Newt Gingrich just gave something away
What do you do when you’re a shameless political hack whose failed, deeply unpopular, one-term loser, tin-god President is followed by the most popular president in recent history? Change your mind? Admit that maybe you were wrong? Go into hiding? Not if you’re Tucker Carlson. No, you double down and have Newt Gingrich come on your show and explain why you were right all along.
No, I’m not making this up. Tucker Carlson really does think that the best way to explain the defeat of a toxic, divisive, raping monster is to have a criminal tax cheat and moral hypocrite on his show to set the record crooked. Back in the 1990s Newt Gingrich was arguably the most corrupt Speaker of the House of Representatives in American history. He was heavily promoted back then by Rush Limbaugh. Eighty-four ethics charges were filed by Democrats against him while he was Speaker. He called his own party “cannibals” and resigned in disgrace. So in Tucker Carlson’s little world, maybe it takes a monster to defend a monster.
Carlson asked Gingrich, “Why did Biden pick the most divisive policies up front? Mr. Speaker, thanks for coming on tonight.” Just one thing, Carlson, it’s President Biden to you. And Gingrich is no longer Speaker of the House, so calling him “Mr. Speaker” is loathsome sycophancy.
Anyway, the President didn’t “pick the most divisive policies up front.” He did exactly what he said he was going to do and made fighting COVID his number one priority after taking office. Not only that, COVID is the most important issue to the American people, and it is most emphatically not anyone’s idea of a “divisive” policy. In fact, Former Guy the rapist lost the presidency precisely because of his appallingly corrupt and incompetent handling of COVID.
In any case, Gingrich took this freighted-with-lies question and ran with it. After an unmerited, superior chuckle, Gingrich said, “Well, it occurred to me that Biden had lived through two Democratic disasters.” He went on to explain that two years after both Presidents Obama and Clinton were elected, the House of Representatives swung Republican. That may sound familiar. It’s a common occurrence that happens to Democratic and Republican presidents alike. “I think what they’ve done is a very calculating, cynical ploy,” Gingrich continued, “which is they’ve given up on keeping the House. What they’re doing is ramming through everything they can get done before they lose in 2022. So this is kind of a sprint to radicalism.”
According to the Gingrich playbook, what Democrats ought to do, now that they have the Executive branch and both Houses of Congress, is exactly nothing. After all, that’s what Trump and the Republicans did. In his recounting of history, Gingrich conveniently failed to point out the most recent example of the “Republican Disaster,” that is, the 2018 Blue Wave sweep of the House of Representatives. Prior to that Republicans owned the Executive Branch and both Houses.
Yet despite this advantage, and because the Republican Party is no longer a party with a platform, very little was accomplished during Trump’s first two years. Certainly the House passed a massive tax break for the richest one percent. And the Senate rammed through two awful Supreme Court nominees. (Both were highly divisive issues, by the way.) But apart from that they mostly failed. They failed to get full funding for Trump’s ridiculous wall. And they failed to rob the American people of Obamacare. They failed in many of the little evil things they wanted to do because they themselves were a party divided and full of fractious infighting.
So like so many Republican whiners and moaners and complainers, Gingrich and Carlson want us to slow down and stop succeeding. They want us to fail, just like they did. Well, I have some very sad news for them. We’re not going to fail. We’re going to win. What’s more, we’re going to do our damndest to keep both Houses and the Presidency in 2022 and 2024. And thanks to the Former Guy and Republican greed and infighting and corruption, we have a very good chance of doing just that. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.