How ‘normal’ Republicans shamelessly enable ‘lying, no-good’ extremists: conservative

During his testimony for the January 6 select committee, Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Bill Stepien argued that after the 2020 presidential election, Trump’s allies ranged from “Team Normal” to “Team Giuliani” — that is, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and other really strident, in-your-face supporters of the former president. Never Trump conservative Amanda Carpenter, discussing the 2022 midterms, uses that “Team Normal” concept in an article published by The Bulwark on July 11. And she is vehemently critical of “Team Normal,” arguing that members of the “professional Republican class” are apologists for extremism even if they’re trying to convince themselves that they aren’t.

Carpenter opens her scathing piece by slamming GOP apologists for former football star Herschel Walker, the Republican nominee who is running against incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock in Georgia.

“Herschel Walker is, by any measure, a flawed candidate,” Carpenter argues. “It’s a fact readily observable to anyone with a basic familiarity with his confessed history of self-harm, acts of violence against others, whack-a-doodle beliefs, and steady stream of lies about his supposed academic and business achievements…. Just as they did with former President Trump, instead of letting voters see Walker for who he really is, the professional Republican class is devoting itself to coddling the candidate and covering up for him. And when it gets too icky, they dish quotes to their favorite reporters to make themselves feel better about their life choices.”

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Carpenter adds, “These people aren’t stupid enough to believe that their candidates are fit for office; they’re just trying to trick voters into being that dumb…. The National Republican Senatorial Committee recently deployed their A-team to Georgia on a ‘rescue mission’ to save Walker from himself…. But the really crazy part is that if you go down the list of Republican midterm candidates, it’s possible that Walker isn’t even the most problematic.”

Carpenter goes on to describe some of the abysmal candidates that the Republican Party has nominated — or is likely to nominate — in the 2022 midterms.

“In the Senate class, there’s Dr. Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania-by-way-of-North Jersey,” Carpenter observes. “In Ohio, there’s the Silicon Valley oligarch-backed, Hollywood-famous, Marjorie Taylor Greene-hugging James David Vance. In Wisconsin, there’s Sen. Ron ‘Can’t Keep His False Electors Story Straight’ Johnson. In Missouri, the scandal-a-minute, disgraced ex-Gov. Eric Greitens may well clinch the nomination…. And, in Arizona, Blake Masters is cruising in the polls. This clean-cut young fellow — besides also being backed by the same Silicon Valley oligarch as Vance — likes to rehash conspiracy theories on LewRockwell.com. Also, he’s speculated that January 6 was a false flag operation, stated that ‘I think Trump won in 2020,’ and floated the belief that ‘Black people, frankly’ are responsible for gun violence.”

Carpenter continues, “The gubernatorial field isn’t much better! Pennsylvania’s Republican nominee not only attended Trump’s January 6 rally, but used campaign funds to bus participants to it before attempting to bring an Arizona-style audit to his state. He has made plans to rig the next election a central feature of his candidacy. Ditto for the woman who hasn’t met a political opponent she wouldn’t threaten to jail, Arizona’s Kari Lake, who continues to lead the polls in her primary.”

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According to Carpenter, “Team Normal” is gutless when it comes to publicly calling out extremist or “flawed” candidates and would rather go along to get along.

“Team Normal is still in the MAGA bunker — doing their work, deepening their messiah complexes,” Carpenter warns. “They don’t care if their lying, no-good candidates turn out to be election-denying cuckoo-for-cocoa-puffs monsters. They did it once, and everything worked out fine. The republic didn’t fall. They got their Supreme Court justices and their Dobbs verdict.”

Carpenter continues, “So now, they’re doing it again. And if it all goes sideways this time? Well, you can be sure that the members of Team Normal (will) stand ready to rush into the breach and give some juicy quotes about how terrible everything is to reporters. As long as it’s on background.”