PHOTO: U.S. Rep. Kevin McCarthy.
As I suggested the other day, in my first Daily Post article of 2023, it can take years to screw up a brand image. And sometimes, in only an instant, an individual’s or business firm’s brand image can go down the drain.
I’m writing rapidly right now, because quite soon, according to our local San Francisco Bay Area meteorologists, flooding rain and strong winds will be pounding our area, with power outages predicted. And that may further damage our area’s already image-challenged public utility company that powers lights, appliances, home heating, and what I’m typing on now, my computer. This is the same company that’s been accused of causing some of the wildfires in previously parched areas of California.
So, before our power goes out, I need to dwell, a bit more, on the image-challenged political party, featured in my most recent New Year article, the Republican Party and its far-right wing, in particular.
As I’m typing away, the new Congress is about to be sworn in, with California’s very own GOP Congressman Kevin McCarthy breathlessly hoping he’ll be selected as the new Speaker of the House. But with opposition from far-right congressional GOPers, including Colorado’s Lauren Boebert, Rep. McCarthy’s ascension may not be a sure thing… even though he’s been capitulating to his far-right colleagues, like when he approved a procedure that would make it much easier for the far-right to throw him out of his desired new job, in an instant.
So, even if he wins, he might actually lose.
It’s hard to figure this rather strange, embarrassing situation for Rep. McCarthy, which maybe isn’t all that surprising, since he himself can’t seem to fully figure out what’s going on.
But, be that as it may, there are some key things the Republican Party’s far right seems to have mastered quite well.
For one thing, poisoning the well — an idiom meaning tarnishing someone’s or something’s reputation — encouraged, perhaps, by the party’s most recent former President, Donald Trump, undermining faith in various key components of the nation’s government and society.
Trump’s utterances about some American heroes — his often insulting commentary about the free press, the nation’s intelligence-gathering agencies, various law enforcement agencies and their leadership, senior military leaders, the State Department, and other components of the country — seems to have poisoned several wells.
Squandering time… that’s another thing the far-right, and others in the Republican Party, seem to have mastered.
The new Republican-controlled House, in all likelihood, will spend endless time investigating congressional representatives on the other side of the aisle, and more endless time investigating vaccines, and pounding away at women’s health, and abortions, and such, and pushing their agenda on — what do they call it? — ‘wokeness?’
Airing grievances, bickering. and being vengeful… they seem to have mastered pretty well, damaging and possibly destroying the Republican brand.
What a shame that is.