Linda Blackford
Even Donald Trump agrees. ‘Grandstander’ Thomas Massie makes Kentucky look foolish.
What is it with these guys?
The week after our own Sen. Rand Paul possibly infects the entire Senate while waiting for his COVID-19 test results, his libertarian soulmate, U.S. Rep Thomas Massie of Northern Kentucky, says hold my beer.
The MIT grad (yes, he’s very proud of his alma mater but it might not be mutual) decided to try to hijack the entire $2 trillion COVID-19 relief bill by saying he’d vote against it, which might have forced the entire House of Representatives to fly back to Washington, D.C. for an in-person vote. He thought there should be more discussion about the biggest bailout in U.S. history, and he’s right, there should be, ONLY WE’RE IN THE GREATEST CRISIS SINCE WORLD WAR II AND PEOPLE NEED HELP IMMEDIATELY.
Luckily, he failed.
I’d feel better about this highminded seriousness if Massie were not someone who frequently votes no just to make a point, whether it makes sense or not, including on a recent bill to outlaw lynching. So there’s that.
Also Massie doesn’t think this is a crisis, because in whatever Lewis County dream world he lives within, government reaction to COVID-19 is a way bigger problem. In a Twitter poll of 6,000 people who follow him, 85 percent agreed with him. This is what happens when you watch Fox News instead of following the coverage of what’s happening in northern Italy.
Like all libertarians, Massie makes sense about 20 percent of the time. (He’s kind of like a stopped clock.) He rightly questioned why so much of the bailout was going through banks and corporations, rather than straight to the people. He questioned the secrecy around the Federal Reserve. What he didn’t ask was whether one relatively unimportant Kentucky Congressman should hold up aid to roughly 3.3 million people who’ve filed for unemployment benefits in the past two weeks. We will probably find plenty of problems with the bill, including Trump’s efforts to avoid Congressional oversight, but now is not the time for perfect to be the enemy of good.
Massie’s stunt raised the ire of many, former Sec. of State John Kerry called him a “masshole,” but the prize went to hate Tweeter in Chief Donald Trump, whom we all can admit has some serious skills at ritual humiliation. He got a lot into two tweets, including calling Massie a “third rate Grandstander” who just wants publicity. He also managed to plug flipping the House back to the GOP, “but throw Massie out of Republican Party!”
This we know, drawing Trump’s ire could pose some problems for Massie’s reelection unless he starts some serious Trump ass-kissing immediately. After all, Paul called Trump an “delusional narcissist and an orange-faced windbag,” during the 2016 campaign, but then abased himself enough that they’re still buddies.
It’s manna for Massie’s opponent, Todd McMurtry, who released a web site chronicling 100 of his worst mistakes. Friday’s spectacle was only #54.
Kentucky is getting rare national raves for the crisis control being displayed by Gov. Andy Beshear. But that’s almost being drowned out by the frankly embarrassing actions of much of its Congressional delegation: Sen. Mitch McConnell, who left Washington, D.C. during the first week of the crisis to do an photo-op in Louisville with Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanagh and Sen. Paul, who swanned around the Senate pool while he was COVID-19 positive. Like all bad things that come in threes, Massie completes a triumvirate of shame. Frankly, we deserve better, and even Donald Trump agrees.