“You got to know when to hold ’em, Know when to fold ’em, Know when to walk away, And know when to run.” – Kenny Rogers
Washington often refers to the ugly parts of DC as the sausage-making. It is the unsavory process that must take place for us to arrive at an end legislative product. I submit to you that they’re not in the meat business at all, but rather in the adhesive business. You see when you’re processing meat to make sausage, there is a sweet spot of consistency that ensures the quality of your product. Too little processing and your sausage are likely to be lumpy. Too much processing and your sausage are likely to be mushy. Washington, and more specifically Democrats, bypass the recipe for consistency and bludgeon the dead animal until it is good for nothing but boiling down for glue. In cards, we call this overplaying your hand. Colloquially, we call this beating a dead horse.
Unfortunately, rarely is this process remotely related to governing at all. Instead, what we are typically subjected to is a laundry list of tabloid fodder that appeals to the base emotion of society and discounts rationale. It was Obama and Clinton acolyte and former mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emmanuel, who famously said: “never let a serious crisis go to waste.” And what he meant by that was never let an opportunity to create a serious crisis go to waste. Time and again over the last 4 years we saw contrived scandal after scandal deployed and overplayed with the intent of manipulating the emotions of the American public to achieve some ends. And in the post-truth society that we live in, manufacturing controversy is acceptable so long as the ends justify the means.
Let’s have a look at a small sampling of the “glue” produced by Democrats over the last 4 years. First, you have the Spygate Russian Collusion nonsense; a smear piece paid for by the DNC and Hillary Clinton Campaign. It was used to dirty up Trump and cost the taxpayers in excess of $40 million dollars, 6+ investigations, and 3 years of wasted legislative opportunity. The leftist press for their part subjected the public to 3 years of end-to-end tabloid publicity that trumpeted new false revelations to great bravado, only to be quietly retracted later. And then there were the serial gang-rape parties thrown by Justice Brett Kavanaugh according to Julie Swetnick. Aside from clearly manufactured claims, how many gang rape parties do you have to attend before they become non-consensual affairs? Let’s not forget the kids in cages claim bolstered by photos taken in 2014 during the Obama Administration. Or maybe there’s the “very fine people” press conference where the corporate press edits out any and all context referring to the permitted organizations in Charlottesville, VA, who had nothing to do with white supremacists? How about the end of Net Neutrality, which was really the end of the planet as we knew it? Or how about the Syrians and the Kurds who we left out to dry by not engaging in their Civil War, thus allowing them to return to their homes? That one really grinds the gears of Raytheon! And we can’t leave out Jussie Smollett and his adventures in MAGA Country Chicago. What wild tales we have woven!
All of this brings us to the latest batch of glue: the January 6th “Capitol Insurrection”. January 6th epitomizes the glue-making process. If ever there was a case of extracting maximum political value out of an event, this is it! An honest operator is asking questions such as why did the Capitol Police Board refuse offers for National Guard support ahead of time? Why is there ample video of Capitol Police opening gates, barriers, and doors and directing protestors through facilities? How is it that we have a known BLM organizer on the frontlines inside the Capitol and receipts for $70k in compensation from CNN and MSNBC? How is it that we call this an insurrection when not a single person has been shown to be armed? Did they really plan to overthrow the government with their bare hands? How is it that despite tens of thousands of participants outside the Capitol they were able to be deterred by a handful of Capitol Police? If they wanted to take this facility, it would have been theirs. Or perhaps there was never any insurrection of the Capitol? How is it that the benefits of this production go exclusively in one direction? The only death actually shown to be associated with Capitol intrusion was that of an unarmed Trump supporter; and months later, the officer involved has yet to be named. We all know who Derek Chauvin is, so who shot Ashli Babbitt? And when the narrative fell apart that the Capitol incursion started 20 minutes before Trump finished his speech, the narrative changed to months-long complaints of electoral malfeasance as the catalyst. And what is the ultimate result of this event? Another sham impeachment where they literally fabricated evidence and the absolute shutdown of any debate on electoral malfeasance on the floor of Congress or in the press.
What has followed the Capitol intrusion in the last few months is the propagation of the Nazi phrase “the Big Lie”. We’ve seen the canceling of anyone who dares to question the preferred electoral narrative. Washington has been occupied by upward of 25k National Guard troops. Fences and razor wire have been put in place around public facilities, and the press has served up wall-to-wall coverage and references to the desecration of our sacred spaces. Every bad law in history from the Indian Removal Act to Jim Crow has been passed in the halls of Congress, so they’re only hallowed spaces if your Church is the State. Not too long ago these spaces weren’t considered so sacred when leftist protestors occupied the Supreme Court and beat on the doors during the Kavanaugh confirmation. I won’t pass judgment; occupying public spaces in protest is as American as apple pie.
Finally, I would be remiss to not give Republicans credit where credit is due: the selling of the insurrection narrative is only made possible by weak-kneed Republicans. Either they’re too cowardly to ask questions and defer judgment, or they stood to benefit from the result: Orange Bad Man is gone. I don’t find a lot of wiggle room in the middle and their about-face on deliberation speaks volumes. In short, if it’s Jimmy Dean you’re looking for, Washington DC is not your place. But if you’re in need of some Elmer’s, they make it in spades.
“You’ve got to stop whipping a dead horse sometime.” – Jim Knight
Photo by Harun Tan from Pexels
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