruption that occurred during the protests after George Floyd was killed.
Not a crime: The invasion of the United States Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Crime against children: Abortion and transgender care.
Not a crime against children: The possession of guns that kill them.
I have just one quibble with this otherwise brilliant and long overdue commentary on the criminal hypocrisy of the Republican Party, aside from omitting to say “IOKIYAR”.
The behavior described here predates Donald Trump by decades. While the Republican Party has become far more blatant about it under Trump, the right wing has been engaged in this double standard through its media arm for a long, long time. Trump has just made the gap between rhetoric and reality too big to ignore.
Review the number of right wing pundits who have made a career ascribing every failing in America as due to liberal policies. The late unlamented Rush Limbaugh had chapter and verse, and he was far from being alone. Fox News has been doing this messaging for years; there's a real question who is the dog and who is the tail wagging it. Fox's problems over its election coverage have shown that the real problem is the GOP base.
After years of pandering to them by party leaders and right wing media, the base now demands these lies. Anyone who defies them, like Liz Cheney, must be expelled and disavowed. The party has created a monster who must be fed; it's a feedback loop.
There is no way for the Republican Party to break this: the party must be driven into the wilderness like the plague carrier it has become. There was a much-lauded commentary in the Times by Judge J. Micheal Luttig headlined It’s Not Too Late for the Republican Party, in which he detailed all of the ways the GOP needs to disavow Trump or face extinction.
..Republicans have waited in vain for political absolution. It’s finally time for them to put the country before their party and pull back from the brink — for the good of the party, as well as the nation. If not now, then they must forever hold their peace.
They can’t and they won’t. They’ll double-down because the base demands it. Kevin Drum nailed this years earlier, while the media was still largely pretending there was a legitimate Republican Party. From 2018 at Mother Jones: GOPus Delendus Est:
..Today, the Republican Party exists for one and only one purpose: to pass tax cuts for the rich and regulatory rollbacks for corporations. They accomplish this using one and only method: unapologetically racist and bigoted appeals to win the votes of the heartland riff-raff they otherwise treat as mere money machines for their endless mail-order cons. Like it or not, this is the modern Republican Party. It no longer serves any legitimate purpose. It needs to be crushed and the earth salted behind it, while a new conservative party rises to take its place. This new party should be conservative; brash; ruthless when it needs to be; as simpleminded as any major party usually is; and absolutely dedicated to making Democrats look like idiots. There should be no holds barred except for one: no appeals to racism. None. Not loud ones, not subtle ones. Whatever else it is, it should be a conservative party genuinely open to any person of any color...
To give The NY Times additional credit on this piece by Firestone, the commentary ended with links to suggested reading:
Karen Yourish and Charlie Smart, June 16, 2023: See How the G.O.P. Has Reacted to the Trump Indictment
The reactions from Republicans in Congress to former President Donald J. Trump’s indictment on charges related to his handling of sensitive documents have ranged from rare acknowledgments that the former president may have, in fact, committed a crime to more extreme — and more common — statements comparing the United States under the Biden administration to a banana republic or a dictatorship.
emphasis added
Jamelle Bouie, May 19, 2023: The Four Freedoms, According to Republicans
..There are, I think, four freedoms we can glean from the Republican program. There is the freedom to control — to restrict the bodily autonomy of women and repress the existence of anyone who does not conform to traditional gender roles. There is the freedom to exploit — to allow the owners of business and capital to weaken labor and take advantage of workers as they see fit. There is the freedom to censor — to suppress ideas that challenge and threaten the ideologies of the ruling class. And there is the freedom to menace — to carry weapons wherever you please, to brandish them in public, to turn the right of self-defense into a right to threaten other people. Roosevelt’s four freedoms were the building blocks of a humane society — a social democratic aspiration for egalitarians then and now. These Republican freedoms are also building blocks not of a humane society but of a rigid and hierarchical one, in which you can either dominate or be dominated.
The NY Times Editorial Board, October 8, 2017: THE REPUBLICAN’S GUIDE TO PRESIDENTIAL ETIQUETTE
“Is President Obama Disrespecting the Oval Office?” Fox News asked in 2010, with a link to images of Mr. Obama and his aides tossing a football, or eating apples just inches from the Resolute desk. “Wear a suit coat and tie,” said Andrew Card Jr., President George W. Bush’s former chief of staff, in reaction to pictures of Mr. Obama in shirtsleeves in 2009. “I do expect him to send the message that people who are going to be in the Oval Office should treat the office with the respect that it has earned over history,” Mr. Card said. But hey, that was then! In 2017, there’s a whole new bar for tolerable conduct by the commander in chief. Our original guide cataloged several dozen examples. Almost five months later, it’s clear that an update is necessary. This expanded list is meant to ensure that Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell and other congressional Republicans never forget what they now condone in a president.
From the commentary just above, May 13, 2017: The Republican’s Guide to Presidential Behavior
It wasn’t so long ago that Republicans in Congress cared about how a president comported himself in office. They cared a lot! The president is, after all, commander in chief of the armed forces, steward of the most powerful nation on earth, role model for America’s children — and he should act at all times with the dignity his station demands. It’s not O.K. to behave in a manner that demeans the office and embarrasses the country. Shirt sleeves in the Oval Office? Disrespectful. Shoes on the Resolute desk? Even worse. Lying? Despicable, if not impeachable. Now seems like a good moment to update the standards. What do Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell and other Republican leaders think a president may say or do and still deserve their enthusiastic support? We offer this handy reference list in hopes of protecting them from charges of hypocrisy in the future. They can consult it should they ever feel tempted to insist on different standards for another president. So, herewith, the Congressional Republican’s Guide to Presidential Behavior. [A long list of new rules follows. xaxnar]
Could it be the Overton Window is finally shifting? Is it now acceptable to talk about just how irredeemable the Republican Party has become? Better late than never. It will be interesting to see how The NY Times’ commitment to multiple opinions plays out following this latest from Firestone.
Breaking news: the Supreme Court just rejected the “Independent State Legislature Theory”.
Proponents of the strongest form of the theory say this means that no other organs of state government — not courts, not governors, not election administrators, not independent commissions — can alter a legislature’s actions on federal elections.
Given the Republican views on crime and the rule of law, if this theory had prevailed Republican state legislatures would have gone hog wild on blatant rigging of elections by continuing to claim widescale voting fraud. Federal voting rights would be gone.
The vote was 6-3; a legitimate Supreme Court would have ruled 9-0. As it was, the vote was 6-3: Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Neil M. Gorsuch dissented. Even if the Republican Party was voted out of office everywhere, their partisans in the Judiciary with lifetime appointments will continue to do damage for years to come.
We’ve got a lot of work to do — but if Republicans are losing their grip on the mainstream media, it might get a little easier.
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