There's no such thing as a moderate Republican in Congress anymore: Mehdi Hasan
If one thing is certain after the 2022 election it's that the Republican Party has purged itself of the moderate Republicans, MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan said at the close of his Sunday evening show.
"The right has always understood how to best control the discourse in our political landscape, and thereby control the terms of political debate," he explained. "Nowhere was this more evident than this week's House of Speakership fiasco. So much of the media, including sections of the so-called liberal media, bought into this narrative that because the opponent to Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and the majority of House Republicans were far-right election deniers, that must make McCarthy and his majority some sort of center-right moderates. Never mind the fact that McCarthy voted to overturn the election both before and after the Jan. 6th insurrection."
Instead, what happened to the GOP after 2022 is that the right came together with the far right, while politicians spin policies and issues as if their far-right GOP is the same as the Democrats are on the left.
"There is his wing-women, far-right Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) who blamed wildfires on Jewish space lasers indicated support from -- and accused recently — Democrats of killing Republicans," the host recalled. "And McCarthy celebrated his win by taking a selfie with her on the house floor."
He cited the 139 House Republicans who attempted to overturn the 2020 election, which includes the five out of seven members of the Republican Party leadership team.
"A sad reality is if there are no moderates or establishment Republicans left in this GOP caucus," Hasan continued. "The people you might call moderates, like Adam Kinzinger, Jamie Herrera Beutler, John Katko -- those who voted to impeach Trump — they are all gone. The people you might call establishment types in the GOP, like Mitt Romney, who voted to convict Trump twice, got censured. The Bush family, who didn't vote for Trump in the last two elections, and they don't exist within the House GOP. If you don't believe me, just ask Liz Cheney who was exiled from the House Republican Party for daring to hold Trump accountable after Jan. the 6th. A Cheney was kicked out of the GOP!"
There are those like Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) who attempted to look moderate by calling out Matt Gaetz on the Sunday morning talk shows. But the reality is she's exactly like the rest of them, he said.
"The House Republican Caucus, as a whole, is extremist, is conspiratorial, is far-right-wing," Hasan said. "It's in hock to one Donald J. Trump. Some of them just do a better job of hiding it than others."
See his commentary below or in the video here:
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