Congressional Republicans are now trying to spin their Durham loss into an even bigger loss
Whenever the Republicans make up a phony scandal about the Democrats, we really only have to worry about that scandal if the mainstream media decides to chase ratings by hyping that scandal for months on end as if it were real – because that ends up tricking rational, persuadable voters into believing that the phony scandal is real (think Hillary’s emails).
But if the mainstream media shows no prolonged interest in a phony scandal about the Democrats, and it’s only getting ongoing coverage from Fox News and the like, then it’s never going to change a single voter’s mind (think Hunter Biden’s laptop).
The Durham probe spent years falling into the latter category. No matter how much nightly hype it received from Fox News, it never made its way to a single person who wasn’t already going to emphatically vote Republican to begin with. And now that the Durham report has been released, we can once again expect it to remain in the latter category. Within two weeks no one but Fox News will still be talking about it, which means it’ll have zero impact.
Here’s the kicker though. Congressional Republicans don’t seem to know what to do with the Durham report. It’s a clear loss for them, but they’re either supposed to spin it as a clear win for them (so at least their base will believe it), or ignore it and move on to the next phony scandal. Instead, some of these Republicans are applying the kind of defeatist spin to the Durham report that can only cost their side votes.
For instance, Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville – who has shown zero political savvy since taking office – said this: “If people don’t go to jail for this, the American people should just stand up and say, ‘Listen, enough’s enough. Let’s don’t have elections anymore.'”
The outrage addicts on our side are all busy ranting about how awful it is that Tuberville is trying to get rid of elections – but they’re missing the point entirely. What Tuberville is actually saying, even if he doesn’t realize it, is that elections are pointless and there’s no point in voting. And since the only people listening to Tuberville are right wingers, he’s costing his side votes in the next election by talking like this.
For a generation the Republican Party has abided by one simple strategy: claim everything as a win. If they lose a battle, they just spin it as a win and keep going. After all, the impressionable right wing losers who vote Republican are attracted to strongman politicians, and there’s nothing more “strongman” in their eyes than politicians who always beat their chest and claim they’re winning.
But Tuberville is spinning the Durham report as a loss for his side. He’s basically saying that because Durham wasn’t able to get any criminal charges to stick against anyone, Republicans should just give up and not even bother participating in elections. That’s the dumbest possible messaging of all time.
We’ll see if congressional Republicans get any savvier about this as the week goes on. But given that the mainstream media already appears poised to immediately move on from the Durham non-story, the best Republicans can hope to do is to sell this as a win to their idiot base. Instead they’re portraying their own side as too weak and helpless to figure out how to put its enemies in prison. At this point Republican Senator Tuberville is doing everything he can to help the Democrats in 2024 – he’s just too stupid to know it.
