It needs to be a rule for the Larry Hogan wing of the Republican Party that anytime they drone about it being time to “move on,” they’re required to say out loud exactly what it means to move on.
Because when the Wall Street Journal or Mitt Romney repeats that condescending line with absolute disdain, they’re not just talking about zeroing out the political viability of a single man who offends their delicate sensibilities. They’re talking about a complete memory-holing of the GOP’s shift from country club to Costco and the abandonment of all the issues that brought hundreds of thousands of new voters into the fold.
To this day, the Journal’s editorial board champions the influx of destitute migrants for the sake of “the U.S. labor shortage” (which has nothing to do with a lack of workers), even as millions of Republican voters say time and time again that they’re not interested.
This crowd, the Adam Kinzingers, the Liz Cheneys, and various other backbenchers of the party, aren’t really insisting that we “move on.” They’re demanding that we go back. Back to when the ruling Republican agenda was corporate tax cuts, a devotion to Israel, and everything else a very, very distant third.
Those Republicans are perfectly satisfied giving Democrats everything they want — welfare, both social and corporate — so long as they get to look strong by sending more money to military contractors in their districts (its own form of welfare).
Tired of the permanent bureaucracy’s hostility toward middle-income suburbanites? That’s just the way it is. Mad that Big Tech is abusing its communication monopolies to cancel out the voices of millions of people? Take it up with Twitter — if you can figure out how to contact someone.
And don’t even get started on the messy “culture wars” that are so beneath them.
What it means to “move on” is to drop all efforts to control the southern border, revert to when the U.S. wrote blank checks to NATO while asking for nothing in return (already there!), and resume the GOP’s favorite pastime of developing more ways to hack at government assistance for the elderly.
Refusing to accept that as a path forward has nothing to do with being hung up on any one person. But each and every time one of those Republicans says we need to “move on,” the people they need to do anything dig in their heels even harder over one person. The voters are not going to move on because they won’t go back.