The Republicans' Greatest Skill -- Stealing Valor

As should be clear by now, the MAGAt Republican Party/ cult is not a governing party.  You simply have to look at the chaotic Trump administration and the last two years of Republican dysfunction in the House of Representatives to see that.  The cult traffics in amorphous white nationalist grievance, race baiting, and hateful sloganeering.  To the extent it has policy proposals, they've been exposed as the authoritarian fever dreams they are in the wildly unpopular Christofascist "Project 2025."

So, what are they good at?  As Catherine Rampell reminds us -- "The GOP's greatest skill: taking credit for things Democrats did:"

Republican vice-presidential nominee JD Vance has accused his Democratic counterpart of “stolen valor,” a term that typically refers to lying about a military service record.

But the actual perpetrators of “stolen valor” in this election are Vance and his party — if not in the military context, then at least in the public service one. Republican politicians have repeatedly claimed credit for valiant actions they didn’t take, pro-family legislation they didn’t support and other popular policies they’re trying to repeal.

For instance, as Democrats celebrated the Inflation Reduction Act’s two-year anniversary last week, Republicans, who unanimously voted against the law in 2022, condemned it and pledged to claw it back. (They’ve already voted a couple dozen times to repeal various portions of it.)

But when it comes to the projects the law subsidized, these same Republicans are big cheerleaders — both for the projects and their own (imagined) role in enabling them.  [snip]

This is hardly the only initiative Republican lawmakers have bogarted credit for despite their efforts to stop it. Last fall, House Speaker Mike Johnson (La.) cheered the expansion of Florida’s Sarasota airport, which he toured with Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.). That project received at least $16 million from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. While some Republicans supported this law, both men voted against it.

Similar examples abound for Republicans who voted against the Chips and Science Act. [snip]

More recently, Vance spent the past month defending his “childless cat ladies” remarks by explaining he simply meant Republicans are more devoted to family-friendly policies than Democrats are. Which family-friendly policies should Republicans be so proud of, you ask? Oh, you know: the ones championed and passed by Democrats.

For instance, Vance often says he’s been fighting to expand the child tax credit. But earlier this month, when the Senate voted on a bill to do that, Vance couldn’t be bothered to show up. His Republican colleagues blocked the bill from advancing.

Similarly, in 2021, not a single Republican voted for President Joe Biden’s temporary expansion of the tax credit, which cut child poverty in half.  [snip]

To be fair, Vance has not stolen all the undue credit for himself. He’s also praised Trump for things Trump didn’t do. For instance, Vance credited Trump for a recent prisoner swap that, ahem, President Joe Biden negotiated. And Trump himself is of course the master of laying claim to other presidents’ valorous and public-spirited achievements.

You know what they say: impersonation is the highest form of flattery.

They also say, when you elect clowns, expect a circus.  

For far too long, they've been allowed to employ the tactic of posing as "small government" conservatives, while voting against needed projects and then taking credit for the benefits that land in their congressional district.  (Their impulse to have the government control the reproductive freedom of families and other aspects of life and culture is a whole other hypocrisy for these "small government" conservatives.)  They're starting to be exposed for the frauds they are, but expect the "stolen valor" tactics to continue, because it's all those nihilists have.