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Early on in the COVID-19 pandemic, the GOP collectively decided to make Anthony Fauci, M.D., public enemy number one, having found in the veteran immunologist the perfect target through which to whip up their base and take the spotlight off the fact that the then president had let the virus gain a foothold in the country while actively lying about it at every turn. Fauci, of course, is everything conservatives hate: An educated man of science with not one but two degrees, he committed what Republicans believe was a capital offense when he failed to back up everything Donald Trump said about the disease, including the part about treating it by freebasing bleach. While tiresome and dangerousFauci and his family required a security detail at one pointthe ridiculous attacks and conspiracies, like that Fauci invented the coronavirus and is part of a secret cabal with Bill Gates and George Soros to profit from vaccines have had little impact. Fauci remains employed by the government, and by all accounts Joe Biden is happy with his work.The president and the administration feel that Dr. Fauci has played an incredible role in getting the pandemic under control and being a voice to the public throughout the course of this pandemic, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said this week.

But like the living embodiment of a QAnon forum, Republicans, Trump, and Fox News now appear to believe theyve found some kind of smoking gun showing Fauci is somehow responsible for the virus, based on the fresh interest in the lab-leak theory (which the doctor himself is supportive of investigating, which you wouldnt think he would be if he was implicated in the whole thing, a slight wrinkle conservatives will probably explain at a time and place TBD). So naturally, theyre amping up their attacks like hes the second coming of Benghazi/Hillary Clinton/Pol Pot.

Per Axios:

President Trump plansto make Anthony Fauci a top target at upcoming rallies, using increased attention to the Wuhan lab-leak theory as a weapon against an official long viewed as more trustworthy. Why it matters: Trump and conservative media have made Fauci an improbable face of the opposition, trying to give him the cartoon-villain status once accorded to former Sen. Harry Reid, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, orin Trumps caseHillary Clinton. Trump amped uphis longtime Fauci rants yesterday in a statement calling for COVID reparations from China: The correspondencebetween Dr. Fauci and China speaks too loudly for anyone to ignore. China should pay Ten Trillion Dollars to America, and the World, for the death and destruction they have caused!

Fox News prime-time stars are [also] amping up their Fauci rants based on new questions about COVIDs origins. [A]ll the smirking moronsin the American news media changed their view completely overnight, Tucker Carlson said last night, 24 hours after saying Fauci should be criminally investigated. LORD FAUCI EXPOSED,said one Tucker graphic. Another dubbed him Lord Fauci, Patron Saint Of Wuhan. Sean Hannityjumped the gun last night with a graphic calling new revelations the FALL of FAUCI.

Reality check: The theory most experts still believe to be most likely is that the virus was transmitted from a bat to some other species of animal, then to humans.Thats what happened with plenty of other viruses.

Incidentally, none of the people calling for the director of theNational Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to basically be tried for war crimes have expressed the slightest interest in any investigation whatsoever into the events of January 6 and in fact have lost their collective shit over the prospect of anyone digging into the that day, and the lead-up, too closely.

Meanwhile, in an interview with the Financial Times, Fauci himself said China should release medical records for nine people whose sicknesses could shed some vital light onto the question of COVID-19s origins. I have always feltthat the overwhelming likelihoodgiven the experience we have had with SARS, MERS, Ebola, HIV, bird flu, the swine flu pandemic of 2009was that the virus jumped species, Fauci said. But we need to keep on investigating until a possibility is proven. As for the possibility he or his organization might actually be responsible for the virus because they provided a small amount of funding to the Wuhan lab, Fauci, like most sane people, believes the idea is absurd. Are you really saying that we are implicated because we gave a multibillion-dollar institution $120,000 a year for bat surveillance? he asked.

Mike Pence continues to be weirdly understanding about that time Donald Trump nearly had him killed

Was the former V.P. thrilled about the insurrection that took place as he was attempting to certify Joe Bidens win, which involved Trump supporters chanting Hang Mike Pence? No, but hes not going to let it come between him and the 45th president, whom he continues to hold in high regard. Per The Washington Post:

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Republicans Are One Week Away From Starting a Lock Her Up Chant for Anthony Fauci - Vanity Fair

But almost all of those up-and-comers have one common trait: they have embraced Trump. And for others in the party, that fealty is a sign of a party contracting, not expanding. The fear is that, as Trump lingers on the scene, aggressively intervening in internal party disputes and openly flirting with running again in 2024, it will only get more pronounced.

There is a lost generation of conservatives and I think its because theyre forced to tie themselves to Trump, one Republican operative said. There was an anti-Romney backlash, anti-Bush backlash When you lose the presidency whether an incumbent or challenger the party distances themselves and that is absolutely not the case here."

Political parties have gone through concerns about talent drains before. At the end of Barack Obamas presidency, Democrats warned that the bench of up-and-coming lawmakers he left behind was painfully thin as the party suffered tremendous setbacks in Congress and the statehouses. Trump, too, oversaw the loss of seats down-ballot. But unlike Obama, he has not receded from public view after leaving office. And his continued presence has sparked fears mainly, but not exclusively, from the GOP diaspora about the narrowing of the party.

"If the conservative cause depends on the populist appeal of one personality, or on second-rate imitations, then we're not going anywhere, former House Speaker Paul Ryan, who left Washington for Wisconsin two years ago, said last week on the first night of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library & Museums "Time for Choosing" series. Voters looking for Republican leaders want to see independence and mettle. They will not be impressed by the sight of yes-men and flatterers flocking to Mar-a-Lago."

In a clear sign Trump was listening, the ex-president responded with a four-paragraph critique the next day. Paul Ryan has been a curse to the Republican Party, Trump said. Ryan didnt respond back.

Ryans fear about Trumps grip on the party is shared by top operatives who believe that few aspiring presidential candidates will choose to run if Trump ultimately does make a bid. So far, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is the only potential 2024 contender who said he wouldnt wait around for the ex-president to make a decision first. Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley has flatly said shed defer to her former boss before deciding on making a run.

As one close adviser coolly remarked: Theyre all so afraid [of] going first maybe? Or saying something that sounds like theyre moving on from the Trump years.

On the congressional level, Trumps impact on the composition of the party has been visible in obvious and subtle ways. He helped orchestrate the ouster of Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney from leadership ranks, and either directly or indirectly drove numerous lawmakers to retirement. As FiveThiryEight noted, of the 293 Republicans who were serving in the Senate or House on Jan. 20, 2017 the day of Trumps inauguration a full 132 (45 percent) are no longer in Congress or have announced their retirement or resignation.

See the article here:
Republicans fear Trump will lead to a lost generation of talent - POLITICO

As a boy growing up in the 1950s in Massachusetts, my father and I used to go into Boston to Red Sox games and to attend political meetings and state Democratic conventions. We would often go through Belmont, down Concord Ave., past the high school, a bit of a short cut. We would pass a small non-descript brick building that my father told me was the home of the John Birch Society.

During the period of the 50s and 60s, the John Birch Society was also the home of those who wanted the United States out of the United Nations; they wanted to impeach Earl Warren, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court; their leader, Robert Welsh, accused Dwight Eisenhower of deliberate treason; they even urged their members to infiltrate the local P.T.A. and take over school boards (where, by the way, my father served).

They were full of conspiracy theories, centered around anti-Communism, and were convinced that nefarious power brokers were on the verge of creating a one-world government. They were denounced by conservatives like William F. Buckley and even Ayn Rand. Buckleys biographer, John Judis, wrote that Buckley was beginning to worry that the country would take an ugly, even Fascist turn should the Birchers take hold.

I remember my father describing them as the two-percenters that is, only about 2 percent of Americans bought what they were selling. True conservatives rejected them, and Republicans like Barry Goldwater kept their distance. No one really took them that seriously.

As Republicans became more conservative, they argued more and more strongly for less government, greater defense spending and embraced cultural conservatism. They lost northern Republican moderates while gaining seats held by conservative Democratic southerners, but they didnt embrace the complete crazies. They may have tolerated them, but Republicans were still a party that elected presidents and members of Congress who supported free and fair elections, an independent judiciary, a free press, bipartisan cooperation and who rejected violence, overturning elections, undermining democracy. From Eisenhower to Bush, the Republican Party may have left a lot for us Democrats to disagree with, but we would have been hard pressed to describe them as the party with fascist, anti-democratic views and values.

That has changed.

Actions show it: Republican-controlled legislatures passing bills in state after state gaming the system to stop people from voting on the front end and letting them change the election results on the back end; Congressional Republicans allowing an armed insurrection on Jan. 6 to be swept under the rug by rejecting a bipartisan commission; Arizona Republicans continuing the lie about the election results and engaging a phony and fraudulent audit;and too many rank-and-file Republicans falling for and Republican leaders supporting the likes of QAnon, which spreads falsehoods deliberately.

Polls show the destruction of the Republican Party: 70 percent of Republicans dont believe Biden is the legitimate winner of the Presidential election; 23 percent of Republicans believe that government, media and the financial world in the U.S. are controlled by a group of Satan worshiping pedophiles who run a global child sex trafficking operation; 28 percent of Republicans believe things have gotten so far off track, true Patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save the country.

Here is the even bigger problem: When you examine Republicans who get their news from far- right sources and who are strong Trump supporters, 40 percent buy into those QAnon conspiracy theories and support violence. Their numbers are growing.

Former national security adviser Michael Flynn, speaking recently at a QAnon rally in Dallas, said that we should have an armed coup by the military like what happened in Myanmar.

Where are the Republicans of yesteryear? Where are those who rejected the John Birch Society, who stood up to Joe McCarthy in the 50s, who worked across the aisle to pass landmark Civil Rights legislation? Where are the Republicans of old who knew how to speak truth to power and who convinced Richard Nixon he had to resign for the good of the country? Where are the courageous Republicans who believed in conservatism, like Liz CheneyElizabeth (Liz) Lynn CheneyStefanik pregnant with her first child Bye-bye Miss American Pie whatever happened to the Republican Party and conservatism? The Memo: Trump seizes spotlight to distract from defeat MORE, who would say simply and truthfully, Joe BidenJoe BidenTrump touts record, blasts Dems in return to stage Trump demands China pay 'reparations' for role in coronavirus pandemic Lincoln Project co-founder: Trump's words 'will surely kill again' MORE is President, Trump is not a patriot and does not represent our Party?

And, finally, where are the Republicans who can see that the rise of wild and crazy conspiracy theories they know are false, coupled with blind loyalty to a former president who has more in common with fascist authoritarian dictators than past American presidents, are all leading us rapidly down the road to the destruction of our democracy?

By failing to speak out, failing to acknowledge that this is way beyond who wins and who loses the next elections, you put the nation at real risk.

There is a lot more at stake when you let demagogues run wild and when more and more people buy into the conspiracy theories, a lot more than the two-percenters.

This is scary on the national level when we watch those Republicans in the House and Senate who kowtow to Trump and QAnon; but watch out, as this plays out in those state legislatures, county commissions and school boards. Watch out when statewide offices and elections are run by those who dont believe in democracy and the rule of law as extremism takes hold. It started way before Trump, like the frog put in tepid water and the fire slowly turned up and the frog doesnt jump out.

This has been with us since the John Birch Society, but our problem now is that the Republican Party leaders of conscience are too few and far between to sound the alarm. If there ever was a time to show courage and common sense, it is now.

Peter Fenn is a long-time Democratic political strategist who served on the Senate Intelligence Committee, was a top aide to Sen. Frank Church and was the first director of Democrats for the 80s, founded by Pamela Harriman. He also co-founded the Center for Responsive Politics/Open Secrets. Follow him on Twitter@peterhfenn.

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Bye-bye Miss American Pie whatever happened to the Republican Party and conservatism? | TheHill - The Hill

But they had it completely wrong. At its peak in the Great Recession, the unemployment rate was 10 percent, but it ultimately got down to 3.5 percent without a massively expanded national training program to accelerate skills attainment. What actually slowed growth? Insufficient demand for goods and services, which, in turn, meant low demand for workers not that there werent enough qualified workers. It was a labor demand problem, not a labor supply problem.

This is also true today. Wage growth decelerated in May in most sectors. And in the vast majority of sectors, wages are growing solidly but not fast enough to raise concern about damaging labor shortages, given that job growth is also strong. Further, we still have 7.6 million fewer jobs than we did before Covid and there are large employment gaps in virtually all industries and demographic groups. The good news is that unlike in the wake of the Great Recession, todays labor demand problems are likely to be resolved relatively quickly, thanks to the American Rescue Plan.

While we havent seen widespread labor shortages, there is one sector where wage growth points to the possibility of an isolated one: leisure and hospitality. For typical workers in this sector, which includes restaurants, bars, hotels and recreation, the current weekly wage translates into annual earnings of $20,714. With that figure so low, there is little concern recent pay increases will generate broader pressure on wages. In addition, wages in this sector plummeted in the recession and have largely returned to where theyd be if there were no pandemic. And, these job reports also take tips into account, which means that wage changes in this sector are likely driven by the impact of customers returning, en masse, to in-person dining. On top of all this: Rising wages in leisure and hospitality dont appear to be stymieing job growth, which has been by far the strongest of any sector, contributing three-quarters of the total jobs added in the last two months.

Nevertheless, many commentators have ignored this evidence. They conclude not only that there are widespread shortages, but that the culprit is pandemic unemployment insurance benefits. Governors in 25 Republican-led states have now said they will no longer accept federal unemployment benefits. This will cut aid to nearly four million impacted workers, despite the absence of compelling evidence that jobless benefits are causing problems in the labor market. Instead, we have considerable evidence that it is helpful.

Low-wage sectors have seen swifter job growth than higher-wage sectors in recent months. This is exactly the opposite of what you would expect to find if unemployment benefits were keeping people from working. This is because pandemic programs, like the extra $300 weekly benefit, are worth much more to low-wage workers than to higher-wage workers. Unemployment insurance, then, is not hampering job growth.

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Opinion | Republicans, Dont Ignore the Evidence on Labor Shortages - The New York Times

This surge of polarizing legislation is being driven largely by a combination of confidence and fear. Many observers believe that Republican legislators feel emboldened after Democrats in the 2020 election failed to record the state legislative gains they expected. In 2018, as part of the recoil from Trump, Democrats made significant gains in state legislatures, winning control of six legislative chambers and netting more than 300 seats nationwide, many in the white-collar suburbs of major metro areas. But despite unprecedented investment in local races, and Bidens win at the presidential level, the party did not flip any additional chambers last year; Republicans, on net, gained back about half as many seats as they had lost two years earlier and came out of the election with control of both legislative chambers in 30 states, compared with just 18 for Democrats (with one additional state divided and Nebraska officially nonpartisan).

Democrats failure at the state level in 2020 has encouraged GOP legislators to pursue a more aggressive agenda, many observers say. The dynamic is perhaps most visible in Texas. After Democrats won several suburban seats and narrowed the GOP advantage in the Texas State House in 2018, the diminished Republican majority largely muted social issues and focused on bread-and-butter concerns, such as education, during the 2019 session. The GOPs focus shifted back toward cultural issues after Democrats failed to make the further gains both sides anticipated in November. All the expectations in Texas just didnt happen, so the Republican Party emerged with a kind of renewed confidence, says James Henson, who directs the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin.

Republicans confidence, Henson adds, was also bolstered by a practical consequence of their 2020 success at holding both of Texass legislative chambers: In that state, as in virtually all of the states turning right this year, Republicans will control the decennial redistricting process. The ability to draw districts that favor them next year reduces their concern about a general-election backlash against their moves even in swing suburban areas. Carisa Lopez, the political director of the Texas Freedom Network, which works to organize young people there, told me, For progressive organizations [Republicans] have been coming at us from all angles, and it has been exhausting. They have done almost everything they can.

David A. Graham: The frightening new Republican consensus

GOP legislators appear to be operating more out of fear that Trumps base of non-college-educated, rural, and evangelical white voters will punish them in primaries if they fail to pursue maximum confrontation against Democrats and liberal constituencies, particularly on issues revolving around culture and race. Very few of the districts are competitive [in a general election], so all they are worried about is being primaried, says John Geer, a political-science professor at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, one of the states that have advanced the most aggressive conservative agenda this year. Glenn Smith, a longtime Democratic operative in Texas, notes that the states militantly conservative Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick has pushed legislators toward his priorities this year in part by persuading them that any moderation risks infuriating an aggrieved Trump base who feels that the election was stolen from them, are fired up, and love the red meat on every issue.

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How GOP State Legislatures Are Remaking the Country - The Atlantic