Jon Chait notes how the GOP has built a shieldwall of lawlessness around Trump. Yeah, yeah, they are being hypocrites. Honestly, if hypocrisy was a crime there wouldn't be a GOP politician walking the streets free. Democracies absolutely need the law to be sovereign, which is to say the final power of the land. Trump's brazen lawlessness and disregard for both the spirit and letter of the laws has required that the GOP circle around him.
Which brings me - as Chait references obliquely - to Joe Biden. Biden has recently called Trump an outlier and states that once he wins the election, Republicans will have an "epiphany" and work across the aisle to solve problems.
If he believes that, it's a disqualifying statement. First off, Trump is not an outlier. He is the personification of the Party of Fox News. When he ran in 2016, he took some heterodox positions, but he has abandoned all of them, except stupid trade wars (which is more Fox than GOP). As president, he has governed as a routine Republican would, with a more blasphemous Twitter feed. Trump is absolutely the Republican party at this moment.
Of course, it's just as likely that Biden doesn't believe this. He was Vice President during Obama's fruitless quest to try and work across the aisle. If he was able to do it in 2010 and didn't, he shouldn't be the nominee of the coalition that Obama built. It sure feels like Biden is trying to kumbaya his way to the White House. The problem is that people really do govern as they campaign. Republican intransigence and the likelihood of a GOP Senate (or very close to it, certainly no 60 seat Dem majority) means that important issues are unlikely to be addressed unless you scorch the earth.
Joe Biden: Clueless Or Cynical...that isn't a great campaign slogan.
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