Yesterday afternoon, I was visited by Hope Slaughter, a staffer who works for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. She is the second person McConnell has sent to my office for a consultation, but she was expecting another one without charge despite my marketing policy that only the first time is free. This, by the way, I found out only after she had arrived, leaving me with a choice of sending her away or providing McConnell with what every Republican likes best – something for nothing on the basis of a technicality. And that technicality was, allegedly, that the previous consultation was for McConnell’s staffer, not McConnell himself, and since she and the other staffer were different people, now she was also entitled to a free consultation. When I pointed out that everything I had discussed with her colleague in the previous consultation related to providing advice concerning Senator McConnell’s problems, Ms. Slaughter replied that everybody on McConnell’s staff feels as though his problems are their problems, too.
Faced with the situation, I decided to go along with it and maybe send McConnell a bill anyway. The worst that could happen, I thought, would be that old cheapskate would stiff me, in which case, nobody from his office would get any further advice, for free or otherwise. Of course, it occurred to me that if McConnell himself were to call, Skype, or come by the office, I might reconsider – so as I acquiesced, I made a mental note to mull that point over a bit more.
“Okay,” I opened as Ms. Slaughter ensconced herself on the exquisitely upholstered lamb-skin leather couch positioned in front of the picture window that overlooks the White House, “what brings you to my office today?”
“Kevin McCarthy,” she replied.
“What about him?” I pressed.
“He wants the Republican Party to have a platform for 2022,” she complained. “That bothers me.”
“Well,” I observed, “strictly speaking, what you mean, I suppose, is that he wants the Republicans to have a policy agenda for 2022.”
“Platform, agenda… whatever!” she shot back with a shrug. “Same difference.”
“He’s not alone, you know,” I pointed out. “Back in January, Chris Sununu, the Republican governor of New Hampshire, told off the National Republican Senatorial Committee about exactly that – he said that the message from virtually every GOP senator he chatted with — and he chatted with most of them — was that they plan to do little more with the majority they are fighting to win this November than obstruct President Joe Biden until, ‘hopefully,’ 2024 ushers a Republican into the White House. That bothered him plenty.”
“Well,” she sniffed, “I bet I’m way more bothered than he is.”
“What makes you think that?” I asked.
“Because,” she proclaimed, “unlike him, I’m a real patriot. Sununu is just another RINO.”
“And,” I conjectured, “I suppose your boss is a real patriot, too, then.”
“Of course,” she proudly confirmed, “I wouldn’t work for somebody who wasn’t.”
“So you’re both patriots,” I noted, “but neither of you want your political party to have a policy agenda for the 2022 elections. What would make a real patriot think like that?” I wondered.
“Voters,” she declared. “They’re too dumb to understand policy positions.”
“Well,” I allowed, “Republican voters these days, sure, but independent voters, too?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she assured me, “the easy, simple way to get votes for Republican candidates is to bash the Democrats’ policy agenda.”
“So,” I posited, “with that strategy, if the Democrats didn’t have a policy agenda, the Republicans would need to work for their votes, wouldn’t they?”
“The Democrats aren’t sophisticated enough to mount a national campaign without a policy agenda,” she objected.
“Some might say the Democrats aren’t cynical enough to do that,” I countered.
“If they’re foolish enough to be idealistic in pursuit of power,” she chuckled, “that’s their problem. And since they insist on talking about policies because of it, well, that’s why my boss is sure we can win back control of the House and the Senate in 2022.”
“What makes you and your boss so sure?” I wondered.
“Just look what happened in 2020,” she explained. “The Republicans didn’t bother with a platform. Donald Trump was their platform!”
“Three observations there,” I replied. “First, Trump lost the election.”
“So you say,” came her snarky riposte. “Some of us know better.”
“Okay,” I relented. “Second, Donald Trump has spent pretty close to the entire last year trying to get Mitch McConnell thrown out of the Senate, not to mention the Republican Party. Trump has called him a dour political hack, an old crow, a stupid incompetent fool, a lame, broken moron, a dumb son of a… female dog… full of ‘crap,’ an ingrate, a coward, a stone cold loser, the most unpopular politician in the United States, an ugly, sweaty, smelly…”
“The fact remains,” she insisted, “in 2020, the Republican platform was Donald Trump, and for your information, Mitch McConnell doesn’t care what Trump says about him, because he was there before Trump, and he knows he will still be there after Trump. All Mitch McConnell cares about is Republicans winning elections!”
“So,” I concluded, “I suppose that means he doesn’t care that the 2020 Republican platform was lies, rage, bigotry, bullying, prejudice, insults, lunatic conspiracy theories, racism, anti-antisemitism, white-trash grievance, shameless hypocrisy, contempt for science, disregard for the law, disdain for the Constitution and a world view of such jejune, naive, hostile, juvenile and ignorant simplicity it would embarrass a mentally disturbed seven year old, or that those things are also what the Republican Party will stand for in 2022.”
“Exactly,” she confirmed. “Because those things are what gets the Republican base, rural swing voters, Southern rednecks and blue collar Rust Belt independents to the polls – not policy statements about infrastructure rehabilitation driven by free-market incentives and corporate tax cuts or whatever other Mitt Romney-approved middle-of-the-road [expletive] RINO drivel Kevin McCarthy thinks yahoos like that have the capacity to comprehend, much less be sufficiently motivated by – it’s those things that get them to put down their cheap beers, get their fat [expletive] out of their ratty living room lounge chairs, walk out of their tick-tacky little cracker-box houses, and drive somewhere in their pickup trucks to actually vote!”
“Okay,” I continued, “third, Mike Pence just denounced Trump in front of the Federalist Society.”
“He what!” Ms. Slaughter nearly jumped out of her seat.
Now it was my turn to chuckle. “Oh? You didn’t know? About an hour ago, Mike Pence told them that Trump was wrong when he claimed that the Vice President has the legal power to overturn federal elections.”
“No!” she spat, blanching white as a sheet.
“Oh yes,” I persisted, “and he said it was ‘un-American’ of Trump to even think that one person, the Vice President, could overturn a federal election.”
“You’re making that up!” she charged.
“Am not,” I flatly stated. “Pence even said, and I quote, ‘Under the Constitution, I had no right to change the outcome of our election.’”
Ms. Slaughter pounded the teak coffee table in front of the couch with her fists, shaking with rage. “That [expletive] traitor! That [expletive], that [expletive] [expletive],” she ranted, her face now turning a bright crimson. “Pence can’t do that! Trump is the leader of the Republican Party! He’s the decider! He calls the shots! Trump is the 2022 Republican policy agenda! And who is Mike Pence? A [expletive] RINO nobody, that’s who!”
“If Pence is so inconsequential,” I japed, “then why do you care what he tells the Federalist Society – or anybody else, for that matter?”
Apparently, the realization that she had no reasonable answer to that question calmed her down. “All right,” she sighed, “[expletive] that; [expletive] Mike Pence; tell me how Mitch can convince Kevin McCarthy that Donald Trump is all the policy agenda the Republicans need in 2022!”
“Simple,” I said. “Just have Mitch tell McCarthy, in person, that if he wants a 2022 Republican policy agenda, Mitch will make sure that McCarthy has to write it himself.”
“You mean,” she gasped, “write it all by himself, with no staffers or consultants or focus group subject matter experts or Republican shadow operatives to help him do it?”
“Exactly,” I confirmed. “And have Mitch make sure to tell McCarthy that if Mitch finds out he’s receiving aid, technical support, input, rough drafts, editing, review and comment, ghost writing services, text messages with policy agenda content, revised paragraphs folded up and put in envelopes slipped under his door at night… anything… Mitch will get Jim Inhofe to tell Donald Trump about it, and Inhofe will make sure that Trump leaves that conversation sincerely believing McCarthy thinks his policy agenda is a bigger vote-getter than running the Republican 2022 campaign on Trump’s personality and monumental record of achievement.”
“He can’t do that!” she excitedly exclaimed as a look of revelation spread across her face.
“Who can’t do what?” I asked.
“McCarthy,” she clarified. “Kevin McCarthy can’t put five words together on paper and get a cogent English sentence. All he can do is shoot his mouth off and recite prepared material someone else shoves in front of him. He’s nothing but a semi-literate Mick from Bakersfield with a degree in marketing hamburgers – not that he’s ever managed to sell anything using it. All he ever did after he got out of school was kiss up to Bill Thomas, and he was nothing but a barefoot Bible-thumping Baptist from Idaho.”
“With a crackpot conservative agenda,” I noted. “But Thomas did win the Washingtonian magazine’s poll for ‘Meanest Member of Congress.’”
“And McCarthy got his seat in the House by being Thomas’ right hand man,” she remembered. “Hatchet man, actually… for the meanest man in Congress. Hmph. Guess that’s what it takes to become a Republican House Minority Leader.”
“Hey, you said it,” I observed, “not me. Bottom line, if Kevin McCarthy has to write this Republican policy agenda he’s yammering about, it’s likely to read something like a D-minus middle school social studies homework assignment.”
“And it will be a laughingstock!” she exulted. And so will he! That’s brilliant!”
“Thank you,” I cordially responded.
A pregnant pause ensued as she stared at me directly with an expression of obvious annoyance.
“I distinctly recall thinking of that myself,” she claimed.
“Oh, you do?” I needled.
“Yes,” she insisted. “That’s exactly what happened in our conversation just now.”
“Spoken like a true Republican,” I vouched. “Okay, whatever you say, madame. Are there any other brilliant things I can assist you with thinking up today?”
“No,” she dismissively snickered, rising from her seat. “I’m good.”
“Since, evidently, Mitch is going to hear it was your idea,” I cautioned as she made ready to leave, “I have decided I won’t send him a bill for this consultation. But no more freebies for Mitch McConnell – unless he calls me personally.”
“I’ll make sure to inform him of that,” she lied with a snarky smile as she opened a heavy oak office door and exited.