Jiu-Jitsu Red to Blue: Crushing MAGA Under The Weight of Their Own Arguments

IF I HAD A HAMMER… I’d strike a blow against political violence from anyone, anywhere, for any reason, says host Tish Durkin. But right now, a strike against political violence is most likely a strike against the current, Trumped-up GOP, which has come to be divided between those who promote the use of physical aggression and intimidation against their ideological opponents, and those who tolerate or rationalize such activities. Paul Pelosi, the 82-year-old husband of the Speaker of the House, has survived the brutal attack made on him in his own home. But given the GOP role in and reaction to this episode and others like it, American democracy may not be so lucky.

Of all the ways in which the G.O.P. loves to depict Democrats as weirdly out of touch with “real Americans,” semantic gender-baiting has become their absolute favorite: Democrats are such apologists for the transgender fringe; such prisoners of political correctness, goes the gleeful Republican party line, they can’t even say what a woman is! But in a post-Roe world, host Tish Durkin argues, it’s the rigidly-biological G.O.P. concept of womanhood that is dangerously bizarre.

In last week’s explosive debate between candidates for the U.S. senate from Pennsylvania, giant, stroke-surviving Democrat John Fetterman struggled to articulate views that are widely shared by the public, while slim, trim Mehmet Oz had no difficulty whatsoever letting far-right fringe positions roll right off his TV-trained tongue – and Oz, by most accounts, came out the winner. In this week’s Midterm Mini, host Tish Durkin portrays this debate as the midterms in miniature: Democrats taking a beating for falling short on style, Republicans getting a pass on substance…and the country heading for disaster if this holds

A political party that ignores the clear and present dangers of climate change and covid is itself a clear and present danger to the American economy. Yet somehow, the GOP has managed to deny, distort and downplay the first two, while maintaining a reputation for mastery when it comes to the third. In the last of a three-part series, host Tish Durkin argues that “bad on climate change and covid, but good on the economy!” is both a commonly-expressed sentiment – and a catastrophic contradiction in terms.

If historical trends hold and the GOP wins back the House of Representatives, Americans will learn a whole new six-word phrase for “catastrophe”: “Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy.” At every pivotal moment -- from his post-insurrection decision to revive a politically-flatlining Donald Trump to his recent wavering on Ukraine to his plan to pack Congressional committees with whatever extremists may be due to join them -- the would-be Speaker has shown that he’s as MAGA as anyone if that’s his path to power. In this week’s Midterm Mini, host Tish Durkin urges all non-MAGA Americans to cast their Congressional votes so as to ensure that the phrase “Speaker of the House” and the phrase “Kevin McCarthy” remain on opposite sides of the aisle.

Many Americans dislike Republicans’ stances on such issues as insurrection, abortion, voting rights and climate change – but trust them on the most important issue of all: the economy. But the undertax-and-overspend party of runaway debt, budgetary roulette, and business-development boondoggles does NOT deserve to lay claim to superior economic stewardship. In number two of three episodes on this all-important topic, host Tish Durkin reminds everyone of the GOP-wrought havoc that is Foxconn – emphasis on “con.”

In 2000 and in 2016, Democratic presidential candidates Al Gore and Hillary Clinton both won the popular vote, both had legions of supporters who believed they had also rightly won the White House – and both accepted, for the good of the country, that they had lost. In 2020 and ever since, Donald Trump and his supporters have maintained that he won, up to and far past the point of violent insurrection. Host Tish Durkin blasts the craven effort of the GOP to equate the spoken election objections of disappointed Democrats with the physical, functional and anti-constitutional election denial of enraged Republicans from the leadership on down – and the strange willingness of the media to let them get away with this.

Many Americans dislike Republicans’ stances on such issues as insurrection, abortion, voting rights and climate change – but trust them on the most important issue of all: the economy. Host Tish Durkin scours the past fifty years for a good reason why the undertax-and-overspend party of runaway debt, budgetary roulette, and business-development boondoggles should lay claim to superior economic stewardship …but, alas, she comes up Trump.

In this week’s Monday Midterm Mini, host Tish Durkin laments the rise of polling as the decline of American politics. The more elections are treated as horse races, the more electorates are drawn in to playing the odds rather than weighing their options – and the more voting becomes nothing but a sucker’s bet.

Host Tish Durkin picks the formidable brain of Jim Kessler, executive vice president for policy at Third Way, one of the best-known and best-regarded think tanks in Washington, D.C.. Their topic: the GOP’s competence-free claim to the issues of crime, immigration and inflation – and Democrats’ urgent need to seize the initiative on all three.