Republicans Don't Fight

Democrats and MAGA do

Joe Biden (or someone on his behalf) dropped out of the 2024 election today. Later, someone tweeted that Joe endorses Kamala Harris to be the Democrat punching bag to lose to Trump in November. (For the record, I assume Joe had no idea he quit and no clue that he endorsed the idiot Vice President.)

In the hours following the announcement, I’ve seen at least 20 opportunities for red states, the Republican National Committee, and the Trump campaign to challenge various realities and possibilities about the Democrat presidential ticket. I won’t go into those here, because that’s not the point of this post.

Here’s the point: Republicans are losers.

By “Republicans,” I mean the Republicans I grew up with. The Bushes, the Cheneys, the McCains, Paul Ryan, Romney, the usual suspects, the generic Republicans. Generic, indeed. Milquetoast, lukewarm, pudgy white men, as they were called in the late eighties. Boring, weak, and ineffective.

Establishment Republicans are not fighters. They are accommodationalists. (I made that word up because the English language needed it.) An accommodationalist values getting along over winning. An accommodationalist negotiates his own position in exchange for an “honorable loss.” Benedict Arnold was an accommodationalist, and he’s (secretly) the patron saint of establishment Republicans. (I’m looking at you, Ann Wagner.)

What we saw last week at the MAGA National Convention was something totally different. How different?

As I texted some Tea Party friends last night:

Hulk Hogan, Kid Rock, and Dana White were the run ups to the nomination acceptance. No Bushes, no Romneys, no McCains, no Fortune 100 CEOs, no Paul Ryan. But there were two union heads, a dozen nobodies who've never voted Republican before, and delegates who actually knew how to dance.

There is nothing left of the old GOP. Nothing.

Kid Rock recently (2021) began his concerts with a tune called “We the People” that drops more F-bombs than an F35. With no shame, I link it here so you can enjoy the show. (NSFW)

Hulk Hogan ripped his shirt off to expose a Trump-Vance wife-beater underneath:

UFC founder Dana White introduced Trump the way he’d introduce an ultimate fighting champion about to defend his title.

But nothing these men did came close to the fight demonstrated by the MAGA candidate, Donald J. Trump just 5 days earlier:

Trump’s defiance in the face of a government-assisted assassination attempt even wowed Facebook founder (thief) and avowed Trump-hater, Mark Zuckerberg to call it “one of the most badass things I’ve ever seen.”

Republicans don’t fight. And it why the Republican Party of my youth and most of my adulthood is gone. It’s been replaced by those worthy.