You can set your watch by it. Every two years, a Never Trump-style Republican congressman is forced to give up his seat due to a complete lack of grassroots voter support. And the fawning establishment media are always there to see him or her off with a splashy profile hailing the “important” message and the “bravery” tucked within the stout heart of the dearly departed. It’s now-former Michigan Republican Rep. Peter Meijer’s turn on the big-box catwalk, and dominant media organ Politico made sure to afford him the full supermodel treatment.
Requiem for a Republican Company Man
The headline to the Jan. 1 piece set the mood. “‘To Hell with It’: A GOP Congressman Reflects on His One Term in Trump’s Party,” it read. The intended framing: a scrappy fighter laments he couldn’t save his fellow Republicans from Trumpism. The people at Politico aren’t dumb. They know readers have long seen through this threadbare act. So why do it, then? Consider it part of a severance package for services rendered. The progressive ruling establishment rewards those who toe its line.
Now-former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) has been welcomed with open arms to the CNN fold. Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) was given a golden parachute at CBS News for his career-ending senatorial anti-Trump hectoring during the first two years of the America First populist’s presidency. He went over like a lead balloon. Well, okay, find him something else. Flake now serves as the Biden administration’s ambassador to Turkey. Rep. Will Hurd (R-TX) was temporarily granted the shopworn “future of the GOP” label circa April 2019 by a devoted press captivated by his penchant for giving a Republican face to the chorus of voices constantly denouncing Trump as a racist.
The Swamp does, indeed, take care of its own.
Unliked, Unwanted, and Casting Blame
Meijer dutifully rips Trump in his exit interview with Politico. An excerpt:
“Politico: Would you support Donald Trump if he were the nominee in 2024 after voting to impeach him last year?
“Meijer: I have no idea how I would do that… I think he had a very negative impact on both candidate selection in terms of endorsements, but also just the amount of quality candidates in competitive seats. I think there’s a constructive role that he could be playing, and I have yet to see him make an effort, so to hell with it.”
Meijer blamed his primary defeat and the poor showing by the GOP in what should have been a slam-dunk midterms election on Trump-aligned candidates who, tragically, weren’t like him. Yet elsewhere in the interview, he revealed why grassroots party voters, who palpably despise the political status quo in Washington, reject his brand of Republicanism.
Amazingly, Meijer rejects GOP distaste for letting international bodies tell Americans what to do. Even more astonishingly, he cited the coronavirus pandemic, that font of punitive social curbs on free citizens, as a main reason. “Everyone is worried that ‘our sovereignty is going to be stripped away; don’t do anything,’” he told Politico. “And half the time, you don’t really have any authority over that. But our sovereignty is not going to be infringed on by the World Health Organization.
Peter Meijer (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
“Where do you think the Trump fixation in the Republican Party is headed?” Politico asked. The question cued Meijer to go on a spiel about “conspiracy theories” fueled by Trump supporters preventing Republicans from getting to work on “the really serious, severe things that are critical for us to get ready for the future of the country.”
And that would be – we’re not making this up – “dealing with entitlement reforms.”
Let’s recap. A primary-ousted anti-Trump Republican incumbent is given a major establishment media platform to whine that GOP voters who back the former president are the only thing keeping the party from entering a golden age of popularity fueled by supporting endless war, embracing globalist health authoritarianism, and going after Social Security.
Regime publications are so far removed from the American people that they don’t care if the public buys it or not. A valued employee is leaving town. He must be given his golden watch and manufactured praise on his way out the door.
