TRUMP’S DEMOCRATIC ”MOB” COMMENT IS PICKED UP BY KEY REPUBLICANS

…The Senate Majority Leader quickly picked up the Trump comment about Dems using “Mob Rule”

The key to surviving in politics is knowing when to actually listen to the voters.

The GOP is phenomenally outstanding at developing a political message that its many members can use to grab their political base.

Today, Trump owns what was once called the Republican Party, and it is clear that there's no going back.  He has irreversibly changed the GOP.  This upheaval might seem somewhat unusual, but occasional political party transformations have cropped up in the US, throughout its history.  (This one will have long lasting negative effects.)

However, now it’s the Democrats, who are making serious noises against the GOP, for what the Republicans are saying about the Dems.

This all came about after the president recently tweeted the following:

“You don’t hand matches to an arsonist, and you don’t give power to an angry left-wing mob. Democrats have become too EXTREME and TOO DANGEROUS to govern. Republicans believe in the rule of law — not the rule of the mob.”

And of course, as soon as this tweet went out, the “mob” reference got picked up by other key republicans

Those other Republicans took their lead from Trump’s comment.  “Mob rule,” was what the Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley (R-IA) said about the protests against the Kavanaugh appointment.  “Screaming animals,” was what Todd Starnes wrote at Fox News, who also added for good measure, that those who demonstrated in the Senate gallery should be “tasered, handcuffed and dragged out of the building.”

And as for Mr. Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader, he declared he is “proud of my members for not knuckling under to those kind of mob-like tactics.”

Just as Democrats once dismissed the outrage of Tea Party agitators having been wound up by the Koch brothers, Republicans now say they see the hand of the wealthy liberal, George Soros behind the hundreds who showed up to voice their objections to Judge Kavanaugh.  Of course, they have no proof that George Soros was actually involved, but they had to blame someone.

There was a time, just a decade ago, when the sound of red-faced protesters was music to all Republican ears.  That was back when Barack Obama was president, and the Tea Party movement was hijacking congressional town hall meetings with shouts of “Tyranny!”   There were plenty of shoving matches, and some Democratic lawmakers were even burned in effigy. The police were regularly called to these events, just to bring some semblance of order.

As to the case of possible Soros involvement, these conspiracy theories also carry a familiar touch of anti-Semitism, as of course Trump and other Republicans suggest.  All of this is, with absolutely no evidence, that the foreign-born, liberal Jewish billionaire is paying the demonstrators to do his bidding.  But this just a classic revival of an accusation from old GOP talking points.

President Trump also quickly jumped on the “paid protestor idea”, and as usual, with absolutely no proof, he tweeted: “The paid D.C. protesters are now ready to REALLY protest because they haven’t gotten their checks — in other words, they weren’t paid! Screamers in Congress, and outside, were far too obvious — less professional than anticipated by those paying (or not paying) the bills!”

The Republicans are pulling out all the stops to falsely convince the American public that all of this anger is being manufactured, and paid for, by an evil, liberal genius.  This is in the place of accepting the fact that these protests are actual evidence that a significant amount of the American public actually oppose what the Republicans have done.

Republicans contend that there is a major difference between the liberal protesters who confronted senators in the Capitol last week, versus the conservative Tea Party members who had previously aired their grievances at town hall meetings.

But it was extremely telling why that during this year’s August Congressional recess, most GOP lawmakers decided to NOT hold any town hall meetings.  This way they avoided facing a wave of their constituent’s fury.

                                                   

Fox News and the right-wing media have even overly increased the volume of these protests.  But the reality is that these protests are sometimes the only way for the offended individuals, both conservative & liberal, to make themselves heard over powerful interests.

As an example of what protests can achieve, back in 1989, the then House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill) had to deal with a group of angry seniors, from both parties, at a town hall meeting.  When his driver came to pick him up, the angry seniors surrounded Rostenkowski in his car in the parking lot. These protesting seniors were upset about the cost of a new Medicare catastrophic health-insurance program.

When one woman draped herself over the hood of his car, the 6-foot-4 congressman said something to his driver as he got out of the car.  He then walked away drawing the angry seniors away from the car.  The driver then drove around the block.  When the driver showed up across the street, Rostenkowski took off, dashing through a gas station as he jumped into the car and was driven away.

“These people don’t understand what the government is trying to do for them,’’ Rostenkowski had said to his driver as he fled the furious seniors.

Still, he and the House did get the senior's message. The Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act was repealed less than a year after it went into effect.

Sometimes, the key to surviving in politics is knowing when to actually listen to the voters.

This is a lesson that I doubt that President Trump or the Republicans will ever learn, but perhaps they will see some of the results of not listening, come this November 6.

Copyright G. Ater  2018