Shhhh. Have You Realized This?

If you turn on Sean Hannity’s show on Fox, you’re going to get the best defense of the Republican establishment, followed by Laura Ingraham.

Fox News, etc. are back in defense of the establishment with Tucker Carlson being the exception.

Meanwhile, there is a handful of conservatives in Congress, the ones the Wall Street Journal editorial board once referred to as hobbits in the debt ceiling fight against Obama, who are scoring points against the GOP establishment and blocking the chosen path of inevitability. As I pointed out then, the hobbits actually won, just as now when the GOP calls these conservatives the Taliban, the Taliban actually won.

In the pre-Trump era, this was the norm. And, for a brief moment, it feels like the pre-Trump era has returned.

I remember many fights where I was one of the last on the ramparts with the conservatives. We knew we’d probably lose, but we extracted concessions and made it painful to grow the government. Friends on the right attacked us as without plans, narcissists, in it for attention, etc.

It took a long time to get them to turn. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn’t. Rush Limbaugh would give praise to the conservatives. Hannity would come on and give the establishment talking points. And the conservatives would fight on, reviled by CNN and Fox News and the establishment and a large part of center-right Twitter.

And we wouldn’t care because the cause was more important.

This feels like that. This seems like that. Trump is now back on the side of the establishment/moderate wing of the GOP as he was in 2011-2012. It’s the conservative stalwarts standing up, defying the loud voices insisting they stand down.

This actually feels like a reversion to the norm. It feels good. It’s what the conservative movement did before Trump — held its own side accountable for the growth in government and policed the center-right, collecting scalps as necessary.

The Trump years were an aberration where many of those now ready to oust McCarthy gave Trump everything he wanted. Now, Trump wants McCarthy, and they’re willing to ignore him. And it is not just them but much of his base that is not cashing in on their proximity to him. The unpaid base doesn’t want McCarthy either regardless of what Trump puts on Truth Social.

Conservatives in power should move the GOP right and hold it accountable. The post-Trump conservative movement will not be the pre-Trump conservative movement. But it has been great to see the Club For Growth, Heritage Foundation, House Freedom Caucus, etc., all working together in the right direction.

McCarthy may be able to save himself, but to do so, he will give significant concessions in a major deal that renders him mostly impotent. And if the conservatives hold together, they can force the GOP to either move their direction or collaborate with Democrats on deals that will stir up the base against them.

Accountability is good and these twenty brave men and women are delivering that in a way conservatives have long understood must be done.

This is what racism looks like

Cori Bush @CoriBush

FWIW, @ByronDonalds is not a historic candidate for Speaker. He is a prop. Despite being Black, he supports a policy agenda intent on upholding and perpetuating white supremacy. His name being in the mix is not progress—it’s pathetic.

Rep. Cori Bush could be the female David Duke. Congressman Byron Donalds is a black Republican. As such, to Ms. Bush, he is not black enough. Because he thinks differently from her and sees the world differently, he is condemnable to her.

That is actual racism right there. She sees a black man and expects him to conform in a particular way or there is something wrong with him.

That is condemnable.

You will notice how silent the left is and how silent Hakeem Jeffries, the Democrat leader is.

Republicans may be having a small moment of inter-party struggle, but at least they are not going full David Duke. That would be Cori Bush doing the Duke impression.

Yesterday, in the United States House of Representatives, for the first time in history, two black men were nominated for Speaker of the House of Representatives simultaneously. That’s real progress, except to racists.