Ever listen to grade-school boys talk? They spend a lot of time talking about who can beat up who. It’s important to them.
I was listening to Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC the other day. He was showing clips from Rush Limbaugh. Rush was complaining about how Republicans caved on the recent budget extension. His callers, unsurprisingly, agreed it was a bad deal, and they weren’t getting what they’d been promised.
And yet the callers talked about the specifics in hesitating uncertainty. I don’t have the transcript, but my impression was a conversation like this.
“Um,” the caller started, “I voted for someone who’d… um, build the wall! And… ah, repeal… um, Obamacare. And… um….”
“Someone to beat the Democrats?” Limbaugh suggested.
“Yeah!” the caller said, suddenly enthusiastic. “Someone who’d beat the Democrats!” He said it with finality, his earlier hesitation washed aside. This was the real answer, not those fiddly details.
Limbaugh went on with his new theme of “We beat the Democrats” with gusto, too. He’d changed his core goal without even noticing. That was the point, and the goal, and why weren’t they acting like winners?
O’Donnell was making a different point, but I was already done.
Rush didn’t change anything Winning at any cost has been the only real Republican goal for years; the specifics don’t matter. Every other goal, any other principle, and any ethical qualms, they all get pushed aside.
Winning.
And once they’ve won? Huh….
