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contemplatingoutlander · 1 year

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Let’s hope that the Democrats keep the House, but if they don’t, these are some good suggestions by Greg Sargent to help protect us from the “Looney Tunes Squad” (led by GQP House members like Marjorie Taylor Greene) wreaking havoc on the nation.

“Political scientist Jonathan Bernstein calls this the “crazyproofing agenda.”

Sargent beliefs that not only Democrats but some more moderate GOP members of Congress could use the time before the next term begins to take five steps to “crazyproof” the nation against an out of control GQP:

1. Defuse future debt ceiling crises

House Republicans are already threatening to use potential breaches of the debt limit — which would trigger default and economic disaster — to extract policy concessions from President Biden and Democrats on other fronts.

Congress should neutralize this weapon of extortion, because even the mere playing of this game threatens severe damage. In the lame duck, Democrats in the Senate — joined by Republicans who recognize the threat — could raise the debt limit beyond what would be needed during the Biden presidency, or even much higher, rendering it void. Or Congress could transfer control of debt limit hikes to the treasury secretary. [...]

2. Reduce the risk of a stolen presidential election

A GOP House takeover would make the case for revising the Electoral Count Act of 1887, which dictates how Congress counts presidential electors, even stronger than it already is.

In the wake of the 2024 presidential election, a GOP House could very well vote against counting legitimate electors from one or more swing states won by a Democrat. In this election, the ranks of election deniers in the House have grown.

In another scenario, if Kari Lake becomes governor of Arizona, she could certify sham electors for a losing GOP candidate. (Lake has explicitly said she wouldn’t have certified Joe Biden’s electors.) Or a GOP-controlled state legislature could defy a Democratic governor and try to appoint the loser’s electors by itself. A GOP House could count such sham electors, potentially meaning a constitutional crisis or stolen election.

Reforms advancing in the Senate and House would help avert such scenarios. They would require Congress to count the correct electors, mandate that governors certify electors in keeping with the rule of law and create frameworks for court challenges to abuses. [...]

3. Avert chaotic gridlock on immigration

McCarthy has already threatened that a GOP House will refuse any action on immigration until Republicans deem the border secure — which they never, ever will.

But some Senate Republicans support a compromise that would pump new funding into adjudicating asylum claims at the border and also into removing migrants who don’t qualify. The lame-duck Congress could try to pass something like this combined with protections for hundreds of thousands of people brought here as children, which some Senate Republicans also support.

Current protections for “dreamers” are likely to perish entirely from court challenges, which would be an abominable humanitarian outcome. The asylum system badly needs more money and staffing. [...]

4. Prevent defunding of aid to Ukraine

Many Republicans genuinely seem to be on the right side here. After McCarthy suggested a GOP House might end U.S. military aid to Ukraine, McConnell quickly declared Republicans would continue to support it. And the aid does have broad bipartisan support.

That said, the MAGA caucus in the House could grow more powerful. MAGA celebrities such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) are vowing total defunding, and a power struggle might unfold among Republicans over future aid if powerful right-wing media voices urge MAGA Republicans to oppose it. [...] Congressional scholar Norman Ornstein suggests another possibility: Republicans could withhold support for Ukraine aid as leverage to squeeze Biden for other concessions. [...] For these reasons, Ornstein suggests, Democrats should find 10 Republican senators now to support a long-term appropriation for Ukraine aid and, if that fails, pass one via reconciliation to “give the president more flexibility to do what’s necessary.”

5. Protect investigations of Trump

After the Mar-a-Lago search, numerous Republicans called for defunding the FBI. Though that seems outlandish, a GOP House might attempt to defund investigations or prosecutions of Trump in a more targeted way.

House Republicans are also expected to run hearings into ongoing law enforcement investigations of Trump. Here again, oversight could theoretically be exercised in good faith. But it can also be abused. And harassing or defunding investigations solely because they’re targeting Trump is not good-faith oversight. It’s precisely the opposite. And if those investigations become a more serious threat to Trump, House Republicans would likely exercise leverage to defund them, perhaps with government shutdowns.

So Ornstein suggests a longer-term appropriation for the Justice Department should be considered: “The lame-duck Congress should do everything they can to lock in funding.”

The first two of these are no-brainers no matter what happens in the House. The last three will be more urgent if Republicans do win control. Either way, Democrats should be ready to act — and prod serious Republican lawmakers to join them.

[edited]

#us politics #gop #democrats #crazyproofing agenda #greg sargent #the washington post

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2bpoliticallycurious · 1 year

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Greg Sargent discusses the ways that Tucker Carlson and others on the right have racialized the train disaster in East Palestine, not only to further their white nationalist agenda and to sow division in this country, but also in part to distract from the fact that Democrats are actually interested in doing more for white working class people.

It also seems to me that right-wing pundits are attempting to distract from the fact that in 2018 the Trump administration repealed a brake safety rule for trains carrying “highly flammable hazardous materials,” and that Norfolk Southern appears to have been more interested in profits than in safety. Finally, they might also be distracting from the fact that it was local conservative Ohio officials who made the decision to burn off the toxic chemicals.

“East Palestine is overwhelmingly White, and it’s politically conservative,” Fox News’s Tucker Carlson recently said of the roughly 4,700 residents of the disaster zone. “That shouldn’t be relevant,” he added, but “it very much is.”

It very much isn’t. But ever since the Feb. 3 disaster, Carlson and his comrades have sought to transform East Palestine’s plight into a tale about “woke” Democrats abandoning White communities in the virtuous, forgotten heartland.

What this illustrates is how the right uses race-baiting to deceive people into forgetting that Democrats are now the far more committed party when it comes to investing in such left-behind communities.

Central to Carlson’s insinuation about the “relevance” of East Palestine’s Whiteness is the conduct of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. Carlson cites recent remarks by Buttigieg about the construction industry’s racial makeup, sneering that Buttigieg has been neglecting East Palestine specifically to focus on a more “pressing problem,” that “we have too many White construction workers.”

Similarly, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) ripped Buttigieg for neglecting railroad safety while instead “talking about how we have too many White male construction workers,” adding in the “male” for good measure.

The relevant Buttigieg comments were about the importation of White workers to build projects in high-unemployment minority communities, and about how to create opportunities for minority construction workers. For Vance and Carlson, this apparently isn’t a concern. But even if you disagree with Buttigieg on this, it’s disgusting to link it to East Palestine: It’s meant to imply neglect of White disaster victims to serve a hidden agenda of preferring minorities over Whites.

Carlson ratchets up this vile game by saying that if the accident had happened in Philadelphia or Detroit — wink, wink — there would be no neglect. And the race-baiting gets worse. One Fox News host suggested the Biden administration is “spilling toxic chemicals on poor white people.” Far-right personality Charlie Kirk decried a “war on white people” waged by the “Biden regime,” which is supposedly allowing the “poisoning” of “citizens of eastern Ohio.” Note the hints of the ugly trope that elites are plotting to exterminate Whites, or at least allowing them to perish.

#tucker carlson #jd vance #racializing the east palestine train crash #fox news #greg sargent #the washington post

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tomorrowusa · 2 months

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« Democrats must do more to communicate that Republicans are sabotaging the country because Trump told them to. Democrats spent a few days pointing out that Republicans themselves admitted they iced the deal to help Trump politically. But they mustn’t let this drop. Keep saying it. »

— Greg Sargent at The New Republic.

Republicans demanded a border deal. And when they got one, they torpedoed it on Trump's orders.

Dems need to get better at messaging and this situation offers a marvelous opportunity.

Here are some phrases which could be used...

Republican border crisis

Republican migration mess

Trump migrant encampment

GOP forced busing of migrants

Don't just use those (or your own) once and think you've solved the problem. Effective messaging involves constant repetition. Liberals seem to have a problem with repetition. But repetition is how you sell things. And the strategy for selling ideas is not radically different from the strategy for selling detergent. When people hear a phrase often enough they begin to think it on their own.

In general, Republicans aren't interested in governance but instead wish to conduct an eternal culture war. We should use the Republican border crisis to put them on the defensive in their own war.

#greg sargent #republican border crisis #immigration reform #democratic messaging #repetition is your political ally #donald trump #republican flip-flop on border chaos #vote blue no matter who #election 2024

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filosofablogger · 5 months

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Annie's Apt Analysis

Our friend Annie watched the hour-long Rachel Maddow interview with Liz Cheney a few nights ago, and shared her takeaways from that hour. One thing that particularly impresses me is, as Annie notes, that while Rachel Maddow (and most of us) is 180° away from Liz Cheney on policy issues, the two were still able to sit down and talk like two civil humans, coming together over the common ground of…

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#annieasksyou #Donald Trump #Greg Sargent #January 6 committee #Liz Cheney #Rachel Maddow

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rat-mans-things · 5 months

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#greg and sargent mark #greg smg4 #smg4 greg #greg x sargent mark #sargent mark #smg4 #smg fanart #smg4fanart #fanart #digatal art #digital art #my art <3 #i need more of them!!!#i love them #swag #smg4 swag #swagmaster6969696969

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theaustralianginger · 12 days

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When you're doing a word search on a plane and the old SMG4 show gnr keeps following you (above the word petunia)

#smg4 #smg4 swag #smg4 chris #gnr #smg4 gnr #smg4 sargent mark #smg4 greg

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thegirlwhobrokeintothetardis · 2 years

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A Gentle Voice (Greg Gerwitz x Reader)

Word Count: 2,106

Pairing: Greg “Mouse” Gerwitz x Reader

Summary: You got kidnapped by members of an aggressive incel group, and thought that this was how you were going to die. But a group of the Chicago PD are able to save you; now you just need to help them find the group that did this. Only one problem: You can’t talk.

Warnings: Graphic details of beatings and abuse, mentions of blood, violence against women, and swears.

A/N: So this was based off an idea by an anonymous sender asking for more mouse imagines. And since I am on a break from work (i’m okay, I just work at an elementary school and its summer vacation lol) I thought I would get some writing done :) I hope you all enjoy, and if anyone else has ideas for imagines you want me to write, send me a message!

I’m going to die.

You still remember the moment where you knew something was wrong when you were walking home from your job at the tech firm. It was late, not crazy late, but late enough where the street lights started to flicker on. The clicking of your footsteps soon stepped in sync with someone else’s, and before you could pull out your phone or your mace, a bag was thrown over your head and with a hard hit with something, you were out.

Now here you were, who knows how many days have passed, in a jail cell of a room, trying to anticipate when your kidnappers would come back for another round of smacking you around with the assorted weapons at their disposal. This group has been trying to extract some info about a set of code you had recently written to help one of the biggest banks in Chicago with their security; you assumed to rob it. You’ve also heard murmurings from outside your door about how they needed the money, for what though you didn’t know.

While curled up in a corner, trying to prepare yourself for the inevitable; that you were not going to make it out, you were shocked by a big BANG that shook the walls that surrounded you. You could here shouting, many voices echoing around as the scuttering of footsteps getting closer and closer to where you were being kept. You tried to push yourself further into the corner, and as the door swung open your hid your head in your lap with your arms over your head for protection.

“Hello?”

Slowly, you raised you head and squinted as a flash of light caught your eyes. In front of you was three people; two men and a woman. They had guns in their hands and bulletproof vests labeled with POLICE.

“Ma’am? Ma’am are you okay?” The taller man asked, his brown hair slicked back and his blue eyes looking at you with concern. With a shaky nod, the woman cop slowly comes over to you and kneels down.

“Are you Y/F/N Y/L/N?” Another nod, and the woman cop looks to her friends then back at you, offering her hand. “I’m Detective Lindsay, and we’re here to get you home.”

A flood of tears well up in your eyes and you reach out and grab her hand, her grip firm and comforting as she helps you up and out of your nightmare.

---

Hours have passed, and Detectives Lindsay and Halstead are standing outside a hospital room where you were sleeping off the meds the doctors had given you. Erin and Jay watch you through the window as the doctor walked over to them, clipboard and your chart at hand. “Detectives?”

“Yes.” Erin said, straightening up. “How is she?”

“Y/N is sedated now, but looks like she might be here for a couple days. With contusions on her legs, two broken ribs and a concussion, we would want to keep an eye on her before sending her home. We also had to administer a rape kit after seeing the bruising on her legs.”

“These guys really worked her over.” Jay murmurs, looking at you again before turning back to his partner.

“When she wakes up, please give us a call. We need to ask her some questions about the people that kidnapped her.” Erin hands the doctor her card and is about to turn and walk away when the doctor’s voice makes the cops’ stop.

“That might be an issue.” Erin and Jay turn back around and walk back to the doctor, looks of confusion present on their faces. “When she got to the hospital before being sedated, Y/N stopped answering any and all questions presented to her.”

“Like she’s refusing to talk? Why would she do that?” Jay asked.

The doctor shook their head and pulled their clipboard to their chest, “The head of psych, Dr. Daniel Charles, believes that Y/N has developed Psychogenic Mutism. Basically because of the trauma Y/N has endured, her mind has shut off that part of her brain that allows her to communicate. It’s not that she is choosing to not speak; it is that she feels physically unable to.” They explained, glancing over in your direction as she progressed.

“How long will that last?”

“It could be days, weeks, or it could go on for years. This type of trauma response is very unpredictable because we are not just dealing with the health of the patient. We are dealing with their mental health and it they feel safe and secure enough that their mutism can subside.”

Erin looked over at you again and sighed, hating that not only had the people responsible hurt you and taken away your feeling of safety, they also somehow took away your voice.

Over the next few days, it was explained to you that an investigation was open on your kidnapping and subsequent abuse. A Dr. Charles also visited frequently about what he called your “mutism”. He ended up giving you a whiteboard and marker so you could write, but whenever he brought up your attack, it was like your brain would shut down. The first time it happened, you woke up to Dr. Charles standing over you, telling you that you had a panic attack and passed out. After that, Dr. Charles and others were very careful what to bring up around you.

Eventually, you were released from the hospital and given your own police protection detail just incase those guys tried to take you again. The Detectives that found you, mainly Detective Lindsay, would visit and say how you were, and if you had thought of anything useful to help the investigation, but it was no use. One one day, you were asked to come to 21st District to look at some pictures of possible perps, and you were dreading it. It was the first time you had left the house since being released from the hospital and you had made your apartment your safety bubble; essentially everything in the bubble was good, and everything outside was dangerous. But some righteous part of you wanted to see the people responsible for your attack put to justice, so you got into the police cruiser of one of your protection detail, and made your way to the 21st.

Inside the district, you were met with a sturdy-looking older woman behind the desk of the main floor. She looked like the one in charge, her eyes never wavering even when you walked over to her. The officers with you, you think their names were Burgess and Roman, explained who you were, and you were buzzed up to the upper level which was explained to you that was where the Intelligence Unit was. After arriving to the office space, officers Burgess and Roman were called over their walkies, the sudden noise making you jump.

Officer Roman moved to answer the call as Burgess moved closer to you, “Sorry. It looks like we need to go. Lucky though you are in the safest place for you to be right now.” she said with a reassuring smile. “There is a civilian who works for the unit; he is their tech expert and used to work with Detective Halstead when they were Rangers. We’ll get him to come up and stay with you until the unit comes back.”

You nodded as Burgess and Roman walked down the stairs back down to the main flor of the district, leaving you alone for what feels like the first time in weeks. You took a seat at one of the desks, and fiddled with your hands as the silence around you started to press down on you.

I’m alone...The last time I was alone I was taken...I-I don’t want to be alone...I-I-I

Suddenly the room felt like it was moving, a swaying motion that didn’t bring you any comfort. Your lungs felt like they couldn’t get enough breath as you tried to get more air into them, and slowly your brain realized that you were hyperventilating. You were so concerned with trying to breathe that you didn’t hear someone enter the space you were in or how they moved closer to you quickly. It wasn’t until there was a hand falling on your shoulder that made you jump out of your seat and look up.

In front of you was a man with combed back brown hair and striking blue eyes, wearing a spotted black-and-white button-up shirt and jeans. The look he was giving you was full of concern, but not edging on pity which was mostly what you’ve seen since your attack. It took a second to realize that his mouth was moving and words were leaving his lips.

“-ear me? Hey, can you hear me? You need to breathe, okay? Match my breathing.” He said, his tone calming and rumbling like a faraway thunderstorm. Slowly, you were able to take deeper and deeper breaths, your heart slowing down until the panic attack subsided. Tears started to drift into your vision as a wave of exhaustion encompassed you all the way to your bones. “Its okay, its always a bit overwhelming after an attack like that.”

You nodded as you wiped away your tears to try and regain some composure, but the man didn’t seem bothered by the tears. He gave you a small smile and patted your lap before getting up and heading to the side kitchen. There was noise of ceramic clanking together and the sound of water, and a couple of minutes later he came back with a cup of tea. “Tea really helps. I have a cup after I have my panic attacks and its a nice calming drink to help ground me.” He explained, handing over the cup.

You sip from the cup, the smell of flowers of some kind and the taste of some kind of sweetener warmed your chest and let a small smile appear on your face. The man smiled at your calm exterior before pulling over a chair and sitting next to you, “Officer Burgess explained they were watching over you but had to leave, I’ve been helping the unit on your case so I know you can’t speak. That’s okay though. I’m Greg, by the way. Greg Gerwitz, but everyone calls me Mouse.”

You look over with a confused look on your face, which made Mouse laugh, “Its a very long story, trust me you don’t want to hear it.” You smiled again, a little bigger than before, and you two spent the next few minutes in conversation. Well, with Mouse talking and you listening, but it was the closest to a normal conversation you’ve had in weeks.

“-and then Jay, Detective Halstead, started running around like crazy, shucking off his shirt in the barracks looking for the spider.” Mouse said, laughing at the memory of Jay freaking out because of a spider. You were smiling and before you could even notice, your mouth was moving.

“What happened after that?”

Mouse turned to you in shock, and you stared back wide eyed as your hand came up to your mouth. “Oh my god.”

“Did...Did you just speak?” Mouse asked, his full attention now on your next move. You paused, thinking that you had both imagined that, but then went to try to speak again.

“H-Hi.”

Mouse’s shocked expression turned into a smile, “Hi.”

Just as the two of you were in the middle of a moment, the gate leading to the bullpen downstairs clanged shut with the follow up sound of multiple footsteps coming up the stairs. Mouse and you both turned to see Detective Lindsay, Detective Halstead and a few others walking into the room.

“Y/N, sorry for making you wait. I hope our tech expert Greg wasn’t that bad of company.” Jay said jokingly, giving Mouse a smirk. Before Mouse could open his mouth to reply, you stood up.

“N-No, he was great company.” You said as you watched Detective Lindsay and Halstead’s jaws drop at the sound of your voice. “He even helped me find my voice.”

“So you can talk now.” A voice said as an older man walked out to the front of the group. Clearly he was the Sargent Voight Mouse had mentioned to you earlier, the head of the Intelligence Unit. “Does that mean you’ll be able to help us with your case?”

You looked back to Mouse who gave you a reassuring smile, then turned back to the unit, “I’ll tell you everything.”

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weird-god666 · 12 days

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Doodles during free period

#gay #art #smg4 #guards n' retards #gnr #chris gordman #smg4 chris #smg4 chris gordan #smg4 swagmaster6969696969 #smg4 swagmaster #smg4 swag #swagmaster6969696969 #sargent mark #admiral greg

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vintagegirl50s60s70s80s · 1 year

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Elvis Presley, Michele Carey and Dick Sargent in Live a little love a little (1968)

#Live a little love a little #Elvis Presley #Michele Carey #Dick Sargent #Greg Nolan #Bernice #Elvis movies #1960s movies #Old Hollywood #1960s #1968 #Vintage

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chiefdirector · 3 months

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Photographing | Tim Bradford | The Rookie

(Y/N) spun on her chair, waiting for the computer to make its move in the latest of a string of chess games. The Sergeant in charge of the detectives, Caradine had been drying her out when it came to cases, leaving her nothing but time. The computer moved its King to B7.

Rolling her eyes, (Y/N) debated moving her bishop only to be cut off by Grey approaching her desk, a small box neatly tucked under his arms.

“Are you really playing computer games right now?” He asked incredulously.

She quickly closed the tab. “No…?”

“Don’t you have a job to do? Or are you still left behind? Because if you are, I can speak to Sergeant Caradine, get him to ease up on you.”

“No. Thank you though,” She shook her head, turning in her chair to fully face Grey, “As much as I appreciate it, I don’t need special treatment. Especially right now. I need to earn Caradine’s trust again…. Not that I had much of it in the first place. But onto another subject, what brings you over? Super cool secret crime to fight?”

Wade laughed, placing the box down in front of (Y/N) “Not quite. This was dropped at the front desk for you. Smitty tried to open it, so I rescued it.”

“I didn’t order anything.”

(Y/N) carefully picked up the box, examining the outside for a return address. The only text was her details for the postage. No stamps, no indication of where it came from.

“Who dropped it off because clearly it didn’t go through USPS.” She stood up, taking a step back from the desk.

“Right,” Grey said, reaching for his radio. “I’m calling the bomb squad.”

“Don’t!-“ she cut him off before the order could be given. Instead, she moved for the second drawer in her desk, pulling out a pair of latex gloves. “You held it. It’s far too light to be any form of explosive. It felt almost empty.”

Grabbing the Swiss Army Knife from the pocket of her jacket, she flicked the blade open, slicing through the top layers of tape, leaving the flaps of the cardboard loose. Gently, she opened both at the same time and peered inside.

The box was empty save for a single photograph. It was a polaroid image of (Y/N) and Tim leaving their home for work yesterday morning. He held her hand, shielding her from the outside. She was almost invisible save from her hair flowing out from behind her.

Flipping it over, (Y/N) silently read the message inscribed in red ink. All my love, R.D.

“‘R.D.’ Regina Diaz. She’s trying to mess with me.” (Y/N) passed the photo over to Grey, “she also sent me the other photos using polaroid.”

“This was yesterday. Look, you’re wearing the same thing. Did you see anything when you left?” He asked, pacing the photo back into the box.

“No, Tim might have. I’ll call him now.”

Grey raised his hand, moving to take his radio out. “Don’t. You’ll only panic him.” He lifted the radio to speak into it. “Officer Bradford, it’s Sargent Grey, I need you to report back to the station A.S.A.P.”

The radio buzzed with static as Tim replied. “We’re about fifteen minutes out. What’s up?”

“Just need an opinion on something. Meet us in my office. Have Chen go to help on the front desk.”

As Grey spoke to Tim, (Y/N) gestured to her empty cup, signalling that she was going to get a coffee. She rolled her eyes once again as Grey nodded at her, knowing that he wanted one too.

----------

(Y/N) sipped on her coffee from her pink mug, closing her eyes to relish the taste. There was little she enjoyed more than coffee.

“You look like you’re about to propose to the cup there.” Grey said, looking at (Y/N) over his own mug.

“What happens between me and the contents of the mug is none of your business,” she smirked, resting the mug on Grey’s desk in front of her. “Besides, you look just as invested.”

Greg looked like he wanted to respond when he looked up at the sound of knocking on his office door and someone entering. “Bradford, come in. Take a seat.”

Tim complied, sitting down next to (Y/N), sending her an inquisitive look. He reached forward for her mug only to have his hand slapped away.

“What’s going on? Is everything okay?” Tim asked, looking back and forth between his wife and the watch commander.

“Did you see anything strange yesterday morning when you left the house?” Grey asked, picking up the Polaroid picture, passing it over to Tim to look at. “This was delivered to the front desk this morning. Smitty tried to open it.”

Tim rolled his eyes, “Of course he did. But I didn’t see anything. Any idea who sent it?”

“I’m having Lopez look at security footage now. But the back says it’s from an ‘R.D’.”

“Regina Diaz.”

“That’s what I thought,” (Y/N) said, reaching for her coffee again, “but I had a look at the other Polaroids. It only matches the handwriting of one of the pictures. The other is completely different.”

Tim placed his hand on (Y/N)’s thigh, squeezing it softly in reassurance. “So you think that this could be the other person, posing as Diaz?”

“It’s a possibility. But until we figure it out, I want you two to be careful. Who knows what’s waiting out there for you. But at least we know that there is a threat now, we have something to look out for.”

“So what now?” Tim asked.

“I’m going to make a few calls, update the case file with this development. See if I can figure anything out.” (Y/N) said, finished off her coffee, placing the empty cup back down on the desk. “Then go see where this photo was taken, see if any cameras could’ve picked up who took it.”

“I can do that. I’ll take Chen when she’s done with the footage.”

“Take her now,” Grey said, standing up to guide the two Bradfords out of his office. “I’ll have Lopez check the cameras. We can all report back here when we have something.”

(Y/N) nodded, moving out of the door, Tim hot on her heels. She weaved in and out of the officers to go back to her desk. Sitting down, she gestured for her husband to perch on top of the surface.

“I don’t think this is anything.” She broke the silence, watching Tim’s expression change to confusion at her words.

“How so? This is clearly a warning, if not a threat.”

(Y/N) hummed, leaning across to take one of Tim’s hands in hers, using the moment to find the right words. “No. I think it was meant to throw us off our tracks. Have us chasing our tails. Psych us out, you know.”

“I know,” he said, getting down from the desk, before leaning over to give (Y/N) a quick kiss. “Just be careful anyway. I can’t let anything happen to you.”

“Okay. I promise, but only if you do.”

“You know me, Mogs, always careful.”

(Y/N) looked down before nodding, watching as her husband left to find his Rookie. Tim hadn’t called her ‘Mogs’ in years, he only did when he was worried, not that he would admit it.

Chapter 20 | Chapter 22

Series Masterlist | Masterlist

Tags: @xceafh @kmc1989 @buba424 @salty0cracker @iamasimpingh0e @malindacath @agentred27 @hufflepuffwhore13 @tessalynni @anaferreira-4

Tags are open :)

#tim bradford #tim bradford x reader #tim bradford imagine #the rookie #the rookie x reader #chiefdirector #bottom of the river

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allhailthe70shousewife · 6 months

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/10/12/southern-strategy-kevin-phillips-republican-party-trump/

Opinion The GOP’s ‘southern strategy’ mastermind just died. Here’s his legacy.

Greg Sargent

“The whole secret of politics is knowing who hates who.”

That insight was the brainchild of Kevin Phillips, the longtime political analyst who passed away this week at 82 years old. Phillips’s 1969 book, “The Emerging Republican Majority,” provided the blueprint for the “southern strategy” that the Republican Party adopted for decades to win over White voters who were alienated by the Democratic Party’s embrace of civil rights in the 1960s.

Phillips advised Republicans to exploit the racial anxieties of White voters, linking them directly to issues such as crime, federal spending and voting rights. The strategy, beginning with Richard M. Nixon’s landslide victory in the 1972 presidential race, helped produce GOP majorities for decades.

Though Phillips later reconsidered his fealty to the GOP, updated versions of the “southern strategy” live on in today’s Republican Party, shaping the political world we inhabit today. So I asked historians and political theorists to weigh in on Phillips’s legacy. Their responses have been edited for style and brevity.

Kevin Kruse, historian at Princeton University and co-editor of “Myth America”: Kevin Phillips was a prophet of today’s polarization. He drew a blueprint for a major realignment of American politics that is still with us. For much of the 20th century, Democrats dominated the national scene, because of the reliable support of the “Solid South.”

But the “Negro problem” of the 1960s, Phillips argued, presented Republicans an opportunity to take the South and Southwest, too, a new region he anointed “the Sun Belt.” All they had to do was appeal to the hatreds of White voters there, through racially coded “law and order” appeals.

Phillips, of course, proved correct about the regional realignment. Republicans won every single state in the South in the 1972, 1984, 1988, 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns. Today, Republicans dominate the region partly because they still employ Phillips’s polarizing politics of resentment and reaction, from complaints about Black Lives Matter to panics about “woke” education. Donald Trump’s continued dominance of the GOP shows that the underlying instinct to exploit division and inflame hatred remains.

Nicole Hemmer, author of “Partisans: The Conservative Revolutionaries who Remade American Politics in the 1990s”: Phillips helped shape how the Republican Party navigated the last 50 years of U.S. politics. His big contribution was the idea that White southerners could be potential voters for the GOP, because the solid Democratic South had become newly fractured after President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act.

Phillips argued that the Republican Party needed to change the way it conducted politics to reach out to disaffected White southerners. For Nixon, that was “law and order,” something Ronald Reagan used to great effect along with stories about “welfare queens.” George H.W. Bush’s campaign ran the “Willie Horton” ad, which played up fears of Black criminality.

Trump picked up this rhetoric. He launched his campaign on the ideas of Mexican migrant and Muslim criminality — that all these minority populations needed to be under much stricter surveillance.

The strategy that Phillips helped popularize worked just as well with some northern White voters as it did with southern White voters. It helped solidify the Republican Party’s base as almost exclusively White even as the nation has grown more diverse.

Bill Kristol, a former Republican turned Never Trump conservative: It was happening already in 1968, but Phillips’s book and his subsequent promotion of the southern strategy did have the effect of making that reaction to the civil rights movement more coherent. It gave politicians a way to think about shaping that reaction politically.

Newt Gingrich, who defeated lots of Democrats in southern House seats in the 1994 midterms, was in spirit a Phillips protégé. That culminated in 2010, when Democrats got obliterated, and in the red state-blue state divide today.

From Phillips to Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott, there is a through line. DeSantis, Abbott and others are operating in a world anticipated and partly created by Phillips. The reaction of much of the White working class and Republican politicians to Black Lives Matter and “cosmopolitan elites” is a close cousin of what Phillips predicted and helped shape.

Michael Barone, senior political analyst for the Washington Examiner: I think Phillips was noticing what was happening rather than causing it to happen. Dwight D. Eisenhower got 49 to 50 percent of the popular vote in the South in 1952 and 1956; Nixon got nearly that much in 1960. When the national Democratic Party became more dovish, circa 1967, reacting against the Vietnam escalations of its own presidents, Southern Whites — always the most hawkish voters — turned away from national Democrats not so much because of civil rights but because of dovishness. It’s what Tom Eagleton later told Robert Novak: “acid, amnesty, and abortion.”

Corey Robin, political theorist and author of “The Reactionary Mind”: Phillips understood that the old Republican Party establishment could not begin to take on the New Deal and Great Society until it developed a mass popular base. He saw that the White working class — not just in the South, but in the North — was growing disaffected with the New Deal on economic and racist grounds, and that Republicans could turn that dissatisfaction into governing majorities.

Beginning in 1972 with the reelection of Nixon, Republicans built this majority in the spirit of what Phillips imagined. George W. Bush, the last Republican president to get a popular majority, was the last spasm of that vision. The irony is that, under Phillips, the idea was to expand the Republican Party into a permanent governing majority.

But once the White working class diminished, the electoral return of that resentment dramatically dwindled. As a result, instead of relying on robust electoral majorities, the Republican Party, to win power, relies on the electoral college and the malapportioned Senate. Phillips’s blueprint made the heyday of Republican power — and ultimately unmade it.

#us history #trump #gop #gqp #republicans #nixon #reagan #southern strategy

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