MSNBC host Chris Hayes’ version of liberalism works for him because it is clear-eyed, sensible, and based on observable truths.
That is the case with one of his tweets today as he listens to Republicans complain that it is the Democrats who want to force a government shutdown as soon as Friday because they are not willing to go along with Speaker Paul Ryan’s latest notion of a compromise.
It's hilarious that *HOUSE* Republicans would try to blame Dems for a shut-down. You control the house! Pass whatever you want!
— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) January 18, 2018
Once again he has said the obvious.
If there is a shutdown it is because the Republicans, who have majority control of both Congressional chambers, can’t wrestle their own party members to get in line with what the leadership wants to do.
Instead, some Republicans complain the bill keeping the U.S. government in business for one more month, while also extending the CHIP child health program for six more years, is not good enough.
Democrats may go along to get CHIP passed but they will still be choking on the lack of attention to the DACA “Dreamers” program, which is conspicuously absent from this bill.
Maybe what Trump and his comrades really want is to disrupt the government by shutting it down to demonstrate their power, even if they will deny it all day long.
That was a message in a tweet that was re-tweeted by Hayes from Rep. Adam Schiff, the California Democrat and former prosecutor. Rep. Schiff has become a voice of reason in the rabbit hole known as the House Intelligence Committee, as it claims to be investigating the Russia-Trump connection, yet it’s run by a Republican who will do anything to please Trump.
What passes for logic in the Oval Office:
Republicans control the Senate.
Republicans control the House.
Republicans control the White House.
Last year, @POTUS tweeted that we need a “good shutdown.”If government closes, who’s responsible? Democrats!
— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) January 17, 2018
So the Republicans, who have all the power they need to stuff anything they want down the collective American throat, continue to cry that they can’t pack every single bit of costly, excessive, conservative claptrap into the bill.
But Hayes, like Schiff, is truth teller, and in the end, it is the truth that history remembers.
A final note: to understand how clear and powerful a mind Hayes has, read the first excerpt from his upcoming book, “A Colony In A Nation,” about how the system of police and prisons has replaced Jim Crow laws as a way to control minorities. His book is out in March.
