Baseless attacks show desperate GOP
Trump and Republicans have put U.S. in crisis
Conservatives from President Donald Trump on down are weaving a fiery, comforting fantasy about Democrats in these final weeks before the midterm elections. They are a party of ardent socialists who would inflict Medicare on everyone and bankrupt the country. Their presidential front-runner for 2020 is Stormy Daniels lawyer Michael Avenatti. The Brett Kavanaugh affair was their Pizzagate. They are a liberal mob in pink pussy hats. Oh, and giving them power would plunge the nation into a constitutional crisis. Projecting much?
Trump’s base is no doubt revved up by the Supreme Court confirmation fight over Kavanaugh and this caricature of Democrats they’ve concocted. The problem is it’s all either false or hypocritical. It’ll work only if voters don’t notice that Republicans are the ones who have plunged America into multiple crises. Good luck with that.
For instance, Republicans would love for Avenatti — a provocateur on a par with Trump — to be the Democratic presidential nominee. But the frontrunners in early (albeit meaningless) polls are former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.
Are socialists taking over the Democratic Party? A few dozen have won Democratic primaries this year, mostly for state and local office. But this is a small faction in a large party with a substantial centrist wing.
Democrats do generally support the goal of health coverage for all. However, the most popular means of getting there, including among Democrats, is not ditching the current system in favor of mandatory “Medicare for All.” It’s a public option — that is, letting people choose to buy a government-run plan if they prefer that to their private plan.
As for liberal mobs and mob rule, please. For Republicans, “mob” is apparently a synonym for people who exercise their constitutional rights to assemble, dissent, call for investigations, and perhaps vote them out of office.
Comparing the Kavanaugh episode to Pizzagate is also absurd. Comet Ping Pong is the pizza restaurant that sup- posedly housed a child sex ring run by Democrats linked to Hillary Clinton. Fortunately, no one was injured when a gunman stormed in to save non-existent kids from a non-existent sex ring.
Were Kavanaugh opponents conspiracists, just like Pizzagate purveyer Alex Jones? Was there “no evidence” on Kavanaugh, as Kevin Williamson claimed in National Review, and was that most likely because “the claims were not true”? Or was there indeed evidence, and there might have been more had the allegations been properly investigated? That’s the truth as I see it. And it’s nothing like using a lurid fakenews conspiracy to inflame vulnerable people and create real danger.
Finally, and most nakedly diversionary, Republicans want voters to believe that Democrats will thrust the country into a constitutional crisis. But Americans can see with their own eyes that we are already in the midst of many crises: Constitutional, as Trump attacks U.S. law enforcement agencies and the Russia investigation and tries to harness the Justice Department for his own protection. Political and civility crises, as his ruthless nastiness toward rivals and even people like Christine Blasey Ford spreads like a contagion among some in his party and goes ignored by most others.
Ethical crises, as Trump’s businesses rake in money from foreign interests, as he hides his financial dependence on Russia and other nations and, apparently, his financial fraud; and lies his way through each and every day. Fiscal crises, as rising deficits and debt attest. Daily crises of competence — a president who won’t learn his job, a Washington Post columnist likely killed by Saudis at their consulate in Turkey, and no U.S. ambassador to either nation.
On top of that, we are having a national identity crisis at age 242. Isn’t America supposed to be a shining city on a hill, leading the world in trade, diplomacy, human rights, tolerance, freedom of speech and of the press?
We have plenty of crises. We don’t need another one created by Republicans ramping up to rhetorical Defcon 1, spreading surreal fictions, because they might lose an election.
Jill Lawrence is commentary editor of USA TODAY and author of “The Art of the Political Deal: How Congress Beat the Odds and Broke Through Gridlock.”