The Invention of Elise Stefanik

[dalton99a]

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/31/us/politics/elise-stefanik.html
https://archive.ph/PEugf

The Invention of Elise Stefanik
To rise through the Trump-era G.O.P., a young congresswoman gave up her friends, her mentors and her ideals. Will it be enough?
By Nicholas Confessore
Dec. 31, 2022

...

For years, Ms. Stefanik had crafted her brand as a model moderate millennial — “the future of hopeful, aspirational politics in America,” as her mentor, Paul Ryan, would describe her in Time magazine. But as her third term unfolded, according to current or former friends and advisers, it was becoming painfully clear that she was the future of a Republican Party that no longer existed. The party was now firmly controlled by Donald J. Trump, a populist president she didn’t like or respect — a “whack job,” as she once described him in a message obtained by The New York Times. Fox hosts attacked her for not supporting Mr. Trump enough. Her friends criticized her for not opposing him more forcefully. You don’t understand, she would tell them. You don’t get how hard this is. Democrats were back in charge in the House. Mr. Ryan was gone, driven into early retirement. She told friends she was thinking of joining him.

Instead she embarked on one of the most brazen political transformations of the Trump era. With breathtaking speed and alacrity, Ms. Stefanik remade herself into a fervent Trump apologist, adopted his over-torqued style on Twitter and embraced the conspiracy theories that animate his base, amplifying debunked allegations of dead voters casting ballots in Atlanta and unspecified “irregularities” involving voting-machine software in 2020 swing states. The future of hopeful, aspirational politics in America now assails Democrats as “the party of Socialists, illegals, criminals, Communist Truth Ministers & media stenographers.” In the process, she has rocketed from the backbench to the party’s No. 3 House leadership job, presiding over the conference’s overall messaging.

Ms. Stefanik’s reinvention has made her a case study in the collapse of the old Republican establishment and its willing absorption into the new, Trump-dominated one. But as Republicans prepare to take control of the House in the coming days, her climb to MAGA stardom may also be a cautionary tale. Mr. Trump’s obsession with litigating his own defeat has left him at once the party’s most potent force and its greatest liability, blamed by many Republicans for their failure to win the Senate in November and for a House majority that, some fear, may be too narrow to govern effectively. Republican politicians and voters are now agonizing anew over the price of their alliance with Mr. Trump. “It’s crystal, crystal, crystal clear,” Mr. Ryan told SiriusXM. “We lose with Trump if we stick with Trump. If we dump Trump, we start winning.”

For her part, Ms. Stefanik has only doubled down, betting that her alliance with Mr. Trump will carry her further still — to a job in his cabinet, perhaps, or even a slot as his running mate in 2024. In November, even before Mr. Trump made his bid for re-election official, she became one of the few senior Republicans to endorse him. “Republican voters determine who is the leader of the Republican Party, and it’s very clear President Trump is the leader of the Republican Party,” she said, putting her loyalty on display in the way that Mr. Trump prizes.

...



(Ann Telnaes/The Washington Post)

[Solly Mack]

1. People write essays on various republicans telling themselves and trying to convince others

they are giving a reasoned and objective view as to what makes their subject tick.

The thing is, republicans are pieces of shit, and it doesn't take a Shitologist to tell people what shit is like or why shit is the way shit is.

It's shit. The why of it won't change its nature. Nor will it change how shit is viewed.

Unless you're looking for a Hot Karl to sate your Coprophilia and have the added kink of a preference for corn-flecked or liquid tar or whatever the fuck you like, you won't care what went into making a piece of shit a piece of shit.

A piece of shit can't reinvent itself. It can only go from shitty to shittier. It's all still shit.

[ret5hd]

2. Well...shit.

You done made me go an’ google “hot karl”.

And now…shit…I guess I’ll try to put that mental image out of my mind.

[Solly Mack]

3. I get that mental image every time I see a republican.

All they do is take a hot karl on people.

[brer cat]

4. What a profound post!

I do love you, Solly.

[Solly Mack]

5. Ha! I was just venting.

Thank you, brer cat.

[Better Days Ahoy]

6. THIS. This is the bottom line. Well done, Solly!

Enough of the media bullshit.
ANALysis complete.
(See what I did there?)

[elleng]

8. 'she was the future of a Republican Party that no longer existed.'