Elise Stefanik’s Road To Nowhere

It’s quite sad, but in the point and laugh way.

Yesterday, while watching Kevin McCarthy’s Jerry Lewis Memorial Humiliation-athon, I kept expecting Elise Stefanik to All About Eve her way to the speaker’s gavel, but there was no last-minute nomination for the third ballot when Stefanik would feign surprise with the subtlety of a silent film star. No one’s even mentioned her as a consensus candidate for speaker.

That leaves me wondering, “What was it all for?”

In his recent New York Times profile “The Invention of Elise Stefanik,” Nicholas Confessore describes Stefanik’s shameless embrace of Trumpism as “one of the most brazen political transformations of the Trump era.” Some people regard Stefanik's political rise as a surprising face-heel turn, but there's no compelling evidence she was ever much of a "face." Like so many Republicans, the MAGA movement has only revealed her true character, not transformed it.

Stefanik is an absolutely awful human being with no loyalty to any core values and no master but her own ambition. She's publicly claimed that Nancy Pelosi "bears responsibility" for the January 6 MAGA mob attack on the Capitol. She's openlypromoted the racist Great Replacement Theory. She voted to overturn Joe Biden's Electoral College victory and has spread relentless lies about the 2020 election. A human soul is a high price to pay just for Liz Cheney's old job, with all the mundane responsibilities but none of the establishment respect. She’s also kidding herself if she thinks, as Confessore suggests, that Trump might consider her for his running mate. Kari Lake is more authentically unhinged.

PREVIOUSLY:

 Better Know Elise Stefanik, Your New GOP Conference Chair: She's Terrible! 

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Confessore kicks off the piece with some catty nonsense about how after the 2018 midterms Stefanik was "annoyed that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the democratic socialist who had displaced her that fall as the youngest woman ever elected to the House, had not shown her the respect she felt was her due." Stefanik was elected to the House in 2014. She was still a newbie herself. She's also a Republican. There were better women for AOC to respect, and she did. You didn't see her slagging Rep. Barbara Lee .

Here comes the tiny violin recital:

For years, Ms. Stefanik had crafted her brand as a model moderate millennial — “the future of hopeful, aspirational politics in America,” as her mentor, Paul Ryan, would describe her in Time magazine . But as her third term unfolded, according to current or former friends and advisers, it was becoming painfully clear that she was the future of a Republican Party that no longer existed. The party was now firmly controlled by Donald J. Trump, a populist president she didn’t like or respect — a “whack job,” as she once described him in a message obtained by The New York Times. Fox hosts attacked her for not supporting Mr. Trump enough. Her friends criticized her for not opposing him more forcefully. You don’t understand , she would tell them. You don’t get how hard this is.   Democrats were back in charge in the House. Mr. Ryan was gone, driven into early retirement. She told friends she was thinking of joining him.

 Giphy   

You see, Stefanik had to abandon democracy and go full fascist! There was literally no other choice but all the better ones! Otherwise, she'd have to fall back on her Harvard degree and blinding whiteness. Where would that get her in the private sector?

Forgive me for not sympathizing with her plight. Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert are true believers to their terrible cause. Stefanik simply chases power like it's a speeding ambulance. Her district — New York's 21st — went from Obama 52 percent in 2012 to Trump 54 percent in 2016. It's understandable if she also shifted further to the right, but Adam Kinzinger had a consistently conservative voting record without also sounding like Tucker Carlson. It's not about policy. It's about rhetoric and embracing MAGA extremism, which has a proven record of violence. 

Confessore writes that Stefanik's "climb to MAGA stardom may also be a cautionary tale," and maybe Tuesday’s speaker vote circus was like the end of a “Twilight Zone” episode where a horrible person receives their rightful comeuppance. Stefanik is the third-ranking House Republican, but the elevator seems to have no more stops and is about to begin a slow but steady descent.

Former House Speaker Paul Ryan reportedly considers her "the biggest disappointment of his political career," and that's saying something. Stefanik has declared herself a Trumpist in both word and deed. Last year, she said, "I am Ultra-MAGA. I’m proud of it." Just how far will she have to fall before she loses that unwarranted pride?

[ New York Times ]

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