Photo: Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker at INBA, April 2019. Courtesy Susan Stephens, WNIJ.
A couple of weeks ago I asked, rhetorically, “How can we not have fun with this?” — referring to the comedy pirate ship crew that is MAGA, and it’s use of parody and satire against those opposed to Donald Trump.
Well… those opponents have provided us further comedy opportunities.
According to a column that appeared in the Daily Post last Wednesday, Colorado Governor Jared Polis and Illinois Governor Governor J.B. Pritzker are “helping to lead a new initiative that aims to protect state-level democratic institutions against federal overreach.”
Great… how can MAGA help to reduce federal power?
Do Governors Polis and Pritzker believe the MAGA populist movement that swept Donald Trump into office is all about more federal power vs. the States? If so, those Democrats really are as out of touch as the recent election reflects.
Exhibit One: “Polis is helping to lead a new initiative that aims to protect state-level democratic institutions against federal overreach.” Let’s break that down.
What do Governors Polis and Pritzker consider to be ‘federal overreach’? According to Pritzker, it’s mass deportation of immigrants. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, “Pritzker called ‘unacceptable’ incoming Trump administration aide Stephen Miller’s plan to use red state National Guard units in blue states to aid in mass deportations.”
The Biden administration has sued States to stop them from taking state action to curb illegal immigration on the premise that immigration is exclusively a ‘federal’ matter.
So, according to the current administration, immigration is not a matter for the states – thus, contrary to what Pritzker apparently believes, mass deportation is not “federal overreach”.
And opposition to the wave of illegal immigration was a one of the leading issues behind Trump’s election. Yet this is the fight they are picking with the feds? How is that level of cluelessness not funny?
As for using a state National Guard to enforce federal law in a State that refuses to cooperate? I suggest these Democratic governors do a little research about how that turned out for other Democratic governors.
In 1963, Governor George Wallace personally blocked a door into the University of Alabama to prevent the first two black students from being admitted. President Kennedy federalized the Alabama National Guard to assist United States Marshals in forcing Wallace to stand aside.
Trump can just as readily federalize the Illinois, and Colorado, national guards under his command.
Then going back another century, there was a group of Democratic governors who protested the election of the first Republican president by not only advocating defiance of the federal government, but took it to the extreme of seceding… and daring the feds to use troops in their states. How did that work out for those governors?
In addition to Governors Polis and Pritzker, Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsome is calling the legislature into special session to “protect California values” from a Trump federal administration. Increasing the power of state government, while reducing the authority of the federal government — as intended by the 10th Amendment to the United States Constitution — is a core belief of the MAGA populist movement.
Newsome is doing MAGA’s job. It’s self-parody!
One of those “values” Newsome wants to protect from the feds is abortion. That means he agrees with the Dobbs decision by the Supreme Court when it overturned Roe v Wade — holding that abortion is a state, not federal, government issue.
How can we not find the actions of these governors amusing?
Exhibit Two: After President-elect Trump announced his pick for Secretary of Defense, Peter Hegseth —a former Army officer who served in both Iraq, and Afghanistan, who has two combat decorations, and has written multiple critical books about the military — United States Senator Elizabeth Warren (D, Mass) posted this on ‘X’:
“A Fox & Friends weekend co-host is not qualified to be the Secretary of Defense. I lead the Senate military personnel panel. All three of my brothers served in uniform. I respect every one of our service members. Donald Trump’s pick will make us less safe and must be rejected.”
Aside from Warren’s hypocrisy of saying “I respect everyone of our service members” while clearly disrespecting Hegseth, her claim of expertise about the Defense Department (leading “the Senate personnel panel”) is another self-parody. The current United States military has the lowest personnel retention rates, and lowest enlistments, since Vietnam.
Again, how can we not laugh at these people?
Warren correctly points out Hegseth is now a Fox news network personality — but does so to suggest that fact alone disqualifies him, regardless of his proven expertise in military affairs. It would be like saying I’m not qualified to represent a client in a criminal matter simply because I’m a now a columnist for an online news outlet!
Well, if being a “weekend co-host” sets certain Democrats off, how about that Hegseth is also a semi-regular guest on the number one highest rated late-night comedy show: Greg Gutfeld? That show has raised to an art form making fun of the bozos who have taken control of the Democratic Party — and occasionally takes shots at some self-important Republicans.
And you know who else occasionally appears on ‘Gutfeld’? Trump’s EPA Secretary nominee, Lee Zeldin, National Security Advisor nominee Tulsi Gabbard, and Vivek Ramaswamy. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, and Trump himself have each appeared once.
With that lineup in the government — added to which is Elon Musk whose trolling on ‘X’ is legendary — the comedy pirate ship SS MAGA will continue to sail the political seas. Enjoy the laughs, as the federal bureaucracy, military-industrialists, corporate regime media, academic intellectual narcissists, and other self-anointed elites get skewered by the Trump administration.