Buckle Up: Ugly Politics Ahead
[Editor’s note: Watch Not My Party every week on Snapchat.]
Tim Miller: I’m sorry, but the blissful Biden era of tuning out politics is coming to an end. Dark Trump is rising. And things are about to get ugly.
Peter Griffin (from Family Guy): Gross.
Miller: This is “Not My Party.” Brought to you by The Bulwark. From anti-democracy candidates winning key elections, to soft autocrats speaking before adoring crowds, to an FBI raid triggering calls for civil war, a series of events this past week portends America’s dark and volatile political future.
Molotov Girl (Jodie Comer in Free Guy): Pretty bleak.
Miller: The central figure of this upheaval is, of course, Donald Trump.
Keith Olbermann (as himself on The Simpsons): The worst person in the world!
Miller: During a speech at CPAC in Texas, the crowd erupted as Trump strongly implied he was running in 2024.
Donald Trump: Socialists, globalists, Marxists, Communists who are attacking our civilization have no idea of the sleeping giant they have awoken. . . . November 2024, they will find out like never before.
Rachel Berry (Lea Michele on Glee): Is this real life?
Miller: He’s building a campaign around the deranged claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him and the country suffered as a result.
Trump: The election was rigged and stolen, and now our country is being systematically destroyed.
Miller: For a while, this obsession seemed like it might amount to nothing more than a toddler king’s sour grapes. Maybe the GOP was ready to nudge Trump and his criminal baggage off stage right, and replace him with a campy imitator who didn’t try a coup. But instead the GOP is rallying to his side once again.
Moe Szyslak (on The Simpsons): Oh please, not this again.
Miller: In elections across the country, candidates who have pledged a blood oath to Trump and his lies continue to defeat those more attached to reality. Seven of the nine house members who voted to impeach have been beaten in Republican primaries, with the one remaining [who hasn’t yet had a primary] almost certain to lose next week.
Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin on 30 Rock): Thank you, Liz.
Miller: In Arizona, an entire slate of Trump cultists were just nominated for Senate, governor, attorney general, and secretary of state. These candidates have all pledged to not certify the 2024 election if it doesn’t go their way, and have said they plan on jailing those who have perpetrated imagined crimes in 2020.
Blake Masters: We are gonna investigate and prosecute Anthony Fauci.
Kari Lake: I will not allow the people who ordered this corrupt election to get away with it.
The Earthworm (from James and the Giant Peach): They’ve lost their minds.
Miller: Kari Lake, a former local TV host and drag king, who turned herself into a MAGA lunatic is now the favorite to become the state’s governor—
Izzy Buttons (Shaun Parks in The Mummy Returns): Well, that’s not good.
Miller: —despite the fact that she might be the only person in America more committed to the Big Lie than Donald Trump himself. In another swing state, Pennsylvania, Republicans nominated Doug Mastriano, a literal insurrectionist, who has said he wants to make everyone in the state re-register to vote as part of his suppression effort.
Nick Durand (Patrick Heusinger in Absentia): Super shady.
Miller: If this attack on democracy isn’t scary enough, check out the response to the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago that happened this past Monday night.
Mark Levin: This is the worst attack on this republic in modern history.
Newt Gingrich: Tragic end to the American dream.
Dan Bongino: We don’t live in Cuba. We don’t live under Kim Jong-un.
Ben Collins: These are people emboldened, who are ready for the civil war.
Barbara F. Walter: We are closer to civil war than any of us would like to believe.
Lee Smith: We’re living now in a banana republic.
Kayleigh McEnany: They say banana republic.
Gerry Callahan: It looks like banana republic.
Count Olaf (Jim Carrey in A Series of Unfortunate Events): Na, na, na.
Miller: Before the details of the court-authorized search were even revealed, right-wing leaders were calling for extreme retribution. Blabby effeminate keyboard warrior Steven Crowder called for war. Dinesh D’Souza and Congressman Paul Gosar want to abolish the FBI. A state rep said Florida should ignore federal law and arrest FBI agents that come into the state—which is like basically a step towards civil war? As Governor Ron DeSantis isn’t turning down the temperature: He called the Biden “Regime” a “Banana Republic.”
Claire Underwood (Robin Wright on House of Cards): Shocking.
Miller: Meanwhile, all the leading Republicans in D.C. are rallying to Trump’s defense against the DOJ. And threats of violence are permeating pro-Trump message boards. These clowns in the MAGA media and Congress are all playing with fire. They’ve learned nothing from how their actions brought about the violence on January 6th, and are happy to be arsonists on behalf of Trump once again.
Han Mi-nyeo (Kim Joo-ryeong on Squid Game): Assholes.
Miller: Here’s the bottom line. The Department of Justice investigation into Trump’s obvious criminal activity while he still has a stranglehold on the GOP and is plotting a 2024 run, puts us on a collision course to the most combustible political and legal face off in generations. So our mild vanilla Biden-era intermission is coming to an end.
Linda Gunderson (in Rio): We’re doomed.
Miller: See you next week for more “Not My Party.”
