Reality Check

After a few weeks of major excitement from the left akin to that time they beat Susan Collins in Maine but actually did not, and the Democrats did not take Mike Waltz’s seat in Florida.

Randy Fine did, well, fine. The Gaetz seat was no surprise. The hype from the left was just that — hype.

In Wisconsin, the Democrat-backed progressive won the state Supreme Court seat. Despite the GOP outspending her and having Elon Musk campaign for Brad Schimel, Susan Crawford trounced him. It turns out it is harder than progressives claimed to buy elections.

The left is now, yet again, trying to get Trump to oust Musk. They wanted to blame him for Randy Fine’s loss. They cannot do that. So they’ll do their best to pin Schimel’s loss on him.

Given how special elections go against parties in power, it is hard to pin this on Musk, particularly in Wisconsin, but they’ll try.

It is all theater.

The theater also played out in the United States Senate.

Corey Booker, who in the majority demanded an end to the filibuster, claims he used the filibuster. The press is cheering. But Booker was not actually stopping the Senate advancing legislation. The same press was rather dismissive of Ted Cruz’s 21 hour filibuster of Obamacare in 2013. Here is how ABC News covered it:

But Cruz's overnight speech was technically not a filibuster and won't do much to delay or prevent the votes. The Senate is operating in "auto-pilot" mode and will hold its first procedural vote on the continuing resolution later this afternoon.

Here is the BBC:

Analysts say his marathon talk was a mainly symbolic gesture of defiance, rather than a filibuster - a tactic made famous by the 1939 Jimmy Stewart film, Mr. Smith Goes To Washington - as it could not hold up Senate proceedings.

And here is NBC News:

Democrats were largely dismissive of Cruz's effort, noting that it was not a formal filibuster since it had no effect of delaying or preventing a vote on the House-passed legislation. And Reid even noted that he and Cruz had previously agreed to set aside time for the Texas senator's lengthy screed.

And Politico:

In other words, from the beginning it was all over save for the theatrics. But Cruz offered plenty Tuesday by holding the Senate floor for hours about why Obamacare should cease to exist.

Of course, Politico, like the others, covers Booker like this:

Cory Booker wrote himself into the Senate annals Tuesday, setting a new record for the chamber’s longest speech when he held the floor for more than 25 hours and surpassed the late Sen. Strom Thurmond’s 1957 filibuster against civil rights.

The New Jersey Democrat took the floor at 6:59 p.m. on Monday, saying he was doing so with the “intention of disrupting the normal business of the United States Senate for as long as I am physically able” in order to protest the actions of President Donald Trump and his administration.

When Strom Thurmond mounted his famous filibuster, it was to stop the Civil Rights Act. Thurmond ground the Senate to a halt, and it was unable to do any business or advance the bill. While it is nice to see someone finally pulling Thurmond’s filibuster against Civil Rights outside the record books, Thurmond actively blocked legislation. Booker did not.

Thurmond, you should note, was a Democrat at the time of his Senate filibuster, putting Democrats on top for filibusters — one to stop civil rights and one to stop, well, nothing.

But that is what Democrats want — spectacle. Once in the majority, Booker will, again, decry the filibuster.

By the way, it is worth noting that voters in Wisconsin overwhelmingly supported adding voter ID requirements to that state’s constitution even as they placed a progressive on the Supreme Court. No, Democrats, voter ID is not controversial.