Republicans Ran A ‘Bait And Switch’ Campaign, They Have No Intention Of Governing

For months, we were subjected to campaign ads from Republicans complaining about:

Inflation (Republicans have no plan)

Immigration (This was more about the Great Replacement Theory, Republicans have no immigration plan because they don’t want to fix the problem; they need a scapegoat for their “brown invasion” fear mongering to motivate their racist voters)

Crime (This was more about the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. According to 2019 FBI data, seven out of ten states with the highest per-capita rates of violent crime voted Republican in the 2020 election. In contrast, seven out of ten states with the lowest rates voted Democrat.)

On Wednesday, Republicans secured 218 votes in the House giving them what will be a slim majority. On Thursday, they held a press conference to tell Americans what they will do with their majority, and surprise! Not one word about inflation, immigration or crime. It was always the classic “bait and switch” to con the rubes into voting for Republicans. Now don’t you rubes feel used and abused?

The Republican Party is a post-policy party. It does not do policy, it does propaganda, or more accurately, trolling to “own the libs.” And the new GQP House will be choreographed and directed by the prime time propagandists at Fox News to focus on what these fascists feed Fox Nation every night in their media bubble.

Steve Benen explains, One day after securing a majority, House GOP flunks the key test:

Most observers agreed that it was inevitable, but on Wednesday night, the lingering uncertainty was finally resolved: House Republicans fell far short of expectations in the midterm elections, but they’d crossed the numeric threshold and secured a majority in the next Congress.

Some of the immediate focus was on the inescapability of legislative gridlock: Whatever the incoming GOP majority might want to pass will likely die given Democratic control of the Senate and the White House. But yesterday morning, I made the case that this probably won’t matter, at least not much, because Republicans aren’t especially interested in legislating anyway.

This is, after all, a post-policy party, indifferent toward governing. Republicans will obsess over Hunter Biden and pursue impeachment crusades, but as a New York Times analysis summarized, “Their agenda is investigative, not legislative.”

And as yesterday progressed, GOP lawmakers were kind enough to effectively endorse the thesis.

CNN got the ball rolling with this report, quoting Republican Rep. Brian Mast talking up the prospect of government shutdowns now that his party is poised to take control. “Nobody’s ever really liked (government shutdowns),” the Floridian said. “But I think you’re in a different state of play right now, where people will be, in part, pining for government shutdowns.”

Americans not getting their social security checks and other government benefits during  a government shutdown is a great idea! Yeah, you guys go ahead and do that. You will find out how well this works for you.

This video was actually put out by the GQP War Room.

Soon after, it was time for a head-spinning Capitol Hill press conference. Talking Points Memo reported:

Key soon-to-be House Republican committee chairs, flanked by members with funereal expressions and unintelligible visual aids, unveiled their big investigatory plans for January: something something Hunter Biden. For those not well-versed in the rabbit holes of the right’s Hunter Biden fixation, the “crimes” were a bit hard to follow.

At one point, one of the reporters covering the event asked the lawmakers a substantive question unrelated to the GOP conspiracy theories. Republican Rep. James Comer, who will soon lead the House Oversight Committee, quickly tried to nip the line of inquiry in the bud.

“If we could keep it about Hunter Biden, this is kind of a big deal, we think,” the Kentucky congressman said.

To be sure, the assembled Republicans certainly seemed to believe their Hunter Biden conspiracy theories were “kind of a big deal,” but to those of us without far-right decoder rings, the entire pitch was a mess.

The point of this is to try to convince voters that everyone in politics is corrupt so that people lose faith in our political system. It makes it easier for these fascists to take over. It is also to distract attention from the massive corruption by the Trump Crime Family during his one term in office, by focusing on Trump’s grievance politics. This is playing out in court right now, and will continue over the next year.

Soon after, Republican Chip Roy, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, told NBC News that he supports impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, adding, “It’s not even a close call.”

For good measure, Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, confirming earlier reporting, told Capitol Hill journalists that incoming GOP leaders are, in fact, on board with “investigations into the treatment of pre-trial Jan. 6 defendants.”

Take this in for a moment. This Coup Potter co-conspirator who aided the insurrectionists asserts that the MAGA/QAnon violent insurrectionists who tried to overturn American democracy on January 6, 2021 are somehow “political prisoners,” and asserts that these domestic terrorists are wrongly being “persecuted” (they are being prosecuted for their crimes).

All of this happened literally the first day after the party secured its House majority. This should’ve been a day in which Republicans proved that they’re prepared to govern and lead the people’s House. They did the opposite.

What Americans saw was a party that’s fundamentally unserious. On Thursday, it appeared the GOP was hardly even trying.

You did this, America. You put this GQP shitshow in charge of the House for the next 2 years. We are all going to suffer for your foolishness. Just remember that the GQP played you for fools with their “bait and switch” campaign in 2022. Don’t be fooled again in 2024.