A memorable 1970’s putdown, courtesy of Sen. Eugene McCarthy, is patent today: “The role of moderate Republicans is to follow Nixon into battle and shoot the wounded.”
Actually, some Republicans in the past have demonstrated integrity and courage, such as Sen. Margaret Chase Smith with her “declaration of conscience” against Joe McCarthy. Barry Goldwater told President Nixon in 1974 that only 12-15 senators would still vote against his conviction and removal from office. Nixon soon resigned and flew off to San Clemente.
In the last decade, however, about the only GOP gesture of independence was Sen. John McCain’s thumbs-down on the Senate floor, which saved the Affordable Care Act. And occasional actions of Lisa Murkowski and Mitt Romney.
Now, sounds of discontent are being heard in the provinces. The Elon Musk wrecking crew has decreed 60 layoffs at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, site of the nation’s premier nuclear-waste cleanup. Musk provoked a blunt message from the Tri-City Herald to Republican U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse: Do something, say something.
“The Republican majority in Congress, of which Newhouse is a member, has let the President render the legislative branch all but irrelevant,” the Herald argued, asking: “Will funding for the Hanford cleanup be next on the chopping block as a new Secretary of Energy refocuses the department on fossil fuels?”
The Herald noted, “Newhouse doesn’t owe Trump any favors. In a one-time note of independence, Newhouse voted to impeach Trump after the January 6 insurrection. In a payback, Trump backed a MAGA opponent last year and called Newhouse a “weak and pathetic RINO” (Republican In Name Only).
Newhouse is a symbol of wimpy response to Trump-Musk overreach and government gutting. He has mildly voiced “concerns that the consequences of these workforce reductions will have long-term complications at Hanford, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and the Bonneville Power Administration.”
Similarly, Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kansas, is “asking for information” about cuts to farm programs. And Senate Majority Leader John Thune says he will see “if there are things that need to be addressed.”
Damned right there are both short and long term implications. Look to the gutting of the BPA, the region’s principal power supplier, and redefinition of Hanford’s high-level and low-level nuclear waste.
Eastern Washington voters respond to the language of less government but depend on big government. Hanford, PNNL, the Bureau of Reclamation, Fairchild Air Force Base, the Wainwright VA Hospital in Walla Walla, all are major employers in Newhouse’s district and next door in the district of newly elected GOP Rep. Michael Baumgartner.
Here is the opportunity for frustrated folk to make a real difference. Tell these two Republicans to represent your people. Don’t be timid before the bully Trump. With the GOP owning a narrow 220-215 House advantage (smaller with three vacancies), you can curb the wretched excesses. Newhouse needed support from Democrats and Independents to survive.
Eastern Washington voters, handing in ballots for Trump, asked nothing for their support. And that is what they got: Trump-Musk attacking their health, safety, and economic underpinnings. In face of these threats, Reps. Newhouse and Baumgartner are acting like a pair of supine dorks.
This article also appeared in The Cascadia Advocate.
Time for local journalists to gather information and publish it far and wide about the grim economic impacts of Trump-ism on Washington’s agriculture, tourism, and public educational institutions in GOP-controlled U.S. Congressional districts.
Identify viable candidates to bolster and lead incumbent challenges.
The biggest fear nationally now (for good reason) is coming from Republican incumbents threatened by being “primaried.” Without strong, willing challengers, this is the imminent threat to America’s democracy. Today’s gerrymandered America is not France, 1939, a country ravaged by centuries of warfare. Today we are not facing a foreign force. We are looking at each other, and in the mirror.
Democratic Speaker of the US House of Representatives Tom Foley was elected in 1964 in one such Washington State GOP district in the mid-20th Century.
Get Busy!
Thanks, Joel
The moment seems ripe. Musk’s minions are looking like idiots, Trump is in Europe betraying everything America has stood for in the world for most of a century.
Can conservatives be honest, courageous and responsible? Personally I think so, even if their political banner has stood for something else most of my 70 years. Prove me right.
“Can conservatives be honest, courageous and responsible?” No sign of that in today’s Republican Congress. A pathetic, spineless, groveling group of sycophants only concerned with staying in office at any cost. To hell with their country, their oath to protect the Constitution, and now to the very MAGA voters who have put them in office in the first place. My neighbor, who proudly flies a Trump flag in front of his trailer, has a family member who benefitted from millions of dollars in ICU care over many months. I doubt that he’s singing the praises of Obama for that largesse, but he’s sure going to be unhappy when it all goes away.
It’s because the party chose that path generations ago. After the turmoil of the ’60s and ’70s, they turned towards populism, and already traditional alliance with big business was left as their only serious concern. Today’s MAGA thing is the monster they created over several decades, while holding America’s arms while the big corporations had their way with her. They ride that monster but fear it, and at times it seems unclear whether they control it more than Putin does.
But no Republican is really captive to that – politician or voter. Any of them can stand up and say Eisenhower was right, racism isn’t good for America; Evans was right, respect for the natural environment is a conservative value in Washington state, American government institutions and its civil servants are the envy of the world, etc. All of them know it’s true.
What DOGE is doing is no different that what the Clinton White House did with the Reinventing Government program. And that program cut well over 100,00 Federal jobs.
Why was Clinton praised for doing that and Trump is now lambasted for doing the exact same thing?
Take a walk down memory lane.
Clintons goal was simple: create a government that works better and costs less. The President established the National Performance Review, under the direction of Vice President Gore, to reinvent government. Within six months, the Vice President produced a report containing 384 recommendations to reinvent the government – a report which became a New York Times bestseller.
1,200 U. S. Department of Agriculture offices were closed. And the federal government civilian work force was cut by over 200,000.
Praising one and criticizing the other is just another example of the extreme knee-jerk political bipartisanship.
Here’s an explanation:
https://x.com/RapidResponse47/status/1890817980289712613
To show that it’s “no different”, you’d have to show that Gore’s work was as ham-handed and ill-informed as what we’re seeing from Musk and his minions. The program lasted 5 years.
The point is not that civil service jobs are sacrosanct. The point is that this is a critical part of American society, and the people who work there are one of the strengths of America. What these two malignant sociopaths are doing is kind of like burning down your house to get rid of a rat infestation, that you may or may not really have.
I expect the relatively lesser criticism for the ’90s version, may be because Gore conducted this work with some respect for the institutions he was working with.
And you believe Musk? Good grief! I started my career as a federal auditor, before switching to a private sector accounting position. I have almost thirty years experience with audits, both as an auditor and as an auditee. These are make believe audits. There is no way they can perform such work in such a short time, reviewing systems they’ve never seen before, with adolescent coders; you need experienced accountants/auditors to perform such work.
You want results? Take the time to study what these agencies do, then develop a plan, than act upon that plan. But that takes lots of hard work, and an unwavering attention span. Ready Fire Aim doesn’t cut it.
Mr. Groot
Please, at once, without delay, immediately acquire a new set of news suppliers. You/we have a responsibility as citizens to be informed. Relying on the linked item was apparently a sort of authority–oopsie.
By the way, your linked item referred to “transparency.” Do not consider what Leon is doing as transparent.
“Hoisted with his own petard.”
I am a Walla Walla boy and I agree with much of Joel’s opinion and the commentaries.
But let’s not forget a critical fact: Nationally our “progressive” policies did us in. We are “Pogo.”
As to Joel’s point: If you can’t live with your principles, resign. Congress isn’t your life.But let’s see how this plays out. For the moment, Newhouse is playing “rope a dope” because going head on with Trump you may lose. If in 6 months he has gutted the SE economy, maybe resign.
But resign only gets you a real MAGA Cogressman.
Which do we prefer?