The Power Of Rage

Hello! It’s the weekend, this is The Weekender. ☕

The shooting in Uvalde, Texas, which left 19 children and two adults dead, is the freshest horror to produce anguished cries of “do something!” aimed directly at Republicans and the Democrats who, in theory, control Congress.

The reality is, thanks to two of their own, Democrats can’t do much. Sen. Krysten Sinema (D-AZ) and Joe Manchin (D-WV) stand as firmly behind the filibuster now as they did when the underlying issue being debated was voting rights or climate change mitigation.

That’s a hard place to be. Even Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is already expressing gloom about the two bills he hastily scheduled for votes in the hours after the shooting.

The mix of Democratic impotence and the refusal to act by Sinema, Manchin and every single Senate Republican has produced a lethal mix of anger, despair and cynicism in the segment of the population that finds the routine murder of children too high a price to pay for nearly unfettered access to guns.

It’s also why moments of genuine rage from Democrats have broken through so loudly in recent days.

Beto O’Rourke, Democratic challenger to Gov. Greg Abbott (R), interrupted Abbott’s press conference Wednesday to accuse him of “doing nothing.”

Abbott’s allies unleashed expletives and recriminations while O’Rourke, escorted out by police, called the killings a “totally predictable” result of lax state gun laws.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) — whose prominence grew as he called for gun reform after the Sandy Hook murders happened in his congressional district a decade ago — gave a similarly applauded speech from the Senate floor Tuesday.

“What are we doing?” he angrily asked during his floor speech. “Why do you spend all this time running for the United States Senate? Why do you go through all the hassle of getting this job, of putting yourself in a position of authority? As the slaughter increases, as our kids run for their lives, we do nothing.”

Horrified observers have a hunger for this kind of explosion, for rage that, at least for a few moments, shakes decorum and the status quo.

Angry observers took similar heart in Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow’s (D) recent floor speech about protecting LGBTQ children. 

They cheered Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) when she joined protesters outside the Supreme Court, furious about the leaked draft Roe opinion. Her presence there didn’t change the legislative obstacles, the fact that 48 willing Democrats is too small a number to make any change in our broken institutions. But she still did a small kind of service – she made people feel less alone when she raised her voice.

“I am angry!” she shouted.

More on other news below. Let’s dig in. 

Bizarre Excuses For Fraudulent Signatures “Made My Mouth Drop Open,” Candidate Says

Several candidates — including five Republican contenders for governor – have now been excluded from the ballot in Michigan after the state’s Bureau of Elections determined that circulators working for various campaigns collectively gathered 68,000 fraudulent signatures, which those campaigns then submitted to the state. The campaigns have promised to sue after the Michigan Board of State Canvassers split 2-2 along party lines on the matter, with Democrats voting to exclude candidates that did not submit enough valid signatures. Some freshly disqualified candidates have blamed the board for not warning them ahead of time that they shouldn’t submit fraudulent signatures.

“The lack of personal responsibility literally made my mouth drop open,” Amanda Shelton, a state judicial candidate who caught fraudulent signatures in her own petitions in time to throw them out, told TPM. “These are the folks that have hundreds of thousands of dollars, hundreds of volunteers and paid staff. If you can’t run your campaign efficiently, I am concerned about you running whatever department or office for which you are campaigning efficiently. The lack of personal responsibility and the blame — I was shocked, I couldn’t believe it.”

— Matt Shuham

Charges Filed In Gaetz-Linked Florida Ghost Candidate Scam

Much of the Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) alleged sex trafficking controversy boils down to one Florida locale: Seminole County, in the Orlando suburbs. That’s where Gaetz’s ex-buddy Joel Greenberg ran wild as local tax collector, and it’s where a number of other Gaetz associates have made local political careers. That last point was emphasized this week after Florida state prosecutors charged one 2020 Seminole County state senate candidate and two political operatives with campaign finance and fraud crimes.

The candidate in question, Jestine Iannotti, ran as a so-called “ghost” – no real campaigning or desire to win, just a name on the ballot. She was one of several such candidates to appear in Florida’s hotly contested state legislature elections in 2020, managing to siphon off votes from Democratic contenders. The link to Gaetz comes in part because the candidate who benefitted from the scheme is a local pal of the Florida representative – but also because of a New York Times report from last year which asserted that Gaetz had discussed running a third party candidate in the race to benefit his friend.

— Josh Kovensky

• In gross GOP campaign tactic news: Former MMA fighter and current-Rep. Markwayne Mullin’s (R-OK) Senate campaign released an anti-trans ad featuring his two children. Read the full story here. 
• He may be freshly primaried, but the hits keep coming for the North Carolina lawmaker: Rep. Madison Cawthorn Now Faces House Ethics Probe Into Allegations That Angered GOP Colleagues.
• TPM published two excellent pieces in TPM Cafe this week that are worth your attention. First up, from Lauren Rankin, a panelist in TPM’s recent live discussion on the realities of a post-Roe America: Abortion Bans With No Exceptions For Rape Or Incest Were Always Part Of The GOP’s End Game.
• And then this, from TPM Cafe writer and author of the book “Unholy: How White Christian Nationalists Powered the Trump Presidency and the Devastating Legacy They Left Behind” Sarah Posner: How The ‘New Right’ Of The 1970s Helped The Great Replacement Theory Go Mainstream.
• We published a not bad/sad thing for once (as part of TPM’s partnership with Bookshop). TPM Associate Editor Nicole Lafond: 5 Books That Inspired Me To Become A Writer (Or Forced Me To Stick With It).
• “As a nation, we have to ask when in god’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby? When in god’s name will we do what we all know in our gut needs to be done?” In his national address Tuesday night, Biden angrily implored Republicans (and at least two of his own) to do something on gun control in the wake of the school shooting massacre in Texas this week. It was one of his most powerful and emotional speeches yet as President.
• The latest on abortion access, from Kate Riga: Inside The Anti-Abortion Movement’s Uber Successful Messaging Campaign.
• After video emerged on Jan. 6 showing Capitol rioters chanting “Hang Mike Pence!” Donald Trump said something to the effect of, maybe Mr. Pence should be hung, according to a new report this week. Read the full story here. 

It’s become a grimly familiar routine. A horrific mass shooting happens. Politicians face calls to establish firm gun control laws to stop it from happening again. And NRA-funded Republicans immediately try to shut down the conversation by pinning the blame for the tragedy on anything but guns. The talking points shift to: mental health, violent video games, police supposedly not getting enough funding, etc.

The aftermath of the Uvalde elementary school shooting in Texas was no exception; the GOP deflection strategy was in full force. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) insisted that the solution to preventing future school massacres was to “harden” the schools, because the problem isn’t that there are too many guns out there. No, it’s that school buildings have too many doors, and by “too many doors” they mean “more than one.”

Schools need to have “one door that goes in and out of the school [and] armed police officers at that one door,” Cruz told reporters on Wednesday. He offered the same solution on Fox News later that night. Patrick made the same mind-boggling argument on CNN that day too and again on Fox News the next day, saying “There should be only one way in, and that should be a well protected entrance.”

Design elementary schools like prisons. Literally anything but restricting access to AR-15s.

— Cristina Cabrera