Good article. I love your point about moderates outing for him early and then against, giving the appearance of slipping support. Bope this group does become a counterweight to the extremists. The GOP must see the damage these wackos are doing to their brand.
Oct 23, 2023·edited Oct 23, 2023Liked by Jerry Weiss
I called all 8 of the names of the Republicans who may be willing to work with Democrats in a bipartisan coalition and spoke to an actual person 7 times and they were all very pleasant. I left a voice mail message to only one representative. Thank-you very much for providing these names and numbers to us.
Austin Scott and Tom Emmer are the only two non-election deniers willing to serve. As the party WHIP, I believe Tom Emmer is the best choice and electable. IMHO.
Good afternoon, Jerry. After a break, for a month or so, from making calls to Republicans, I’ve been at it, again. It was frustrating, because I felt the Rs I was calling didn’t have the guts to do the right thing. But things seem to be changing.
In the past two days, I have called all 38 Congresspeople on your list. I spoke directly with staffers at 34 offices, leaving voicemails at the other 4. Btw, thanks for the one-line script. That made the job so much easier. When I finished a few minutes ago, I made one final call to the office of Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to let him know what I had done and to urge him to continue working to create that bipartisan coalition to get Don Bacon nominated. That, because it doesn’t seem at all likely that Tom Emmer can get the necessary votes. Obviously, it’s urgent that a new Speaker be elected, so that the House can finally get on with the important work of We The People. But that doesn’t mean that a “make-do” candidate should be pushed through; and I get the feeling that many representatives would vote for Emmer, while holding their noses, just to get this over with. That’s NOT how it should be done. I read about Tom Emmer on Wikipedia a little while ago, and he doesn’t appear to be the right person for the job. He may be an adequate Whip, but not Speaker material.
Thanks so much for everything you’re doing, Jerry.
P.S. Congressman Mike Simpson’s D.C. phone number is (202) 225-5531, which will take you directly to voicemail.
I agree that this is an ideal solution, but I don’t understand how it would come to pass. All career risks aside, the 5 (min) moderate republicans could meet with and compromise with Dems and propose a moderate Republican speaker, but how do you get that person as speaker designate, a prerequisite to a floor vote? I guess they would have to lie about supporting someone else? Or if they claim undecided, the other speaker designate might risk a floor vote if he’s got almost 217 (eg 210)? Either way, they might as well just vote for Jeffries, and switch to Dem or Independent, because they will never win another primary as Republicans. All seems highly unlikely.
Well Jerry, I see they went with a Trump endorsed guy. I'm not surprised. I don't even blame the politicians. There exists a minority of voters out there who, by virtue of where they are concentrated, dominate the current GOP. I recall a long ago lesson. As the parties became homogeneous, it became much easier for extremists to run things. If you have one party with a tiny majority, then a small majority of that party can dominate the agenda. Once the Caucus has decided, they can impose discipline on the rest, punishing those who stray. So, less than 30 percent of the entire elected body can run things. In the end, it is not process that makes me weep. It is that so many Americans cannot identify their self interests even if they had GPS and a guide dog. I am deeply ashamed to be an American.
Excellent piece, as usual. What bothers me is that the surreal actions of our elected officials obscure the underlying tragedy. A significant portion of the population remains loyal to a vision of authoritarian, if not theocratic, rule. While America is deemed an advanced nation, it is steeped in a set of backward and dangerous myths. If we cannot reach the people out there, we may well fracture into competing cultures.
I'm not so sure that MAGA is "in retreat"; for all the criminal prosecutions and way-over-the-top rhetoric, Trump's still filling arenas and hate-fests like TurningPointUSA and still on a roll. It's almost like a cult that is reinforced by its own madness and paranoia.
For me, his talk of "vermin" and "poisoning the blood of America" just validates my belief that much of America is in the grip of yet another fascist period (like McCarthyism) but this time there are very few Profiles in Courage to stand up and call it out. So on it goes. "Neo"-Fascism: the same old poison in new bottles.
The cowardice of the Republican Party; the politics of hate and resentment; the cult-like loyalty to the supreme leader; the enablers and apologists and opportunists; and the endless propaganda machine keeping his followers in a fever - clearly we're in a period analogous to Germany in the 1930s (when Hitler's slogans were "Germany First" and "Make Germany Great Again") and that did not end well.
The question is:; how to break the trance? Liz Cheney rang the bell about "sleepwalking into dictatorship" but it didn't seem to get much traction.
And the Dems aren't having their finest hour; they're fragmented and wobbly.
So how to create a Bluenami and crush Trumpism in Nov. '24?
Jerry, you and your colleagues are certainly fighting the good fight, but still I worry about what's coming.
I had put my own Substack newsletter on hiatus, but now I'm ramping it up again, trying to raise the alarm - neo-fascism on the march in America, and we need all hands on deck to sound the warning.
Good article. I love your point about moderates outing for him early and then against, giving the appearance of slipping support. Bope this group does become a counterweight to the extremists. The GOP must see the damage these wackos are doing to their brand.
I called all 8 of the names of the Republicans who may be willing to work with Democrats in a bipartisan coalition and spoke to an actual person 7 times and they were all very pleasant. I left a voice mail message to only one representative. Thank-you very much for providing these names and numbers to us.
Austin Scott and Tom Emmer are the only two non-election deniers willing to serve. As the party WHIP, I believe Tom Emmer is the best choice and electable. IMHO.
Good afternoon, Jerry. After a break, for a month or so, from making calls to Republicans, I’ve been at it, again. It was frustrating, because I felt the Rs I was calling didn’t have the guts to do the right thing. But things seem to be changing.
In the past two days, I have called all 38 Congresspeople on your list. I spoke directly with staffers at 34 offices, leaving voicemails at the other 4. Btw, thanks for the one-line script. That made the job so much easier. When I finished a few minutes ago, I made one final call to the office of Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to let him know what I had done and to urge him to continue working to create that bipartisan coalition to get Don Bacon nominated. That, because it doesn’t seem at all likely that Tom Emmer can get the necessary votes. Obviously, it’s urgent that a new Speaker be elected, so that the House can finally get on with the important work of We The People. But that doesn’t mean that a “make-do” candidate should be pushed through; and I get the feeling that many representatives would vote for Emmer, while holding their noses, just to get this over with. That’s NOT how it should be done. I read about Tom Emmer on Wikipedia a little while ago, and he doesn’t appear to be the right person for the job. He may be an adequate Whip, but not Speaker material.
Thanks so much for everything you’re doing, Jerry.
P.S. Congressman Mike Simpson’s D.C. phone number is (202) 225-5531, which will take you directly to voicemail.
RE a bipartisan coalition speaker:
I agree that this is an ideal solution, but I don’t understand how it would come to pass. All career risks aside, the 5 (min) moderate republicans could meet with and compromise with Dems and propose a moderate Republican speaker, but how do you get that person as speaker designate, a prerequisite to a floor vote? I guess they would have to lie about supporting someone else? Or if they claim undecided, the other speaker designate might risk a floor vote if he’s got almost 217 (eg 210)? Either way, they might as well just vote for Jeffries, and switch to Dem or Independent, because they will never win another primary as Republicans. All seems highly unlikely.
Well Jerry, I see they went with a Trump endorsed guy. I'm not surprised. I don't even blame the politicians. There exists a minority of voters out there who, by virtue of where they are concentrated, dominate the current GOP. I recall a long ago lesson. As the parties became homogeneous, it became much easier for extremists to run things. If you have one party with a tiny majority, then a small majority of that party can dominate the agenda. Once the Caucus has decided, they can impose discipline on the rest, punishing those who stray. So, less than 30 percent of the entire elected body can run things. In the end, it is not process that makes me weep. It is that so many Americans cannot identify their self interests even if they had GPS and a guide dog. I am deeply ashamed to be an American.
I appreciate your balanced assessment. MAGA and the extremists need desperately to be exposed and discredited.
Excellent piece, as usual. What bothers me is that the surreal actions of our elected officials obscure the underlying tragedy. A significant portion of the population remains loyal to a vision of authoritarian, if not theocratic, rule. While America is deemed an advanced nation, it is steeped in a set of backward and dangerous myths. If we cannot reach the people out there, we may well fracture into competing cultures.
I'm not so sure that MAGA is "in retreat"; for all the criminal prosecutions and way-over-the-top rhetoric, Trump's still filling arenas and hate-fests like TurningPointUSA and still on a roll. It's almost like a cult that is reinforced by its own madness and paranoia.
For me, his talk of "vermin" and "poisoning the blood of America" just validates my belief that much of America is in the grip of yet another fascist period (like McCarthyism) but this time there are very few Profiles in Courage to stand up and call it out. So on it goes. "Neo"-Fascism: the same old poison in new bottles.
The cowardice of the Republican Party; the politics of hate and resentment; the cult-like loyalty to the supreme leader; the enablers and apologists and opportunists; and the endless propaganda machine keeping his followers in a fever - clearly we're in a period analogous to Germany in the 1930s (when Hitler's slogans were "Germany First" and "Make Germany Great Again") and that did not end well.
The question is:; how to break the trance? Liz Cheney rang the bell about "sleepwalking into dictatorship" but it didn't seem to get much traction.
And the Dems aren't having their finest hour; they're fragmented and wobbly.
So how to create a Bluenami and crush Trumpism in Nov. '24?
Jerry, you and your colleagues are certainly fighting the good fight, but still I worry about what's coming.
I had put my own Substack newsletter on hiatus, but now I'm ramping it up again, trying to raise the alarm - neo-fascism on the march in America, and we need all hands on deck to sound the warning.
https://neofascism.substack.com/p/sleepwalking-into-dictatorship
Thank you for this timely recap. Very much appreciated. Very best wishes to everyone for a Happy New Year.
thank you for this. I shared to Facebook and some Indivisible Groups therein.