CRAWLIN' THROUGH THE WRECKAGE.

Looks like at least a few of you fuckers voted, and the damage on Tuesday was thankfully limited – though the Morlocks will probably narrowly take a chamber and devote the next two years to political prosecutions and nuisance bills, as I explain in my latest Roy Edroso Breaks It Down essay, unlocked for your pleasure.

One of my sub-topics is how the prestige press and other con men are trying to make the whole thing about Tubby. The idea that the lords and ladies of the Republican Party will throw him over now -- considering they were too weak and gutless to resist him in the first place, and have shown no sign of increased fortitude since -- is hilarious. 

Some of the folks rushing in for a piece of the action are especially ridic. Take the guy the New York Times chose to deliver the concerned-conservative op-ed “Why the Red Wave Didn’t Materialize.” Here’s some of his copy, see if you can guess:

A week before the midterms, a video circulated online of a Starbucks barista crying while explaining the need for a union: “I’m a full-time student. I get scheduled for 25 hours a week, and on weekends they schedule me the entire day — open to close.” The manager is bad, the staffing is inadequate and the stress is overwhelming.

The video should have elicited sympathy from anyone familiar with the lousy wages and grinding conditions that characterize today’s service economy. That was not, though, the response of the full spectrum of conservative media and personalities, from Fox News to The Daily Wire to Sebastian Gorka.

“Boo Hoo!” replied Media Research Center TV, a conservative media site. “This ‘person’” — the barista happens to be transgender, hence, I suppose, the scare quotes around “person” — “was in tears because they had to work eight hours a day on the weekend.”

Episodes like this may be one reason the red wave didn’t materialize, why Republicans failed to usher in a new dawn of prosperity for the multiracial working class that Republican leaders from Senator Ted Cruz to the House policy honcho Jim Banks say they want to champion…

So: Did you think Ruy Teixeira finally switched parties? Nope, it’s Sohrab Ahmari – former op-ed editor of the Murdoch Stürmer aka the New York Post and national(ist) greatness crank. The last time most of us noticed him was in 2019 when he publicly attacked David French – an activity I normally endorse, but instead of attacking French for the fraudulence of his witchfinder-but-really-a-nice-guy act, Ahamri attacked him for not matching his own devotion to hunting witches:

Drag queen story hour, [Ahmari] warned, was a "global movement," since the group that hosts it has 35 chapters. "It is," he said, "a threat." 

This eventually prompted French to ask the obvious question: What would Ahmari do to combat this supposed crisis? "What public power would you use?" he asked. "And how would it be constitutional?"

Ahmari's answer -- and I promise I am not making this up -- was that he would hold a congressional hearing "on what's happening in our libraries," in which sympathetic conservative senators such as Josh Hawley and Tom Cotton would "make the head of the Modern Library Association or whatever sweat." 

Puts kind of a new light on Ahmari’s Republican Workers Party act, huh? Ahmari is cagey about it, too; he leaves the queer-bashing out of his Times essay, and even soft-pedals his Trump-love (Ahmari wrote “He’s Still the One” about the Leader in September), though if you listen closely you can still hear the tune:

Ever since Donald Trump’s rise, there has been much talk, and some evidence, of a realignment in American politics. Breaking with longstanding G.O.P. orthodoxies on free trade, entitlements and health care, Mr. Trump coaxed huge numbers of white voters without college degrees away from the Democrats. Once in office, he delivered on tariffs. But other pieces of his populist agenda fell away, as his aides forged ahead with the old Chamber of Commerce conservatism (tax cuts, deregulation and a profoundly anti-union labor policy).

Yes, Trumpy populism was halting and self-contradictory, but the variety that emerged in Republican circles after Mr. Trump left office was downright fake.

Trumpy populism cannot fail, it can only be failed! What’s wanted is support for the proles plus attacks on minorities – a proven winning combination! 

Like the old saying (incorrectly) goes, the Chinese word for crisis is danger plus opportunity, and we’re bound to see other conservatives besides Ahmari looking for the main chance in this one -- rebranding themselves post-trainwreck as the future of the movement (and hoping nobody remembers what they were in the past).