Reed Galen wrote a scathing OpEd in USA Today about the Republican Party’s new ‘rising star’ Elise Stefanik. Those of us who watched hours of the impeachment inquiry hearings witnessed a young woman constantly whine, challenge Chairman Schiff, and play the conservative victim card because the process was just so, so unfair to Republicans and Trump. However, Ms. Stefanik wasn’t always the wing nut we saw during the hearings.
Pre-Trump, Ms. Stefanik worked for former president George W. Bush and was seen “as a new breed of Republican politician: one who would transcend the worsening trends for Republicans among women, young people and moderates. In 2014 she won in her sprawling rural swing district in northern New York with 53% of the vote. Two years later, she won with 65% and President Donald Trump swept the district by 13.7 percentage points.” Now, Stefanik has devolved into the average Trumpist whose Twitter page is filled with attacks and petty name calling on her opponent, Tedra Cobb.
The author goes on to warn the GOP about the ‘electoral consequences’ involved in hitching one’s wagon to Trump and going full-throttle wing nut:
- Last year, Cruz survived by a hair against a hard charge by then-Rep. Beto O’Rourke.
- Voters kicked Texas Republicans in the House and legislature to the curb.
- The Democratic Party achieved very important wins in three Southern states.
- The Virginia suburbs handed the state legislature to the Democrats .
- Kentucky Gov. Bevin kicked to the curb.
- Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards won re-election; Trump campaigned hard for his opponent who lost.
- Trump has tweeted about Elise’s bigly performance on the world’s stage.
“Nihilism is neither a governing ethos nor a foundational ideology. Once it infects a host, it runs its course — in personality, politics and beyond. When it’s done, there is nothing to fall back on. Cynicism leaves its hosts with little but the abyss that was once their core belief system.
Welcome to 21st century Republicanism.”
But wait. There’s more!
Yahoo News also has an article on the Republican’s, new ‘Rising Star,’ Elise Stefanik.
Recently, Rep. Elise Stefanik:
Introduced legislation to fund upkeep for veterans’ cemeteries. The bill’s co-sponsor was Democrat Antonio Delgado, who entered Congress in 2018, after a ferocious contest in which the National Republican Congressional Committee tried to smear him for rap lyrics he had written as a young man.
Just a few weeks ago, Stefanik had no problem collaborating with a progressive like Delgado, who is also from New York. Or with a moderate Democrat like Anthony Brindisi, with whom she worked, also in early November, to secure funding for parts of New York devastated by floods.
- Initially, Stefanik did not appear interested in the hearings and missed six of the 14 witness, which resulted in a 57 percent attendance record.
- For a group of whiners who whined that their Democratic colleagues shut them out of the closed-door hearings (they didn’t), Stefanik’s attendance record appeared higher than most Republicans.
- On average, GOP members showed up for the hearings for only 3.2 depositions.
- Stefanik’s days of working with her Democratic colleagues appear over and done with and now she’s a full-throttle Trumpist.
