The rise of BS

In 2008, the day after Obama secured the Democratic nomination, during a call with a poli-sci prof friend, I said that McCain would now definitely pick a female running mate to try to attract some of the female voters pissed off that Hillary was out of the race. He agreed, saying there were a number of female Republican senators and governors who might make sense. As it turned out, there was one who made no sense (literally spoke gibberish) at all.

Last month HBO rebroadcast Game Change, their 2012 film about Sarah Palin’s arrival on the national scene as John McCain’s running mate in the 2008 election. Although I saw the film when it was first broadcast, I taped it to watch again, which I did last night.

First, no surprise that Julianne Moore won a Golden Globe for her portrayal of Palin.

 

So, fuck Steve Schmidt.

The line connecting the seismic effect the know-nothing governor of Alaska had on the psyche of a large sector of US voters and the election as president eight years later of a know-nothing reality TV star couldn’t be more obvious.

Was it the insurrection he unleashed on the Capitol building on January 6 that prompted HBO to rebroadcast Game Change? Or had they already recognised the arrival of Palin 2.0?

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I am indeed referring to quite possibly the most batshit crazy person ever elected to the House of Representatives. A gun-toting woman who has denied the school shootings in Sandy Hook and Parkland ever took place and gone out of her way to harass a survivor, who has called for the execution of Democratic leaders, who’s all in on QAnon is the new darling of the “fuck libtards” millions of Americans.

I can’t bear to even use her name, so let’s come up with an alias. How about BS (for both batshit and bull shit)?

If BS has done nothing else (although she’s done plenty) she has removed any lingering doubt that anyone might have had that the Republican party is well and truly fucked in the head.

Faced with mounting demands to denounce this wingnut, the Republican caucus gathered behind closed doors earlier this week to decide not just whether BS should be censured, but also if Liz Cheney should be stripped of her position for daring to vote for the impeachment of the Tangerine Wankmaggot.

In a secret (emphasis on secret) ballot there were 145 votes to allow Cheney to maintain her role as the number three ranked Republican in the house, with 61 voting against her.

Annoyingly, although I did hear the BS vote results the other night, I can’t seem to find them anywhere now. Apparently she got a standing ovation from nearly half the members. There were also a lot more than 11 votes to censure her.

Why mention 11? Well, as I’m sure you know, yesterday, given Republican inaction, there was a vote in the House to strip BS of her assignments on the education and business committees.

It wasn’t a straight party line vote. Eleven Republicans stuck their heads above the parapet to throw in with the Democrats. One can’t help wondering what the vote might have been if this had been a secret ballot.

I was slightly surprised that three of the Representatives were from Florida – not  always considered a bastion of sanity – until I learnt of the intense lobbying by Parkland parents who were horrified by the thought of BS, a school-shooting-denying fuckwit, sitting on the education committee. (Three of the eleven also voted to impeach Trump, although not the ones from Florida.)

How did this happen? How did BS ever get elected? Well, as I’ve previously stated, there are a lot of fucking morons amongst the US electorate. And there are a lot of gerrymandered districts, including Georgia’s 14th, which BS won. (Yes, the same state that voted for Biden and elected two Democratic senators, gave the country BS.) As I discovered, reading this fascinating New Yorker article, Georgia’s 14th has a population of 700,000, three quarters of whom voted for the Wankmaggot in 2016. (Apparently “more than six thousand recently signed a petition to save a local statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest, the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan”.) No surprise when it came to the primaries last year the only thing that interested the overwhelmingly Republican voters of the 14th was which candidate was the “Trumpiest”. Seriously, read the article. (And weep.)

Oh, and fuck Steve Schmidt.