NEW YORK TIMES: THE PARTY OF FREEDOM FRIES AND BIRTHERISM HAS ABANDONED ISSUE-ORIENTED POLITICS!

Really, New York Times?

Republican lawmakers are passing voting restrictions to pacify right-wing activists still gripped by former President Donald J. Trump’s lie that a largely favorable election was rigged against them. G.O.P. leaders are lashing out in Trumpian fashion at businesses, baseball and the news media to appeal to many of the same conservatives and voters. And debates over the size and scope of government have been overshadowed by the sort of culture war clashes that the tabloid king relished....

[Trump's] preference for engaging in red-meat political fights rather than governing and policymaking have left party leaders in a state of confusion over what they stand for....

Having, quite literally, abandoned their traditional party platform last year to accommodate Mr. Trump, Republicans have organized themselves around opposition to the perceived excesses of the left and borrowed his scorched-earth tactics as they do battle.

Right -- the GOP that's fixated on culture-war talk today is totally different from the GOP that attacked John Kerry for speaking French (at a time when right-wingers loathed the Iraq-war-skeptical French government and cheered the rebranding of French fries in congressional dining halls as "freedom fries"). It's totally different from the GOP that was obsessed with Barack Obama's birth certificate, or Bill Clinton's sex life, or Hillary Clinton's health.

It’s a strikingly different approach from the last time Democrats had full control of government, in 2009 and 2010, when conservatives harnessed the Great Recession to stoke anger about President Barack Obama and federal spending on their way to sweeping midterm gains.

Yes, the anger at Obama was strictly fiscal.

The fight against Obamacare seemed like a policy fight, but in retrospect it was obviously a "You want to give free stuff to Those People" fight. Is the Times still unable to acknowledge that?

The party that hates voting rights now is the party that hated ACORN in the Obama years. The party that hates "cancel culture" now is the party that once hated...


I'm stating the obvious, though I wish it were obvious to the Times.