If for some deranged reason you still cling to the hope that grassroots Republican voters will cleanse themselves of Trump’s abiding stench, I suggest you read up on last night’s House GOP primary in West Virginia.
There once was a time, in a measurably saner America, when a congressman who brought home the bacon would be duly rehired by the voters to go back to Washington and do it again. Didn’t matter if the congressman was a Democrat or a Republican; certain basics, like good roads and bridges, didn’t wear party labels. If the congressman was voting for stuff that made life better back home, bravo. He or she got rewarded at the ballot box for doing the job.
For six terms, that’s how it worked for House Republican David McKinley. And last year he voted Yes for the ambitious bipartisan package that will repair much of America’s decayed infrastructure. The goodies for his home state of West Virginia are particularly noteworthy: $6 billion for roads and bridges, $5 billion to upgrade the electricity grid, $600 million to expand broadband, including help for half a million low-income residents to finally get Internet, and another $475 million to repair and replace drinking water pipes and sewer systems. Not bad for a backwater state that badly needed these boosts.
Last night, Republican voters who will benefit from McKinley’s vote thanked McKinley by throwing him out of office.
McKinley was thrown into a primary race with Alex Mooney, another Republican incumbent, because the underpopulated state is losing a House seat. Mooney marches in lockstep with Trump. Mooney surfaced recently at a Trump rally and went full MAGA on McKinley, calling him “one of 13 so-called Republicans to vote for the Joe Biden-Pelosi non-infrastructure $1.2 trillion spending package…He’s a liberal, RINO Republican. To be successful, we need to kick out these RINOs in primaries.”
RINO is the acronym for “Republican in Name Only.” We’ve reached the point – the nadir, as it were – when voting for better roads and drinking water is automatically deemed to be anti-Republican. Indeed, within days of McKinley’s vote, Trump recorded an endorsement for Mooney and hammered McKinley for supporting “the fake infrastructure bill.” (There’s nothing “fake” about it.) Mooney then declared that all the money for better roads and bridges and better Internet access and a better electric grid was merely “Biden’s socialist spending spree.”
By the way, West Virginia’s infrastructure package was also endorsed by Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, but she’s not up for reelection this year. She, like McKinley, knew there was nothing unusual about seeking federal “socialist” help for their needy state, because it just so happens that West Virginia ranks fifth in the nation in its reliance on federal funds, and that West Virginians, as individuals, rank second in their reliance on federal tax dollars. Indeed, local government officials in West Virginia pleaded with McKinley to bring home infrastructure bucks.
So the whole “socialism” attack was just standard MAGA demagoguery. What mattered most was that McKinley crossed the aisle to vote with The Enemy; in Sicilian terms, that act was an unforgivable infamia. Other bipartisan Republicans have also paid the price for bringing home that bacon. What’s truly twisted is that the same MAGA motorists and Internet users who punished McKinley will ultimately enjoy the fruits of what McKinley gave them.
Next up: The Pennsylvania Republican Senate primary on Tuesday. That’s my state; alas, the grassroots GOP has similarly tested positive for idiocy. The favored candidates are Dr. Oz (Trump, recognizing a fellow charlatan, endorsed him); a hedge fund guy named David McCormick who unsuccessfully licked Trump’s shoes in pursuit an endorsement; and a former Fox News commentator named Kathy Barnette who is full MAGA without an endorsement, having repeatedly questioned whether the 2020 presidential election results were on the up and up.
Remember in 2020 when candidate Joe Biden predicted that Republicans would have “an epiphany” about Trump and recognize the wisdom of acting in the bipartisan national interest? That was a good one.