Don't Forgive The MAGA Voting Clowns Debating Tonight
Every single one of them is unqualified to run for president.
by Ben Cohen
In the wake of Jan. 6th, almost every politician close to and supportive of Donald Trump turned their back on him. They condemned the then president for inciting a disgraceful attack on the nation’s capitol.
“It was totally unacceptable and those folks need to be held accountable,” said Ron DeSantis at a news conference on January 7th. “It doesn’t matter what banner you’re flying under, the violence is wrong, the rioting and the disorder is wrong.”
Chris Christie told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt that: “January 6 was a riot that was incited by Donald Trump in an effort to intimidate Mike Pence and the Congress into doing exactly what he said in his own words last week: overturn the election. He wanted the election to be overturned.”
Nikki Haley told Politico: “We need to acknowledge he [Trump] let us down…He went down a path he shouldn’t have, and we shouldn’t have followed him, and we shouldn’t have listened to him. And we can’t let that ever happen again.”
With this kind of condemnation, you might think that the GOP candidates running for President in 2024 would strongly oppose Trump’s candidacy. But when your party is filled with spiritless cowards controlled by a seething mob of racist voters, flip flopping is a required part of the job. Republican politicians change their positions according to the whims of MAGA voters, and MAGA voters change their positions according to the whims of their deeply disturbed leader. So if Trump decides his candidacy is justified, the GOP has to go along with it.
This isn’t an unspoken rule — it has been mandated by the Republican Party. To qualify for the debate tonight, the GOP is demanding candidates not only meet polling and fundraising thresholds, but sign a loyalty pledge stating they will support the Republican nominee and forgo a third-party bid of their own.
Here’s a list of the qualifying candidates who will appear on stage tonight, their votes in the past two elections, their views on the integrity of the 2020 election, and whether they have signed the loyalty pledge:
North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum Voted for Trump 2016/2020. Signed loyalty pledge.
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie Voted for Trump 2016/2020. Signed the loyalty pledge.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis Voted for Trump 2016/2020. Signed loyalty pledge. Has cast doubt on 2020 election integrity (and pledged to pardon many Jan. 6th rioters).
Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley Voted for Trump 2016/2020. Signed loyalty pledge.
Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson Voted for Trump 2016/2020. Signed the loyalty pledge.
Former Vice President Mike Pence Voted for Trump 2016/2020. Signed the loyalty pledge.
Vivek Ramaswamy Voted for Trump 2016/2020. Signed loyalty pledge. Believes Jan. 6th riot was a conspiracy theory.
South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott Voted for Trump 2016/2020. Signed the loyalty pledge.
What does this tell us about the Republicans running for president? That every single one of them voted for a deranged racist for President, not once, but twice. Not only that, every single Republican running for office has publicly pledged to vote for whoever the eventual nominee will be. Given this will be almost certainly be Donald Trump, the candidates have basically endorsed him for for a third time. Yes, Chris Christie has said he doesn’t take the pledge seriously, but he still signed it, and as brave as he is on television in 2023, he’ll bow like he did in 2016 and 2020 to Trump when GOP voters make their choice next year.
Voting for Trump once should disqualify any candidate for the presidency. We knew in October of 2016 that he bragged about sexually assaulting women.
“I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them,” Trump was caught saying on a hot mic during the filming of an Access Hollywood show.
“It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.”
We knew that Trump was a liar, a cheat, and the least qualified person to run the country in American history. Every single Republican who qualified for tonight’s debate knew this too, but they defended his grotesque character and voted for him anyway.
We covered the insanity of the Trump administration for four long years watching the gutting of the civil service, the weaponization of the Justice Department, the impeachment(s), and the horrific and entirely unnecessary deaths of over 400,000 Americans during the Covid pandemic. Not a single candidate running in 2024 said or did anything to stop the bloodbath. Not a single candidate voted for either of Trump’s impeachments, even after he incited a mob to storm the Capitol building and murder his political rivals.
How has the media responded to their severe abdication of duty and borderline treasonous complicity? By repeating the exact same mistakes they made in the past two elections.
Instead of hammering the candidates and refusing to give them airtime to propagate their excuses, the media is going out of its way to normalize every Republican running for office. The candidates haven’t been raked over the coals for supporting, protecting, and voting for a madman. Instead, they’ve been given rehabilitation tours on cable news:
Vivek Ramaswamy is a particular media favorite, despite the fact that he is a 9/11 conspiracy theorist and believes it is “unproductive for our country to blame Trump for January 6, because it exonerates everyone else from introspection on what actually led to the frustrations of Americans that boiled over that day.”
In the Trump era, Ramaswamy’s conspiracism is amateur hour stuff. The peppy tech billionaire is being portrayed as the positive candidate who might be a little whacky, but charismatic enough “to go a lot further,” as Bill Maher effused on his podcast recently.
Tonight’s debate is pretty pointless given Donald Trump isn’t going to be there, but we are going to see a lot of hot takes on which candidate performed best, who was the most effective at attacking Trump, and whether they had any ideas beyond persecuting minorities and humiliating trans people.
The truth is, none of it matters. Every candidate vying for the Republican candidacy is a danger to their country and completely unqualified to hold public office. Never forget this, and never normalize it.
Read an excerpt of the latest for Banter Members and get 50% off a Banter Membership:
The Age Of The Untouchable Right Wing Is Over
The aura of unaccountability is evaporating and you can taste Republican fear in the air.
by Justin Rosario
For longer than I’ve been alive, the American right wing has enjoyed a special status in America. Not only did they enjoy the perks that come with being (mostly) white men, they have been able to indulge in criminal acts with a level of impunity that almost beggars the imagination.
The racist white men who killed 14-year-old Emmett Till were never held accountable despite everyone knowing they were vicious animals who slowly tortured a child to death. Thousands of racist white men looted and burned Black communities across the United States for decades, murdering thousands of Blacks Americans with little to no fear of consequences. In the service of white supremacy, Republicans have stolen elections, suppressed minority votes, and brazenly violated the law at both the state and federal level for generations. Sometimes they go to jail. Overwhelmingly, they brag about it without repercussion.
With this historic level of immunity to inform their decisions, it’s little wonder that we’ve seen a sharp escalation in right-wing lawlessness over the last 15 years. The election of a Black president sent an unmistakable signal that, not to be too blunt about it, white power was threatened. Something had to be done. Something drastic. And why not go all the way and topple democracy? When you’re untouchable, you can do anything, anything at all.
But the age of the untouchable right wing is over. What comes next?
Touchable
There’s a scene in Brian De Palma’s The Untouchables where Oscar Wallace (played by Charles Martin Smith) is assassinated in an elevator. This is a little more than halfway through the movie and marked a key turning point in the film. Suddenly, Elliot Ness (played by Kevin Costner), realizes that he and his “Untouchables” are, in fact, not beyond the reach of Robert De Niro’s Al Capone. Fear and paranoia grips Ness, almost crippling his efforts to take down the notorious mobster:
This is an excerpt from today’s Members Only piece. Continue reading here and get 50% off a Banter Membership. The Banter is 100% independent and entirely dependent on our subscribers. Many thanks for your support!
