There’s an old expression, slightly on the vulgar side, that describes someone whose elevator doesn’t go to the top floor.
“He’s crazier than a shithouse mouse.”
If you have to think about that one a little, it’s basically describing someone or something that has been driven around the bend by the condition of his or its environment.
I thought about that during President Biden’s State of the Union address Tuesday night.
Republicans have been riding the train to Crazytown for more than 40 years, ever since Ronald Reagan told them he could cut taxes, increase defense spending and balance the federal budget all at the same time.
Of course that wasn’t possible, and as Reagan’s budget director David Stockman later admitted, they knew that. The purpose was always to starve the government of revenue so that antipoverty programs could be gutted.
And ever since, the GOP has marketed itself to what some folks would call white trash, and Donald Trump himself would call the poorly educated.
In 2010, America was outraged when a South Carolina congressman yelled “You lie” at President Obama during his State of the Union speech. Republicans still had enough shame then that they went along with a vote to reprimand Joe Wilson for his poor behavior.
But Trump changed everything. For four years, we had a president who had no shame, who put up with anything that advanced his agenda and who told more than 30,000 lies in four years.
At the end of his term, Republicans actually tried to block the transition and keep him in office illegally. And the last few election cycles have brought a number of truly horrible people. Matt Gaetz, Paul Gosar, Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene and George Santos.
When Biden gave his State of the Union speech, Klan Mom Greene and others made Wilson in 2010 look like an amateur. They hooted and shouted, saying again and again that Biden was lying.
Democratic operative James Carville later gave Greene what she deserved.
“I told people I have a PhD in white trashology, and you saw real white trash on display,” Carville said. “Let me say something about Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, she dresses like white trash. She really needs a fashion consultant. I recommend George Santos. He could do a good job of dressing up where she doesn’t announce her white trashdom by her own clothes.”
Speaking of which …
Republicans made an odd choice for their response to Biden’s speech. Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, whose previous job was as Trump’s press secretary, pointed out that she was the nation’s youngest governor at 40 and that Biden was 80. She said that made him too old to be president.
I can’t help but wonder how Trump feels about that. Should he win election in 2024, he would turn 80 a year and a half into his term.
Oh well.
Logic is beyond Republicans these days.