One would be hard pressed to find a more debilitatingly depressing quote than that from a video posted by Tennessee Republican Rep. Tim Burchett, fresh off a visit to the White House on Wednesday: “He told me he likes seeing me on TV, which was kind of cool.”
There is so much to unpack from those simple words — the childlike wonder of one of the nation’s primary lawmakers, apparently swayed by simple flattery, the centrality of television to the overall existence of president of the richest and most powerful country on the planet, the overarching context of a society-upending piece of legislation seemingly at the combined whims of a reality star who lacks object permanence and a collection of a few hundred legislators whose loyalties now appear more or less divided between eager destruction of the very concept of a social safety net and the fleeting approval of that star in the Oval Office.
Burchett, along with fellow West Wing visitor Byron Donalds of Florida, went on. “Did you show them what he signed for you?” Donalds asked. “Yeah, he signed a bunch of stuff,” Burchett answered. “It’s cool.”
As the New York Times reported, Trump hosted a “conga line of angsty Republican lawmakers” on Wednesday, apparently helping bring them in line for an early-morning vote that advanced the We Will Destroy You Bill to what could be a final vote at some point on Thursday. The holdouts had varying concerns ranging from supposed pearl-clutching over fiscal responsibility to insufficient thumb-on-scale force targeting renewable energy. None of it mattered, apparently, once the Big Guy brought them in and gave them various pieces of fake gold-encrusted keepsakes and assured them, with the serene confidence and comfort of a man for whom hypocrisy, lies, and backstabbing are simply How Things Go, that whatever thing in the awful bill the legislator in front him did not like will not actually come to pass.
Not every Republican in Congress shares the same childlike reverence for a man who could not define “Medicaid” if he was being lowered slowly, head-first, into a bubbling cauldron of lava. Some are another kind of child, the terrified kind, more scared of their own constituents and the potential for a Mean Tweet from Trump and the ensuing potential primary challenge than they are fond of, occasionally, standing up for any sort of principle.
And there are others who are by and large amoral, limp wind socks whose primary motivator is to enjoy the glow provided by adjacency to power. Like Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who in 2015 was willing to say that the only way to make America great again was to “tell Donald Trump to go to hell.”
That was a lifetime ago, politically speaking, and now Graham is among his foremost cheerleaders, telling the Times about how generous Trump is when hosting at one of his clubs. Apparently, the president always asks, “Can I get you something? Would you like anything other wings?” It turns out it didn’t take long to find a more debilitatingly depressing quote.
The bill has yet to get to its final vote, and there is still some vague possibility that whatever tainted and malodorous winds guide GOP decision-making when out of sight of the Oval Office could find their way to the House floor. Democrats were testing one or two of the delay tactics available to them, with Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries racing past the four-hour mark of a “magic minute” speech; he will tire at some point, and the Republicans, some fresh off their eye-opening tours of Good Mood Trumpland, will descend to the floor to vote once more. The jangling of keys will still be ringing in their ears.
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