For awhile there, things were looking pretty good for congressman "Inert Carbon" Rodney Davis., who represents Illinois' 13th district where I live.
Like so many other Republican representatives that pre-election polls predicted would lose in 2020, Davis not only won, but his margin of victory over the same candidate he ran against in 2016 increased from 2K to just under 30K because polls are trash, Republicans were highly motivated and let's face it, I live in Trump country.
But the Illinois 13th is an R+3 district not R+25 like Liz Cheney's Wyoming-at-Large district, which will become important in a minute.
Davis was also slowly inching up the seniority ladder in the House, with an eye on leadership. Yeah, sure, he is an utterly hollow, dead-eyed windsock of a man who is most vividly remembered in our household as being the creature who gleefully whipped votes in the House for to take away my family's health insurance, and could be seen have celebrating at the Kill Obamacare beer bust at the White House when they thought they has succeeded, but he's a Republican and in their party of bigots and imbeciles these despicable traits are considered cardinal virtues.
Finally, Davis' favorite word in the whole wide world is "bipartisan". Mind you, when he says "bipartisan" what he usually means is "tax cuts are magic and never increase the deficit" and "gutting the Affordable Care Act and kicking millions of Americans off of their health insurance" but Republicans here in the R+3 Illinois 13th like to play dress up and pretend that they love bipartisanship, which is why Davis leans into it hard. I'd wager all my Soros money that it is the single most commonly recurring multi-syllable word in his every press release and on his website. If he could, I believe Davis would legally change the names of his three kids to "Bi", "Partisan" and "Solutions" and make them parade arm-in-arm at every public event.
So everything was coming up Rodney! Until the Trump-led, GOP-abetted Incel Insurrection of 01/06/21. Then things started to go sideways for "Inert Carbon" Rodney in a hurry.
For example (from Wikipedia):
Davis objected to new metal detectors installed outside the US House chamber that were added as a security precaution following the riot and violent attack against the 117th United States Congress on January 6, 2021. The new safety protocol, announced January 12, 2021 by the acting House sergeant-at-arms,[56] came less than a week after a mob loyal to President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol, leading to the death of five people including a United States Capitol Police officer.[57] A pool report quoted Davis as telling U.S. Capitol police officers, "This is bull (expletive)."
"Bull (expletive)"?
Damn, Rodney. Do you kiss Trump with that mouth?
Also this was not a good look for the same guy who strongly supported the Secure Our Schools grants in 2018 which (from Davis' own press release with emphasis added)...
...provide[d] funding to state and local governments to develop school safety resources, including physical security measures such as metal detectors, locks, and lighting. The grants also provide security training for personnel and students along with coordination with local law enforcement. The program requires a 50 percent local and state match. The program received $16 million in 2010 and $13 million in 2011.
Oopsie!
But the Republican Incel Insurrection has forced Rodney Davis and scores of his Republican colleagues and enablers in the Fox News/Hate Radio propaganda ecosystem to learn a new word. A word that is so foreign to them that they clearly do not understand its meaning. That word is "healing".
As in, how are we patriotic Republicans supposed to get about the business of "healing" the nation (which we've spent 50 years ruthlessly dividing) if those terrible, terrible Democrats insist on holding Donald Trump, the leader of the insurrection, responsible for his actions?
Wouldn't it be so much more healing to set aside this crazy talk of "accountability" and instead form some sort of bipartisan commission to study the problem --
@Mr_Electrico our Republican congressman wants a bipartisan commission to "study" the MAGA insurrection https://t.co/wg7bbnIiJY
— Frances Langum 🧶 #BidenHarris2020 (@bluegal) January 13, 2021
-- at some point far enough in the future that Republicans and their enablers in the media have enough time to get their lies and talking points straight?
The answer is, of course, no. Also hell no. Also fucking hell no. It would most emphatically not be a balm to the nation to let the treasonous leader of Rodney Davis' depraved party off the hook yet again which is why Davis and those that stand with him are going to lose this vote.
And Davis knows it.
He knows that the very best he can hope to salvage from the bloody auto-da-fé his party just attempted to stage at the nation's capitol in front of the whole world is getting himself on the public record right now repeating the magic word "bipartisan" over and over again.
And come the elections of 2022, we'll all find out if that was enough.
Published with permission of Driftglass
