On MSNBC this morning, Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA11) argued something that SHOULD be obvious to all Democrats, but for some absurd reason isn’t.
- “I think Democrats have to be willing to be as tough as Republicans…[when they go low, Democrats] go toe to toe; It would be nice to go high, but we’ll put that off for a little while. The stakes are just too high. You showed a picture of Judge Cannon in Florida; that’s what goes wrong when you put MAGA Republicans on the bench…she’s willing to thwart justice for a partisan political purpose to protect Trump. So we need to do what Mitch McConnell did in putting a Supreme Court justice on the Supreme Court, ignoring every past statement and just using raw power to make sure that his president’s appointments got confirmed. Well, we need to do the same.”
Bingo.
UPDATE 3:30 pm – More from Rep. Connolly (see video, below):
- “It is really sad that the Republican majority has decided to use the annual defense authorization bill as sort of a vehicle for their favorite causes, knowing cynically that, as you indicated, it is not going to pass the firewall of the Senate and won’t be signed Into law by President Biden. But that has not stopped them. And it is a sad day. In the past, we had strong bipartisan coalitions to protect the national security and national defense and not use it as some kind of punching bag.”
- “I think it is important to remember that when we voted on the Ukraine aid package last month, it passed with 311 Votes. That is a pretty strong bipartisan vote in the House. And so a future president has to take cognizance of that, that there is strong bipartisan support…we have a strong base of support for this agreement and possible future agreements. We are going to see Ukraine through until it prevails…There was certainly a five-month period in which I felt embarrassed. Democrats gave Speaker Mike Johnson a lot of credit for bringing up the Ukraine vote. I don’t…We lost five months and Ukrainians died and territory was lost during that five-month period. No excuse for it. We had the same 311 votes five months ago that we had when we finally [passed it]. And it was dithering, because a new Speaker did not know how to put together the coalition or allow a free vote on the floor that had overwhelming bipartisan support.”
- “I think people vote their interests. So what’s in it for me? I don’t like inflation…And we have to remind them…You know, I love the question, ‘are you better off today than you were four years ago’? Four years ago, we were rationing and hoarding toilet paper. Remember that? And we had shortages everywhere. The economy was tanking. Here we are four years later in the ideal economy leading the world – breaking records in the stock market, with unemployment and job creation. And we have kind of forgotten what it was like four years ago. A lot got done and we have to be not only taking credit for that but we have to be bringing that narrative to people and reminding them what it was like and how far we have come. And that is a huge accomplishment.”
- “I think sometimes in messaging, Democrats tend to appeal to logos – the reason, cerebrally. And most human beings kind of live a combination of that and my gut. And we can’t be ashamed about appealing to people’s self interest. We’ve got a lot to talk about in having satisfied your self interest. We have not persuaded them of that. And I think also, we don’t get it that you’ve got to repeat repeat, rinse, repeat…We’ve got to get a lot better at boringly repeating messages until they penetrate and sink in.”
“Democrats have to be willing to be as tough as Republicans”: Rep. @GerryConnolly on Democrats fighting back against MAGA Republicans’ grip on the judicial system. pic.twitter.com/EjgNw42juZ
— The Weekend on MSNBC (@TheWeekendMSNBC) June 16, 2024
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