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Hey y’all – If You’re new to the podcast, this is season two, if you want to go back to season one, you might have a little bit of a better understanding of kind of where I’m coming from. But in a nutshell, I grew up at the intersection of sort of Evangelicalism and Republicanism. So I speak the language, it’s my neighborhood, I can show you around and give you a little tour behind the scenes. And if you’re not a very political person, some of these headlines might make more sense. And if I can make you laugh along the way, then all the better.
So much to cover today, but let’s start with the Republican National Committee. It’s my old stomping grounds at 310 First Street. The RNC hullabaloo is connected to January 6, and I owe you an update on that. Also connected to these two things are Donald Trump’s recent comments at yet another rally, and the comments from Mike Pence and a few others in relation to what he had to say. So all this stuff feeds into itself – it is all connected. We have lots to cover, so let’s get started.
Alright, so I don’t want to be a total nerd, but I do want to give you a real quick down and dirty on what the RNC and the DNC are. The Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee are the parent companies, if you would, for the respective parties. That’s kind of it in a nutshell. They’re like the headquarters and among other things,they are in charge of presidential elections. Now this scandal is specific to the RNC – the Republican side. The RNC is made up of National Committeemen and National Committeewomen who are elected in their individual states to represent them as part of the governing body for the party apparatus. So party politics… party operation…that’s the best way to explain it. They’re really not supposed to get into inner-party squabbles, and they’re not supposed to choose sides. They’re supposed to represent all Republicans, whether they agree or not… that’s generally been the deal. That’s why it’s such a scandal that they came together and passed this resolution. And first of all, they haven’t done a whole lot lately – that didn’t even pass a platform in 2020. Because they just said, ‘Yeah, whatever Trump wants, we want.’ A document that is generally around 65 pages long was reduced to a single page. I’ll put it on my website for you here. But they mustered the energy to pass a resolution to censure Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for the high crime of serving on the January 6th committee. (Now remember, that’s the committee that’s come together to investigate what happened at the Capitol on January 6th… it really shouldn’t be a controversial thing.) This document accuses them of sabotaging “President” Trump (Um, its former President) And…this is my favorite part… they have engaged in actions that are not befitting Republican members of Congress.
(AUDIO: Bomb drop) Don’t you love irony?
This is the political equivalent of conduct unbecoming, which is borderline hilarious when you consider the fact that among their ranks are a woman who called for the execution of Nancy Pelosi and a guy who’s under federal investigation for sex trafficking. (I mean, if you’re gonna start censoring people, you miiiiight think about starting there. )
But the fact is, they’re out of their depth. They are the Barney Fife of disciplinary action and have no business getting into this. The thing that’s made all the headlines, though, is the fact that they called the riot on January 6, wait for it…legitimate political discourse. You read that right. This resolution was a written document that was deliberated over and thought through… not some rogue who stood up and made a terrible gaffe. That came later… the person who’s now the chairman of the National Committee, another fun fact is a woman named Ronna Romney. Now, if the name Romney sounds familiar to you, it should because her uncle Mitt happens to be a senator from Utah and he also ran against Barack Obama for President in 2012. The Romneys are generally an impressive bunch of people – they are they’re tall and they’re attractive and they’re articulate and they are just kind and good people. And then there’s Ronna…. and I’ve never been able to figure that one out. Nothing personal, she just seems like a dance mom in Twist-a-beads. I don’t get it. She’s just not very Romney-esque. Anyway, that’s beside the point and I’m picking on her because she’s the Trumpiest Trumper who ever lived – she’s helplessly devoted to Donald Trump, evidenced by the fact that she still has her job. She was RNC Chairman in 2020 when they lost the House, the Senate and the White House. Never in the history of politics has somebody kept their job after that much of a shellacking. So she decides to give a statement, thinking she’s going to clarify. You know when you want to try to undo something and sometimes you end up making it worse? That’s exactly what she did – she just dug the hole deeper and she actually doubled down on legitimate political discourse. Ugh.
Now, if you’re anything like me, you’ve been kind of waiting for the dam to break, and I think we finally might be beginning to see some hairline cracks. As I’ll touch on in a minute, we’re finally starting to see some prominent republicans stand up and say enough is enough. But at the heart of it all has been one person, unafraid, standing firm. And that person is Liz Cheney. (AUDIO: Dragon roar)
I like to joke about her being Mother of Dragons, because I’ve made no secret of the fact that I think she’s a badass. But it goes well beyond being a badass. And this is not to take away from Adam Kinzinger, but Liz Cheney has a lot to lose. And she also is one of the only people that has the stature, gravitas and intellect, and the reputation and respect of so many of her colleagues to be able to do what she’s been able to do. And she has put at all on the line…the house republicans have thrown her out of House leadership, and challenged her in her primary. They’re throwing the kitchen sink at her and she’s one of the few people that’s been willing to take it. Remember, Liz Cheney voted with Donald Trump a lot of the time… she doesn’t disagree with a lot of the policy – just like a lot of you out there like his policy. Liz Cheney as a conservative’s conservative. But when she saw what Donald Trump did on January 6th and how he behaved in the aftermath, it was clear that she had one job… to help us protect this democracy. These people serving on the committee – on both sides of the aisle – and the and the people that have had the courage to stand up understand that, for a short period of time, we’ve got to come together and get this resolved. Because you don’t bicker about what color to paint the kitchen when your gosh dang house is on fire.
Okay, but why discredit Kinzinger and Cheney… what’s the big deal? The big deal is that their presence makes this a bipartisan committee and not a horde of dead-eyed socialist flesh-eating zombies that are out to destroy the country and take down the Republican Party. That’s not what this is about. It has become a fact-finding mission. This committee is legitimate because Cheney is legitimate… And that’s way more terrifying to them than socialist zombies.
Okay, so what are they so afraid of? What does the January 6th committee actually have? You know when one domino falls and then the rest of them begin to fall? That’s what’s happening here… people are starting to cooperate – people that matter, people that were in the room with this president, people who saw his reactions on January 6, as crowds were storming the Capitol who watched him rip up documents and shove him in his pant pockets, people who found wads of documents shoved in the toilet.
This is like out of a movie. There are 15 boxes of documents that were illegally taken to Mara Lago that contain classified information. I mean, it feels like the helicopter circling in that in part of Goodfellas, except instead of a wild eyed Ray Liota, sweating cocaine and gin, he’s sweating out Diet Coke and powdered donuts. As I record this, there are professional archivists with their peepers on with a big ol’ mountain of scotch tape trying to reassemble these scraps of paper that you know are just covered in Cheeto dust and shame.
Then you’ve got the Vice President’s team – the Chief of Staff for VP Mike Pence, a guy named Marc short, who’s cooperating fully with this committee, who was at the Vice President’s elbow in the White House that day. He was also in the US Capitol when the secret service whisked Pence and his family to safety as the rioters chanted to have him killed while constructing a gallows on the Capitol lawn. Marc was there and he’s talking. The committee also has Vice President Pence’s official papers and records of what occurred on that day – 400 testimonies have taken place already.
So back to the original question…what are the people that are obstructing this committee So afraid of? I believe the legal term is evidence. So it could be that the House Republicans aren’t exactly a group of Mensa candidates, and maybe one of them didn’t know the difference between the Nazi police and cold tomato soup.
AUDIO: “…And now we have Nancy Pelosi’s gazpacho police.” (Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-GA)
…But they’re smart enough to be nervous about what this committee is going to find.
“A lie can get halfway around the world before the truth can even put on its boots.”
You know that old quote? Well, the truth has been taken its own sweet time, that’s for sure. In the absence of respected people standing up and telling the truth, a lot of Americans have started to believe a lot of lies. And the longer a lie stands, the more deeply entrenched it is and the more it becomes their belief. You know as well as I do that belief is a powerful thing. You probably have friends and family that have kind of gone round the bend with some of the stuff they believe right now. Unraveling the crazy is going to take some doing because belief doesn’t fall easily. (That’s why cults are such a big deal….its why they’re such a problem) When someone strongly believes something, they can’t be convinced otherwise by just anyone – it must be someone they put stock in – somebody from their own party, church, family… someone from their side. But when Donald Trump goes to Texas, and he claims that if re-elected he’ll issue pardons for those who have been convicted for January 6th, and he says that Mike Pence should have overturned the election, its a bridge too far. Statements like this force the hand of people who are influential conservative republicans to push back… which brings me to Leader Mitch McConnell. Senator McConnell really doesn’t want to talk about Donald Trump or January 6th anymore. He’d really like to talk about the Democrats overspending because he really wants to be majority leader again. Trump already cost him the majority in the Senate once and now he can see it happening all over again. He’s like that clean up guy they call in the mafia movies when somebody gets whacked… he’s the clean up guy. Statements like this are the equivalent of him mopping the blood off the walls…
“It was a violent insurrection for the purpose of trying to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after a legitimately certified election, from one administration, to the next. That’s what it was.”
Republican Leader Mitch McConnell
And there it is, y’all. He’s said it multiple times and I applaud him for saying it again. Further, if he has to say it every day until Jesus comes back, that’s what he should do, because there are way too many republican voters and frankly, way too many republican congressmen out there saying the exact opposite.
On the positive side, there has been a steady drumbeat from republican senators, who are finally standing up and clearly proclaiming that the election was fair and free, and riots are not, as the RNC claimed, legitimate political discourse. Perhaps this is the dam beginning to break because some of these other people are finally willing to have the courage to do and say what Liz Cheney has been saying all along.
This series of events has inspired another person to speak up – who hasn’t spoken up really at all in their own defense. Someone who was maligned and mocked and actually targeted by the former president, his own vice president, Mike Pence. He had this to say…
“And I heard this week, the President Trump said I had the right to overturn the election. President Trump is wrong. I had no right to overturn the election. The presidency belongs to the American people and the American people alone. And frankly, there is no idea more on American than the notion than any one person could choose the American president.”
Former Vice President Mike Pence
Can I get an AMEN? I mean, the guy just sounds like a preacher, doesn’t he? You can’t really find a more evangelical politician than Mike Pence. This is what’s so amazing to me, is that all of you Christian activists out there (the ones who are still Trump loyalists) … the notion that you would choose a person with the character of Donald Trump, over a lifelong evangelical like Mike Pence is not something I can wrap my head around. And let me be clear, I don’t know that I believe this is coming from a place of virtue… I think Pence is trying to maintain some political viability because he’s kind of looked like a chump for the last six years.
And it was not lost on me that he still called him President Trump, (and he AIN’T president anymore) so even in saying Trump is wrong, he’s still kind of licking the boots a little bit… but fine – whatever…I’ll take it. I shouldn’t pick it to death. He actually stood up, which is great. But understand, Trump forced his hand – he pushed and pushed and pushed…and then he comes out and says that Pence had the right under the Constitution and the responsibility to overturn an election. At that point, it became incumbent upon Pence to set the record straight. And let’s be clear, he did hold the line. Granted, he had to call his buddy Dan Quayle, another former VP from the state of Indiana, just to see if he could get permission. And I think Quayle said…
(AUDIO) No. No. NOOOOOOO!”
But seriously, I have a question for some of you out there, for whom the pro life thing is the most important thing to you. Maybe it’s the reason you have justified supporting Trump all these years. For some of my friends and some of my family, it’s the most important issue… and I don’t, in any way, want to discredit that or belittle that. But I am curious… if there was a showdown between Trump and Pence, who would you choose? Would you choose Mr. Two Corinthians who’s built a brand out of lying, and you wouldn’t leave in a room with your daughter for a skinny minute? I mean, okay, he gave you pro life judges, but he did it to get your votes – it was transactional, as most of you already know. But match him up against a guy like Mike Pence…who actually believes what you believe, who has actually read the Bible and when he reads it, he doesn’t hold it upside down.
I’m just curious. Although, it’s not likely to matter much because Trump holds 57% of the primary vote to DeSantis and Pence has I think 11 and 12, respectively. So the bad news for republicans is if Trump is reasonably healthy and not in jail, chances are he’s going to end up in your nominee. So he’s going to work with his good buddy Ronna over at the RNC, and he’s going to use a couple hundred million dollars to replace reasonable republicans with wackadoodle MAGA people.
All this maneuvering to stay ahead of the law and stay out of jail might get Trump the nomination. But should he continue to enjoy Christian support?
I mean, I’m just asking…
On the bright side, you’re starting to see more and more republican senators and republicans of stature channel their inner Michael Stipe and take a stand. And that’s a good thing. Yeah, it’s a little bit late. Yeah. Could it have been sooner and louder? Yes. But you know what, let’s take what we can get, people. These overreaches and gaffes by the RNC and by Trump have forced people’s hands- it’s gotten to the place where people of conscience have to stand up and say something in order to maintain any credibility whatsoever. And you know, in order for the Republican Party to continue to function, they’re going to have to get their credibility back. You know how they say that sunlight is a great disinfectant… (It’s even better than drinking Clorox!)
So the January 6th committee is going to shed light on a lot of this – we’re going to get a lot of evidence, we’re going to get a lot of facts, and then we’re going to know what actually happened- who was involved and who, exactly, knew what. And maybe it’ll turn out to be nothing…( but I feel like it won’t)
Oh and hey – If you’re one of those people that thinks the world is better off without a Republican Party, here’s the problem with that…let’s say you’re playing a game, and you got two teams but one team refuses to accept a loss. Guess what? You don’t have a game anymore. We cannot have a democracy with one functioning political party. And for all your republican pearl-clutches out there with your “Well, I didn’t like Trump’s language, but I liked his policy. And what about AOC? And what about this, And what about that, and Nancy Pelosi is trying to make my dog wear a mask!” All that stuff. Just just table all of that for a minute.
I don’t care if you’re Republican or a Democrat, or an Independent or Libertarian, or a Socialist, or Communist or Goat Herder … our one job right now is just to make sure this democracy holds. It’s to make sure that this fragile democracy stays in place so that we can live to fight another day. So we can argue about taxes and health care and masks, and whatever else…. later. Look, all that stuff’s important. But if we don’t get this right, none of that other stuff is going to matter.
This is my one push back: Now your friends and family may not care what you know what the newspaper says or what the facts are….
(AUDIO”I’m not concerned with facts, not if they interfere with my beliefs.”)
…But they DO care what you think and what you believe. Do you know what happens when people are sitting around talking trash or just batshit nonsense and you don’t say anything at all? They assume that you agree with them. You’re in their world, you’re in their echo chamber…you might be the only chance they’ve got for any shred of truth or sliver of reality. And I’m not suggesting that you pick fights or be disagreeable because the fact is, that won’t get you anywhere. But we can stand up for what we believe in without being ugly about it. Right? Lets just channel our inner Liz Cheney… just roll down the windows and crank up REM and sing along with Michael Stipe… lets do a little truth telling.
If we all do our part sooner or later, the fever’s gonna break. That’s all I got for y’all today. Thanks again for joining in and have a great weekend – I’ll talk to you next time.
