"If Republicans really want to slash spending – including to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid – that’s their right. There’s nothing preventing the party from spending the next two years talking about their plans in hopes of winning the White House and Senate and then executing them. Indeed, there’s nothing preventing them from spending the next two years talking about 'critical race theory' and girls’ sports in hopes of winning the White House and Senate and then springing their plans on the public.
"But they don’t seem interested in trying that, presumably for the same reason that unified Republican governments under Presidents Trump and George W. Bush didn’t lead to massive spending cuts – those cuts would be incredibly unpopular and would likely destroy the party’s political standing.
"Instead, the GOP plan for cutting spending is to try to force the
Democrats to agree to (maybe even propose) the cuts as the price to
avert global economic catastrophe. That sounds insane when you write it
out, so a big part of the strategy is trying to prevent the press from
doing so. The party’s leaders and its propagandists are busy working the
refs..." -- Matthew Gertz, Media Matters, on the Republican/ Seditionist Party's expectation that the "mainstream media" will engage in both sides "bad journalism" in their coverage of the debt ceiling hostage- taking efforts. In a related Substack piece, James Fallows points out the need for the media to learn from its mistakes in its coverage of other "scandals," and how the public can spot signs that the media "refs" are being worked by Republicans. Good reads.
