Bryan Lanza, speaking on the BBC Newshour podcast, 11/7/20
The spin is absolutely dizzying. Fortunately I was raking leaves when I heard this and could steady myself with my rake. But the depth of this guy's depraved indifference to Consensus Reality left me stunned. And in awe.
Now, this Bryan Lanza is an interesting character. Formerly a communications director for the Trump campaign and transition team in 2016-17, he has since cultivated ties to Ukraine, just as the White House was under investigation for pushing their president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, for dirt on the Bidens. That didn't go anywhere, of course, but apparently neither did Lanza. More's the pity.
At any rate, he's hardly an impartial, or even a rational observer. He is on record as calling the Congressional investigation of Mr. Trump a "sham impeachment" and a "partisan coup."* He's one of those hyaena-like creatures who seem to exist in the public sphere mainly to bark in time to whatever the Duke of Deceit says is the topic du jour. He and Kellyanne Conway and Sarah Huckabee-Sanders and Sean Spicer and Devin Nunes and Lindsay Graham and...
And today the theme is denying the Duke's demise at the ballot box, a sausage that the Suffering Trumpists will no doubt swallow whole ... that is, if they actually bother to listen to the BBC, which I doubt few will do. It ain't American, and we're trying to Make/Keep 'Merca great.
Where to begin? This whole statement is low-hanging fruit. Let's start at the beginning, then: Trumpism is the highest vote-getter in GOP history. In the original version broadcast on the BBC, he added that the D of D had gotten the "second-highest vote total in history." Obviously, no one wins an election by getting the second highest vote total! You win by getting the most votes.
And in fact, had the GOP not cheated by removing hundreds of thousands of left-leaning voters in MI, WI and NC,** the D of D would never have been elected in the first place, 'cause he lost the popular vote that time, too!
Surely the actual brains in the GOP must grasp this basic arithmetic: The "Trump coalition" is a losing coalition. He turned out some 5 or 6 million more votes this time, but then, so did Biden...and more. Unless you are prepared to steal every election from now until 2100, Trumpism is a losing bet, and that cannot be lost on the Cold Calculators in the GOP establishment.
Lanza says they grew the GOP's share of minority voters this time round. And that's partly true: They went from 10% of the African-American vote in 2016 to 12% — hardly a stunning turnaround. But for the Latinx community, well...Biden actually outperformed HRC this time — 66% vs. 65%!*** How that counts as "growing the base" is a mystery to me.
Yes, the key was in FL, where Cubans seem to have gone for the D of D in larger numbers. But that hardly counts as a major win for him: Elsewhere and among other nationalities, a huge turnout by younger Latinx voters more than offset the Duke's gains in FL and south TX (which did not matter to the election, anyway).
Since when has the Cuban community been the sole representative of the Latinx population in the US? Only when the Liar-in-Chief is involved!
But the most startling comment of all comes right at the end: Politics — the management of power and authority to govern over 300 million people — is just a game with a ball that might bounce here or might bounce there.
I mean, this gesture at being "philosophical" is truly astonishing, if you
really stop and think about it. Lanza is saying that what people actually want from their government is nothing more than a whim, a matter of chance that depends upon the weather, maybe, like a capricious bouncing ball...Oh well, if you don't win today, it has nothing to do with what you said or did, or who you really are. It's all about making the ball bounce the right way. Ahem.
 |
| A bouncing ball |
I mean, to actually advertise one's callousness like that. Wow! The sobering thing is that I actually have no doubt at all that that is how many important people in the GOP actually think. Not the rank and file, mind you. No, they are the victims of this philosophy.
But behind the curtain, the machinery that keeps the great lie-machine turning out hooey in Republicanville, that absolutely does think this way. And so it's time for all Republicans of good heart to get out the lie detectors.
** See Greg Palast's reporting on Kris Kobach's Interstate Crosscheck program. Suddenly the incomprehensibles of 2016 will start to make a lot more sense.
*** https://www.sfchronicle.com/local-politics/article/Latino-voters-overwhelmingly-supported-Biden-in-15705786.php and https://en.as.com/en/2020/11/10/latest_news/1604967286_230805.html and https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/06/why-biden-lost-the-latino-vote-florida-texas-434735
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