Yea…cameras are what made Rs and their constituents what they are today. Legitimately a terrible take.
Marjorie Taylor Green Has Filed a Motion to Vacate Speaker Mike Johnson (she tried and failed)
- Thread starter BWoog
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Yea…cameras are what made Rs and their constituents what they are today. Legitimately a terrible take.
Cameras and attention seeking started the slide to what the modern GOP has become. Newt Gingrich was one of the first politicians to take advantage of cspan cameras always being on by giving speeches to an empty chamber. This was before the internet and social media amplified these terrible politicians who raise money nationally instead of in their districts.
Getting rid of them now wouldn't fix much because the damage is done and the show has moved elsewhere.
This is why the Democrats backed Johnson, they had to reward him for doing his job.
Well technically film cameras but then your asking to go back to 100 years ago.
Because right wing media connects to people in ways that left wing media can't. Easier to make a person feel angry than to make them feel hopeful.
Do you not think Republican politicians are more performative?
It's a lot easier to stuff like this when a lot of your base are single-issue voters. If you know you can re-elected by just screaming "They're out to get your guns!" then, like others have said, you just constantly spread fear about that in televised hearings, during sessions, etc.
MTG's thing is fighting the swamp or whatever, her base sees this as an attempt to remove anyone from power who doesn't conform to their extremist views.
I'm not sure what you think it would look like if a Democrat did something similar to this, or other publicity stunts (presumably you think it could happen if you have to ask the question), but relative to Republicans, especially MAGA Republicans, Democrats are less likely to be single-issue voters, and since they generally approve of various government programs like welfare, health mandates, public education, etc, the "I'm purposefully making it so nothing gets done" angle isn't appealing to them.
To be clear, those are reasons it hasn't had the SAME effect. It would be ridiculous to say that no Democrat has ever asked a question in a hearing for the purpose of using it as a sound bite, or performatively filed a motion they know will fail, or whatever.
But yeah, MAGA Republicans are being rewarded for proactively making government less effective. Democrats don't see that as a good thing, so their elected officials are never going to rewarded as much for going full clown show.
MAGA? Sure i can roll with performative bs. Going back to Newt and cameras? Nah that was America being America.
I mean, if there's no cameras there's no audience.
There's a big difference between Newt spouting off on Fox or whatever and the government regularly not functioning because of stuff like this. People like Matt Gaetz and MTG would lose a ton of their appeal if they couldn't fuck around on camera.
And this stuff is an escalation of what Newt started, I'm not sure why you're acted like they're separate things, or unrelated.
Umm.. performative congressional hearings on camera have been a thing since the 1940s, way back when Howard Hughes was before the Senate
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/...er-engage-in-heated-news-footage/1B012197_012
It's not some new phenomenon with MTG, Newt or other MAGA Republicans. The real factor is the almost complete extinction of competitive GE districts across the country. The incentives now are to appeal to the extremes in order to win the primaries because after the primary, the GE is a cakewalk. So you have a large chunk of House members who are completely detached from the rest of the country.
And sure, the grifting culture has been especially strong on the GOP side in the last 20 years, so yes when certain House members are in front of the cameras, they primarily use it for grifting, fundraising, and raising their profile for future grifting. But suddenly getting rid of cameras in Congress after over 80 years isn't suddenly going to make certain MAGA congressmen grift any less. They'll just continue going on conservative radio and Fox News / Newsmax / etc.
The upside to having cameras is that it allows us the people to see how our government functions (or not function). Putting everything inside a blackbox makes it far easier for special interests to completely control the game out of sight. It's also important just to see how our representatives cast votes. Having cameras does create a certain level of accountability (ie. is your rep evening showing up for votes or paying attention in hearings).
But she was saying she would do it all last week and for a long time prior??
Guess they just didn't believe her.
I don't strongly disagree with anything you're saying.
But I still think it could potentially be useful to dictate when and where grifters can do their thing. Like yeah, if Matt Gaetz couldn't ask ridiculously loaded questions during a televised hearing he would still spout his bullshit on Fox.
But that could still make the hearing more productive, no?
For the record, I think overall it makes more sense to be as transparent as possible, and that ultimately MAGA shenanigans curry favor among a small group of extremists, and lose Republicans credibility with everyone else.
But still, I think there's a conversation to be had, posts like "legitimately terrible take" are a bit much.
Sweet.
Your drive-by take-downs of others' opinions are already evidence enough you're the smartest in the room. Why bother continuing when you've already dropped the mic with knowledge like "ok."
No way they are shocked. Jeff Jackson called it as well, once the dem house leadership said that the my would protescr The speaker, they knew the freedom caucus will motion to discharge. They play to their base.
Thanks for confirming why i chose not to engage you. It's still all good.
The "uniparty..." What a craven dog-whistle, and proof perfect that the only thing this POS cares about is chaos and division over actual governance.