Tuberville and the Wisconsin Gerrymander: GOP’s Gaslighting of Democracy

Senate Republicans are beginning to squeal that the hundreds of military appointments that Senator Tuberville (R-Dumbassery) has been blocking are REALLY REALLY HONEST YOU GOTTA BELIEVE ME — ready for it? — the Dems’ fault, specifically Majority Leader, Chuck Schumer. I guess the public pushback by the Joint Chiefs and various senators that the blockade is degrading military readiness has started to have an affect.

Meanwhile, over in Wisconsin, the evil geniuses of the GOP state legislature have hatched a plan to maintain Republican control of the legislature and the state supreme court forever.

Both of these situations tell us what should already be painfully clear: the GOP is all out of fucks to give for democracy and will use any means necessary to taxidermy our democratic institutions, stuffing them with autocratic oligarchic apparatchiks. They will gaslight the public with twisted reasoning, excuse making, projection, and lies in order to steal elections and destroy our democracy because they really really do hate our freedoms, especially our freedom to vote for anyone other than a Republican candidate supporting the transfer of wealth to the 10% as quickly as possible.

We’re going to review each situation in more detail and annotate it with indications of how it is gaslighting in the hopes that (a) anyone reading the post will not be suckered into believing their lies, which I know is none of my regular readers, but hopefully will be some of the folks that your recommend the post to. And (b) you can make successful arguments when you encounter this bullshit IRL or your social media life.

What is Gaslighting?

Gaslighting is a form of emotional abuse in which the abuser denies plainly obvious events, emotions, thoughts, perceptions, and behaviors in an attempt to intimidate, confuse, control, or otherwise manipulate the target of the abuse. When applied to large groups as in nations, it is a two-step process. First, the politics of the nation must be sportified so that we are behaving like sports fans who support their favorite team no matter what and the trash-talk the other side. And then, follow-the-leader politics takes over in which the political supporters then just parrot whatever their favoritest politician says, like you know Russia is good, voting is bad, unless of course it is one of the reified issues of our politicalscape like abortion or gun rights or Trump. Once you’ve achieved those two conditions, your supporters will believe all your farts smell like chocolate and that they wanted you to grab them by the pussy.

Tommy Tuberville and the Great Military Appointment Blockade of 2023

For the past six months Tommy Tuberville (R-Post-Concussion Syndrome) has been blocking any and all military appointees requiring senate approval because the military won’t promote forced birth and enduring poverty for women. I don’t know where he got the crazy idea that just because the senate has traditions and ways of doing things like providing nominees with confirmation hearings that can just be ignored when inconvenient or thought to be politically expedient. Perhaps, Merrick Garland has a few words he’d like to share with us on the subject.

Anywho, forced birth is obviously much more important than military readiness because Tuberville has a sincerely held religious belief that any participation in anything other than forcing pregnant women to have the babies they conceived no matter what the cost to them or society will damn his miserable petty small-minded soul to hell or purgatory because the god he believes in is as small-minded and petty as he is.

The military folks are alarmed at the roadblock and the effect it is having on their ability to defend the country and its interests, and they are saying so out loud to the press. Given the bandy-legged running about that Republican senators have engaged in during the past week, I think it is having an effect. Perhaps, they’ve been hearing from constituents or they just don’t like the bad press.

At any rate, they’ve scratched their collective ass, smiled at the resulting stench on their collective fingers, and came up with a foolproof novel way of defending themselves from the accurate accusation that they crippled the military: it’s the Democrats fault.

You see, there is an obscure rule known only to senators that any issue can be brought to before the senate for a floor vote by the full body. All Schumer has to do is schedule these hundreds of military nominations one-by-one to be voted on by the full senate, and he’s refusing to do it because time or some such weak excuse.

This is gaslighting because the senators are trying to convince you that these plainly obvious events, facts, and perceptions are not true so that they can manipulate and control you:

• It is plainly obvious that it is Tuberville who is causing the problem.
• Party membership means that the party leadership should be able to influence the behavior of its members.
• McConnell condones the abuse of the senate rules to cripple regular order and prevent a Democrat-controlled government from functioning.
• It’s Republican problem, so Republicans should fix it.

Republicans are doing what they always do when they face a politically risky decision: (1) They don’t make the decision. (2) They try to force the Democrats to make the choice. And (3) they try to take political advantage of Democrats fixing their mess.

I guess as long as MAGA delivers sufficient votes to keep them in office, then that plan will continue to work for them, which brings us to Wisconsin Republicans.

The Wisconsin GOP’s Plan to Steal the State Gov’t

Gerrymandering their way to a Permanent Majority

The Republican controlled state legislature has so severely gerrymandered their legislative districts that they cannot possibly ever lose control of either state house:

• In 2016, Republicans won 52 percent of the votes but 64 of 99 seats (64% for those not willing to do the math), while Dems won 48 percent of the vote and 35 seats (23% of the seats).
• In 2018, a Democrat wave election, Republicans won 46% of the vote and 62 seats or about 64% of them! While Dems won 54% of the vote, about 36 seats or 37% of them. Please note that the Republicans won about the same number of seats as they did in 2016 but with the percentage of votes that the Dems had in 2016. Hmm…
• In 2020, Republicans won 54% of the vote but 61 seats or 62%, leaving Dems with 56% of the vote and 38 seats or 38%.
• In 2021, Republicans won 53% of the vote giving them 64 seats or a 65% majority, and Dems won 57% of the vote, 35 seats, or 35%.
• Remarkably consistent, isn’t it? No matter how the vote turns out, the Republicans end up with a majority of the seats. In fact, they end up with a super majority enough to override vetoes and impeach and convict judges as long as everyone is there.
• That buggars the question, how great of a percentage of the state vote do the Democrats need to win before the gerrymandering is broken and the Republicans no longer win an majority. If a 54-46 split doesn’t do it, would a 60-40, 70-30, 80-20 split do it? Somebody out there must have an answer to this question. If you know, please please please mention it in the comments.

The Wisconsin Lege’s Plan to Garland Protasiewicz

Wisconsin state law provides that any impeached state official, including judges, including Supreme Court judges, cannot continue operating in their official capacity until they are acquitted by the senate. The GOP could just McConnell Protasiewicz by impeaching her in the House, which they have the votes to do on straight party vote, and then just never hold the trial in the Senate even though they have the votes there to convict on a straight party vote. If they convicted and removed her, it would give Gov. Evans (D) the opportunity to appoint a new judge, defeating the purpose of the impeachment, obv.

For Protasiewicz ten-year term on the court, she could be spent as an impeached and not yet tried judge not able to hear or vote on cases.

Partisans will be thrilled with the super genius plan to circumvent democracy and the will of the people, but it ain’t democracy. A functional democracy means that we engage in good faith efforts to govern with whoever else is elected, follow the laws, and refrain from making raw political power moves that cynically use the rules of our governing bodies to thwart legitimate office holders from fulfilling their duties as they see fit.

The gaslighting here is that the state leg will control the state supreme court by denying a legally elected judge who has not even heard a case yet, the right to assume her duties in contradiction to the basic principle of democracy.

There is some hope, though. There is Supreme Court precedent — stop laughing, precedent still matters, so it is possible — in which they ruled that judges running for election can voice their opinion on matters of the day because judges have opinions. If not, they really couldn’t be judges. Interestingly, the plaintiff in that case was a Republican.

Of course, with the Roberts Court all bets are off. Nothing matters except what serves the Republican cause, which in itself is a form of gaslighting. SCOTUS “promises” to apply the law fairly and evenly and follow precedent, so every decision is fair and accepted by the general public. If those decisions were brazenly partisan, then people would be less likely to abide by them, so the Republican appointees make brazenly partisan decisions while swearing that isn’t what they’re doing. Classic gaslighting.

Image Attribution

“Gaslight sunset, Liverpool” by Picture Esk is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.