November 18, 2022

Yes, the same Pennsylvania GOP legislators who tried to steal the 2020 election for Trump are bringing us the latest version of their traveling clown show. In this 2.0 version of "Chesa Boudin: The Revenge Of MAGA," they impeached Philadelphia's D.A. this week.

We know Republicans no longer even attempt to govern. It's all performance, all the time, and in this case, they're trying to pin Philadelphia's violent crime on our cash bail policies. Here's Amanda Marcotte with more, via Salon:

Hours before it was announced that Democrats have won a majority in the state House for the first time in 17 years, the lame duck legislature in Pennsylvania made its last stand for MAGA by impeaching Larry Krasner, the district attorney in Philadelphia. While understandably unknown to most people outside Pennsylvania, Krasner has become a favorite punching bag in right-wing media, for his anti-racist and progressive views on fighting crime. Republicans paint him as "soft on crime" and blame him for the rise in gun violence in Philadelphia, even though a likelier culprit is the lax statewide gun laws passed by Republicans.

It would be amazingly dumb for GOP to impeach Biden — so sure, go for itKrasner, for his part, is painting the impeachment as a direct attack on the right of Philadelphians to choose their own leaders. "History will harshly judge this anti-democratic, authoritarian effort to erase Philly's votes — votes by Black, brown and broke people in Philadelphia," he said in statement.

This impeachment of Krasner sews together two of the biggest and most racist themes that fuel the MAGA movement: A belief that anti-racist movements like Black Lives Matter are to blame for rising crime rates, and a belief that voters in racially diverse urban areas are "frauds" who are "stealing" elections from white conservatives.

Krasner, a former defense attorney, isn't blessed with a lot of soft skills, and his management of the district attorney's office has had its problems. (Mostly because the D.A.'s office has for so long been a rubber stamp for police. If it tells you anything, Philly cops hate him.) But this is a politicized attack by the MAGA wing:

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