Republicans are once again running around like chickens with their heads cut off in the wake of Tom Suozzi’s decisive special election win on Tuesday. MAGA can’t exactly admit the loss is a repudiation of their “movement,” so they’re forced to reach into the gleaming ether for explanations. (Apologies to chickens with their heads cut off, who, unlike MAGAs, have brains they can’t use, as opposed to brains they’ve chosen not to use.)
There’s not enough quicklime, activated charcoal, or Axe body spray in the multiverse to mask MAGA’s purpling political corpse, but GOP Golden Bro Matt Gaetz is sure gonna try his darnedest.
In a Wednesday interview on Newsmax, which plays in hell’s break room so tormented souls don’t complain too much about going back to headstands in sewage, Gaetz told host Eric Bolling that Republicans’ real problem these days is they’re trying too hard to be diverse and inclusive.
Watch!
Transcript!
GAETZ: “It turns out DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion] isn’t a real good strategy for Republican candidate recruitment. George Santos was no walk in the park, but he was at least a registered Republican. I think we were running this lady who was like a registered Democrat. She would not endorse President [sic] Trump. She lost by a substantial margin. George Santos stood with President Trump, backed the America First agenda, and he ultimately prevailed, so now the very New Yorkers who threw George Santos out see their own ranks diminished and they welcome back Democrat Tom Suozzi. Because, look, there’s only three categories of people who’ve ever been expelled in the United States Congress: people who participated in the Civil War, people who have been found guilty of a crime, and George Santos. And I don’t know that we’ve done ourselves any favor in that regard.”
One could argue that Suozzi was boosted by Donald Trump’s 11th-hour decision to tank the bipartisan immigration bill, even as Suozzi’s opponent, Mazi Pilip, clung to the border issue like a sinking dinghy. But Bro-MAGA Man’s petrified brain pan appears unable to absorb new information, so Gaetz may not fully grasp how truly unpopular, and unhinged, his Dear Leader’s movement has become—and how much their bonkers MAGA bona fides are costing them in special elections.
So of course: It must be that America prefers “Jew-ish” dudes who steal from dying dogs and love Trump to candidates of color who treat Trump like the pariah he is and rightly should be.
Or maybe Gaetz is simply hoping to forestall his own inevitable ouster.
Either way, the GOP appears to be in a real bind these days. They want to recruit more diverse candidates so they can claim they’re actually a rainbow coalition of freedom lovers (not just white dudes this time) who want to geotag our uteri. But that may be a particularly heavy lift, considering that people like Gaetz still exist and keep saying what they’re actually thinking on live television. Indeed, while the GOP is making a concerted effort to recruit women, minority candidates, and veterans, they’re creating a conspicuous cognitive dissonance among their followers.
When asked what she makes of the House Republican focus on recruiting females and minorities, the chair of the campaign arm for House Democrats was skeptical.
“I think they say a lot of things, but I think their actions really are what folks should look at,” said Rep. Suzan DelBene, the chair of the campaign arm for House Democrats. “And their actions have been the opposite. They mock diversity and equity, and they put forward policies that go against diverse communities across the county.”
DelBene is referring in part to the scores of policy mandates that House Republicans have included in spending bills. Most of the bills sought to prohibit taxpayer dollars from going to offices and programs related to diversity, equity and inclusion, which focus on ensuring fair treatment and participation of all people, especially those that have been subject to discrimination.
Wait, they preach one thing, while going out of their way to do the opposite? There’s a word for that. Ah, yes, here it is: Republican.
Then again, it’s possible that Gaetz, who’s personally responsible for much—maybe even most—of the GOP’s current dysfunction, thinks he’s the only Republican who’s any good at recruiting female candidates for, uh, whatever. As Daily Kos’ Walter Einenkel notes:
A report came out on Wednesday that the House ethics probe into Rep. Matt Gaetz is heating up. New text messages between Gaetz and a young woman, who was receiving payments for sex from former Gaetz associate Joel Greenberg, were obtained by federal investigators into the matter.
According to ABC News, the text messages from 2017 between the Florida man and the unidentified woman concern him asking if she had “any interest in flying on a private plane” for a three-day weekend trip to the Florida Keys. Gaetz followed this up by describing the potential trip as “2 guys, 4 girls. A very high-quality adventurous group.” The woman, who was older than 21 at the time, initially agreed to the trip, to which Gaetz allegedly replied, “Fantastic. As is true with all time you spend w me, it’ll be fun and chill […] You have a passport?”
Well, that’s … inconvenient. When the GOP says they need to embrace female candidates, they don’t mean like that. But good luck with all of that, Matt. And when Trump finally and forever throws you under the bus, don’t say you weren’t warned.
Check out Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s four-volume Trump-trashing compendium, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link.
