Do Democratic donors really believe that the primary objective of Republicans is to ‘stay in power’?
A detail in the transcript of President Biden’s remarks to a Democratic fundraiser in Brentwood, Calif., last night:
BIDEN: The other thing I like to say to you — and I’m going on too long, and I apologize — is that — you know, let’s take a look at — can anybody — if anybody in here can tell me what — what the Republican platform is. (Laughter.) No, I know we laugh about it, but think about it. What is the Republican platform?
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Disenfranchisement!
BIDEN: Well, more than that.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Staying in power!
The “disenfranchisement” contention is the nonsensical claim that laws like the one in Georgia suppress turnout and don’t allow those who are eligible to vote to cast ballots. Not only did the law that Biden decried as “Jim Crow 2.0,” “Jim Crow on steroids,” and “Jim Eagle” increase overall turnout; under the new law, 27 percent more people voted in the Democratic primary — even with an uncontested race. This is the odd voter-suppression bill that results in many, many, many more people voting.
But let’s focus on that second answer from the audience, and think about the context of this exchange: The Democratic president is attending a fundraiser expected to bring in about $5 million to preserve a Democratic-controlled Senate and a Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, and one of those donors believes the Republican goal is “staying in power”?
What power? Donald Trump is a private citizen living in Mar-a-Lago. Kevin McCarthy can’t stop a darn thing from passing the House. Mitch McConnell has the filibuster, just as the Democrats had from January 2015 to January 2019. Democrats control the White House, Senate, and House! Republicans want to get power, not stay in power!
Incumbent Republican officeholders running for reelection want to stay in office, but in that sense, they’re no different from the incumbent Democratic officeholders running for reelection. Nancy Pelosi was at the event, as well as DCCC chairman Sean Patrick Maloney, Representatives Steven Horsford and Dina Titus of Nevada and Ted Lieu and Brad Sherman of California. Were all of those elected officials in attendance not interested in staying in power?
A lot of Democrats — even wealthy Democrats, attending a fundraiser at the house of famous television producer Marcy Carsey, standing alongside Tom Ford, Rob Reiner, and Bill Nye — will always be convinced that they are the plucky underdogs, taking on a big, powerful right-wing establishment. They will always see themselves as standing up to “the Man,” long after they have become “the Man.”
This is how you get former president Barack Obama, and Bruce Springsteen, one of the most phenomenally successful musicians of all time, calling themselves “renegades.” This is how you end up with magazine covers depicting the $203 billion Walt Disney Company as a poor, small, endangered underdog in a dispute with Florida governor Ron DeSantis. As our old friend Kevin Williamson once observed, this is how you get Johnny Depp on the cover of Rolling Stone under the headline “Johnny Depp: An Outlaw Looks at 50,” when Depp is a well-compensated employee of the Walt Disney Company.