(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Next Stop For the GOP: (The Long-Awaited) Bottom [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-10-15 Word went out on Friday, House members would have the weekend to ‘think over’ whether they could support Jim Jordan for Speaker of the House, after moderates voted they wouldn’t support him on the House floor, 55 to 139 after they had already rejected his nomination within the conference, 99 to 113. According to the NYTimes: Mr. Jordan’s supporters said his decision to send lawmakers home to their districts over the weekend rather than keeping them in Washington for one-on-one meetings to drum up support was a deliberate move to intensify grass-roots pressure on them to fall into line. www.nytimes.com/... Officially, the grassroots ‘pressure’ is directed at the members themselves, as members of the Republican conference. Seemingly just doing some normal politicking: While Friday’s votes were secret ballots, by Saturday, right-wing activists appeared to have identified about a dozen holdouts against Mr. Jordan as top targets for their onslaught. “Everybody’s going to go home, listen to their constituents, and make a decision,” said Representative Tim Burchett of Tennessee, predicting that hearing from the party base would help sway holdouts in Mr. Jordan’s direction. “Honestly, the grass roots, there’s nobody stronger.” But let’s face facts, friends, this is the Jim Jordan fanatic fan-club swinging into action here. Such euphemisms for ‘grass roots’ shouldn’t be confused with what are the beginnings of mob-style intimidation tactics. Officially, MAGA organizers are distributing phone lists of district offices, for constituents to call and make their voices heard. But who are we kidding? These are people who target judges, prosecutors, and judicial staff for intimidation, when their lawlessness turns criminal enough to warrant such prosecutorial attention. They’re one step away from threatening the families of moderate Republican representatives who don’t fall in line behind their MAGA candidate, Jim Jordan. If the veiled threats don’t work, and Jordan still loses a floor vote, tentatively scheduled for Tuesday, October 17, they’ve got nowhere else to go but where mobsters since time immemorial have gone: Psychological and physical intimidation. That would be the bottom, for American democratic values. We’ll be entering Putin territory from that point on. Consider MAGA ‘grass roots’ to be latter day Brown Shirts. Instead of openly waving flags and wearing swastikas, they openly reveal themselves with red caps and, rather conveniently, have a former president to hide behind as their standard-bearer, instead of a lowly corporal. Yet we should all be watching this closely. A line is being approached with this vote for Speaker on Tuesday, on a journey that began with REDMAP Strategy 2010 (since updated to ‘2020’) the nation’s first ever national strategy of apportionment abuse (aka partisan gerrymandering) meant to guarantee ‘safe districts’ for Republicans. But appears to be ending with unscrupulous leaders, like Jim Jordan, and Paul Gosar, steeped in self-righteous fanaticism and paranoia, leveraging the business end of doxxing threats and intimidation, and calling it ‘just politics’. What’s their confidence level? “These 60 members are not voting against Jordan on the floor,” Russell T. Vought, president of the Center for Renewing America, a think tank with ties to Mr. Trump, [and an Orwellian branding sensibility — ed.] and a strategist close to Mr. Jordan, wrote on X. “Take it to the floor & call their bluff.” We’ll be watching. And we’ll continue to witness the MAGA response to political failure. When it crosses that line into identifiably criminal behavior, we need to be there, and be ready to call their bluff. Then they can join their Jan-6 ‘heroes’ already doing time for their lawlessness. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10/15/2199483/-Next-Stop-For-the-GOP-The-Long-Awaited-Bottom?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/