Rep. Will Hurd (R-TX) has announced his retirement. The RINO representative was facing a tough battle to retain his congressional seat. Even if victorious, he also had to deal with the harsh reality that his brand of Republican politics is clearly out of style. Predictably, the establishment press is using his departure to paint a gloomy picture of dark omens for President Trump.
Hurd just happens to be the sole black Republican in the House of Representatives. So, naturally, the duplicitous media have been quick to prop him up as the embodiment of GOP struggles to attract minority support, rather than simply the latest Swamp Republican to fizzle away in the vein of a Paul Ryan or a Jeff Flake.
That Was a Short Future
As recently as April, Texas Monthly magazine published a piece on Hurd teasing the notion that the congressman just might be "the future of the GOP." The proof of its contention: Hurd is against Trump's Wall. Hurd doesn't approve of racist or misogynistic language. Hurd believes climate change is a dire threat to our future. Et cetera.
"In tone, temperament, background, and worldview, Hurd has carved out a space as the anti-Trump," the article gushed. As we have seen from media organs over the past four years, one simple fact is never grasped because it cannot be accepted. Nevertheless, it just so happens to be a political fact of life right now that the grassroots Republican voter base does not want an "anti-Trump." It enthusiastically supports this president. Not four months after the Texas Monthly article appeared, Hurd was announcing his retirement from Congress. Cue the furrowed media eyebrows.
NBC News led the way in media hand wringing by declaring in a bold headline that "Rep. Will Hurd's surprise retirement is big, bad news for the GOP." If this over-the-top style has a familiar ring to it, that's because the media played the same game when another black House Republican, Rep. Mia Love (R-UT), lost her seat in 2018. "Mia Love's Ominous Warning for the GOP," read one lurid headline after her defeat. As with NBC's Hurd coverage, the article shed many a crocodile tear over the Republican Party losing one of its young black "stars."
Yet a brief examination of the policies Hurd and Love stood for, as opposed to what they look like to race-obsessed progressive elitists, shows just why their political careers short-circuited. Both attempted to thwart Trump's moves to address the illegal immigration crisis in this nation. Hurd has abrasively dismissed Trump's signature goal of building a Wall as a "3rd-century solution to a 21st-century problem." Love in 2018 championed immigration reform and was a leading Republican figure in an attempt to force a House vote to protect Dreamers.
Hurd has loudly denounced Trump's use of tariffs to protect US manufacturing, calling the president's plan to impose steel and aluminum tariffs "an 18th-century tool that has repeatedly failed in the past." (Geez, he really likes this century gimmick.) Love also frequently criticized Trump on the issue, decrying tariffs as "obstacles" and "barriers" that block the way of "free markets."
Puppet Prizes
Opposing Trump's America First policy on immigration and trade is not the formula for success among members of today's GOP, be they black, white, purple, or chartreuse. The media loves to lionize any Republican it feels it can portray as bravely standing up against "Trumpism." Former Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) received the same treatment when he announced his retirement in 2017. And what did it avail him? Flake got his 15 minutes in the sun and has since faded from public view.
Oh, but there are rewards for the establishment's favorite pet RINOs. Flake parachuted into a comfortable position providing analysis for CBS News. He has absolutely zero impact on the national conversation, but it's a cozy gig to be sure. And Love pivoted right into a commenting gig at CNN, where the fake news fanatics who run that network count on being able to induce her to spout a reliable stream of anti-Trump rhetoric.
Hurd will head to his own soft landing, be it in the media, on K Street, or somewhere else. For there's nothing the ruling establishment loves more than a "Republican with a conscience," especially since such professed moral anxieties always just happen to dovetail perfectly with an anti-Trump political agenda.
For grassroots Republicans, Will Hurd's departure is a footnote marking adieu to another servant of the GOP establishment, who has discovered that the floor has been sawed out from under him by a party base solidly aligned with Donald Trump.
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Read more from Joe Schaeffer.
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