George Orwell once said, “The great enemy of clear language is insincerity.” If only he could’ve seen the long-awaited (and long-dreaded) document concocted by House Republicans for the stretch drive to the November midterm elections. It features laughs by the bellyful, assuming that one has a strong stomach.
The GOP is generally favored to retake the House 44 days hence, which should be no surprise because the party out of the White House generally fares well halfway through an opposing president’s first term. And luckily for the party, most voters probably won’t read “Commitment to America: A Future That’s Built on Freedom,” or learn the truth about the introductory video, because if they were to do so, they’d likely revolt against the GOP’s latest grifts.
Take, for instance, the aforementioned video, “The Preamble to the Commitment to America.” The narrator intones that Republicans “celebrate the rich heritage of the American story and the vibrancy of the American dream.” The accompanying footage shows a drilling rig as the sun comes up. But it turns out that it’s stock footage that was shot…get this…in the Volgograd region of Russia.
Same deal with the footage of a boy scampering through a field with a toy plane, as the words “liberty and the pursuit of happiness” appear on screen. That too was stock footage shot in Russia.
Despite its so-called “Commitment to America,” the Putin-loving party just can’t seem to quit the Motherland. Would it have unduly burdened the Republicans to find a kid and a drilling rig to shoot somewhere in the nation they purport to love?
It’s not like they didn’t have sufficient time to do the work; this GOP congressional campaign platform is the first to be rolled out in many years. Nor did they take the time to check a key quote they foisted on the public. House Minority Leader/Trump lickspittle Kevin McCarthy released a letter he sent to fellow Republican lawmakers during last week’s celebratory launch. It features this quote: “Commitment is what transforms a promise into reality.” McCarthy attributed it to the first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln.
But Lincoln never said it. Nobody really knows who did. Turns out, it was popularized in a 1986 full-page Wall Street Journal ad sponsored by the Wall Street bigwigs at Lehman Brothers.
That’s the fun stuff. Here’s some of the serious stuff:
The party of white grievance isn’t renowned for policy acumen. For instance, the campaign document promises “longer, healthier lives for Americans,” which is rich coming from the same gang that has vowed for more than a decade to kill Obamacare – and still hasn’t come up with a substantive plan to replace it.
It’s also the same gang that has spread or tolerated nutty lies about Covid vaccines, and it’s no surprise that the nine of the 10 states with the lowest vaccination rates are red – and that five of those red states – Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee – are in the top 10 of highest Covid case rates. And it’s cringeworthy to see the GOP promise “lower prices” for medicines just weeks after zero House Republicans voted for the Inflation Reduction Act that finally allows the government to negotiate lower prescription drug prices for seniors.
Cringier still is the House GOP promise to “save and strengthen Social Security and Medicare,” a vow that’s flatly contradicted by many of the ’22 Senate GOP candidates – who like the idea of privatizing those programs (which Americans rely on when they plan retirement), or requiring that the two programs be annually renewed (or not).
And what’s cringy to the max is this particular vow: “Protect the lives of unborn children and their mothers.” Which, of course, is a vow to use government, at the state or ideally the federal level, to control women’s bodies and force them to give birth. But that’s the sole reference to abortion. They clearly have no desire to detail their stance, lest they further bestir the landslide American majority that supports imperiled abortion rights.
But the skimpy section on “government accountability” is by far my favorite. It says that Republicans will “conduct rigorous oversight to rein in government abuse of power and corruption.” Which is a tad odd, considering that Republicans still kiss the ring of (or contrive to tolerate) the most corrupt power abuser in the nation’s history, a coup plotter and thief of nuclear secrets who’s under serious criminal and civil investigation in Washington, Georgia, and New York state.
Their concept of “rigorous oversight” is payback – holding hearings with the intent of impeaching President Biden, for starters. As McCarthy frankly put it the other day, his crew wants “to make a change in our government so that we can hold those people who’ve been coming after us, hold them accountable like we’re supposed to.” If midterm voters put the gavel in that guy’s hand, we’ll get the government we deserve.