A decades-long veteran of Republican politics, Fox News commentator Marc Thiessen, has delivered a warning to the GOP: change course, because the Republicans’ midterm elections performance was “an absolute disaster for the Republican Party.” His warning was even mentioned later Wednesday on “Fox & Friends.”
But that warning concludes with a stunning suggestion.
Thiessen’s conservative bonafides are unquestionable. A former White House speechwriter for Bush 43 and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, he has defended the use of waterboarding, which is believed to be a war crime. He also writes a column for The Washington Post, and is a a fellow at the right wing think tank American Enterprise Institute.
Overnight, as it became clear there would be no “red wave,” and Democrats might retain control of the U.S. Senate and possibly even the House of Representatives, Thiessen excoriated the Republican Party, while making a stunning pronouncement on what to do next.
“We have the worst inflation in four decades, the worst collapse in real wages in 40 years,” Thiessen claimed (falsely — we’ll address his claims below.)
“The worst crime wave since the 1990s. The worst border crisis in U.S. history,” he continued, again parroting right-wing talking points.
“We have Joe Biden who is the least popular president since Harry Truman, since presidential polling happened, and there wasn’t a red wave,” Thiessen charged.
“That is a searing indictment of the Republican Party. That is a searing indictment of the message that we have been sending to the voters.”
“They looked at all of that and said, they looked at the Republican alternative and said, ‘no thanks.’ That, that is, the Republican Party needs to do a really deep introspection, look in the mirror right now, because this is an absolute disaster for the Republican Party,” he warned.
“We need to turn back,” he continued.
But rather than make a declaration about what’s actually good for the country, what’s good for Americans, Thiessen declared, “we need to look at who won today: Ron DeSantis. [Ohio GOP Governor Mike] DeWine.”
“These governors,” he continued, also naming Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.
“You know, look at these governors, this is the path to the future.”
That’s a stunning decision, given opinion columns repeatedly linking DeSantis to fascism.
“And electing these these these, you know, these these radical candidates who ran far behind them, has put the Republican Party in a terrible position and voters have left and have indicted the Republican Party.”
Thiessen tried to pin all the nation’s woes on Democrats and President Joe Biden, but it wasn’t long ago that he wrote a glowing column praising then-President Donald Trump.
“Despite the worst pandemic since 1918, the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and the worst racial unrest since the 1960s, a record 56 percent of Americans told Gallup before the election that they were better off now under Trump than they were four years ago,” he wrote on New Year’s Day last year, five days before the January 6 insurrection.
Thiessen’s claim overnight of “the worst inflation in four decades,” while true, is a global phenomenon, and far worse in many other countries, including the UK.
NCRM could find no facts to support his claim that America has “the worst collapse in real wages in 40 years.”
Thiessen’s claim of the “worst crime wave since the 1990s,” is also at best debatable, and appears to be refuted in this Bloomberg News analysis published last week in The Washington Post.
Likewise, Thiessen’s claim of the “worst border crisis in US history,” a top GOP talking point that literally appears on the GOP’s website, is explained well by BBC News, which notes, “the number of migrants at the border has been steadily increasing since April 2020,” under Donald Trump. BBC adds, “the numbers spiked sharply after Mr Biden took office. Though he has avoided Mr Trump’s rhetoric, since taking office Mr Biden has repeatedly called on migrants, including asylum seekers, not to attempt the journey to the US.”
BBC adds: “More migrants are crossing, and getting arrested.”
As far as Biden being “the least popular president since Harry Truman,” that’s not exactly true. Biden and Trump are tied at 40% approval at this point in both their presidencies, according to Gallup. Ronald Reagan was close at 43%, Barack Obama was at 45%, Bill Clinton was at 46%. And Truman was at 33%.
Journalist James Surowiecki responded to Thiessen’s attack by saying, “Thiessen is right. But why wasn’t he warning about how bad Republican candidates and the Republican message were a month ago, instead of writing: ‘It might be that come November, the crime wave will produce a red wave big enough to reach even deep blue New York’?”
Watch Thiessen below via Fox News or at this link: