There are a lot of things in the political world I am not talking about right now, despite the fact that everyone else has to share their opinion on them. Rather than devote column space to each of those things, I just want to go over them briefly to get them out of the way so we can continue on with our regularly scheduled programming (food, mostly).
For example, H.R. 1 in the U.S. House of Representatives is a fine example of this. Yes, the Democrats have a (slight) majority in the House and no filibuster. As a result, they were able to pass this monstrosity of a bill. That is news, and should be reported as such. But pundits on both sides are talking about this bill despite knowing that any H.R. 1 is almost always a virtue-signaling bill that has no realistic chance of passing whenever it’s brought up before a split legislative branch.
And, yes, while the Democrats are technically in charge of the Senate, with Democrats like Joe Manchin holding out on key far-left issues, nationalization of the voting process is certainly not going to make it across the finish line. And the Democrats know that, the Republicans know that, and the media knows that.
But that doesn’t stop all of them from speaking out about it because, like the bill itself, it’s all about the talking points. We have to scare everyone into supporting our side because those damn, dirty bastards on the other side are trying to destroy the country.
These politicians would rather score points than try to actually legislate, and that is a way bigger contributor to the division in our country than Donald Trump ever was. He was a product of that, not the cause.
It’s the same with the Georgia voting rights bill that’s drawing so much criticism from the media, the left, and even some from the right. It would restrict early and by-mail voting and, ultimately, I am pretty sure it would hurt Republicans way more than it would hurt Democrats.
Georgia’s top elected officials do not support it. The Georgia House will probably kill it. This isn’t a secret. And yet, it’s being used by both sides for the talking points.
My friend Erick Erickson has a great takedown of the Georgia Republican Party’s failure to lead. Their decision to chase talking points rather than actual conservative issues is going to cost them more voters - the same thing that led to Republican Senators and a Republican President losing the state in 2020.
Do I want to talk about these issues? No, and I hate that I have to even mention them now. But there are people out there who write about politics and discuss key issues who get blasted for not talking about these things, and it’s both left and right. Matt Yglesias, who is by no means a conservative, is facing the same criticisms.
It is pretty much guaranteed that the people attacking Yglesias, or anyone else, over how little they cover any subject are only keyed into one issue and rarely look at the larger picture. None of these are going to be larger picture issues because even if they pass, they will be challenged and locked down in (if not completely struck down by) the courts. They won’t have a long shelf life, so why be concerned with them?
Also, the fact that these two main issues are both dealing with voting and yet undermine the very points both parties have been making (H.R. 1 is going to fix an election process the Democrats have maintained for the last several months is just fine, and Georgia Republicans claiming votes were stolen from them will end up forcing more of their own voters to stay home) is really just hilarious.
We are not sending our best to represent us. Maybe we should fix that.