Republicans clearly showing symptoms of short term political memory loss

Echo essay published in Intelligencer by Ed Kilgor in New York Magazine:

So, what was the worst year of your life? The GOP’s claim that we were better off in 2020, is just plainly weird❗ 

The answer will obviously vary, but it’s a good bet the year 2020, will rank pretty high in any list of wretched years. 

After all, it’s when COVID-19 arrived❗The pandemic eventually took over a million lives just in America. Our economy collapsed. Schools and businesses closed, unemployment sky-rocketed, most people were isolated and terrified. As scientists struggled to figure out how the virus spread, how to keep from contracting it, and how to treat it, most Americans were hoarding hand sanitizer, paper towels, and toilet paper; avoiding door knobs, hand rails, and other shared surfaces; and obsessively cleaning their groceries and their mail.

It was indeed a time most of us would prefer to forget. And it seems the Republican Party is counting on that.

As Noah Berlatsky of Public Notice points out, Republicans are now regularly trotting out Ronald Reagan’s famous 1980, debate question, “Are you better off than you were four years ago?,” as though it’s a slam-dunk winner for them:  “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?” Rep. Elise Stefanik asked during a news conference last week. She answered her own question by saying “the answer is a resounding no.” Lara Trump, the new co-chair of the Republican National Committee, said virtually the same thing to Sean Hannity on Tuesday. South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott echoed that sentiment on Fox News as well, saying, “We have to go back to that future, 2017-2020. We want those four years one more time.”

Seriously? All of the Trump years❓😓

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Senator Katie Britt’s melodramatic State of the Union response was a scene stealer from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s SOTU stunts and fellow Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville’s usual numbskull act. But that would only allow Britt to steal a worst actor Oscar if there was won. Britt’s performance came off so much like a skit on Saturday Night Live, it was spoofed by the show in it’s opening with actress Scarlett Johansson playing Britt.

Despite the many problems with her weird, mendacious response to the State of the Union Address, Republican senator Katie Britt was smart enough not to claim 2020, as the joyous climax of four great years. Instead she asked viewers if they were “better off than they were three years ago,” dating back to Joe Biden’s first address to Congress in 2021. 

Ah, but that comparison, while it lends itself to the negative case against Biden, does not make the comparative case for Donald Trump’s alleged superiority. So throwing caution to the wind, Republicans will grit their teeth and ask persuadable voters to misremember 2020, as a monument to American greatness that we have sadly lost.

Now, it’s true that everything bad about 2020, was not attributable to Trump, and that voters may not necessarily put responsibility on him for the failure to manage a pandemic that baffled us all (though his tardiness in taking it seriously definitely cost lives and should never be forgotten). But nor is Biden responsible for all the ills of the world right now (including some maladies left to him by the Trump administration, like economic volatility and supply-chain problems). Rightly or wrongly, presidents are held responsible for nearly everything that happens on their watch; that’s the big downside to the job of being “leader of the free world,” with all its cool perks like Air Force One and Camp David. 

If Republicans are going to attack Biden over discontents ranging from gasoline prices to the horrors of war in Ukraine and Gaza, they’ll have to accept that the final year of that magical Trump presidency was quite the bummer. As a matter of fact, 2017, through 2019, weren’t exactly a golden era of good government, but for most Americans conditions of life were better than they became four years ago.

The GOP really needs to rethink its talking points. It takes a special kind of amnesia or insensitivity to look back at 2020 with great fondness. For most of us, the answer to the question “Are you better off than you were four years ago” is “Hell yes.”

Oscar Host Jimmy Kimmel responded to inappropriate Trump. He was the "host with the most!"

Kimmel's comeback to Trump is worthy of an encore!

Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel on Sunday called out former President Donald Trump after Trump took to social media to insult Kimmel.

"Trump just keeps walking into traps": Morning Joe buries Trump for latest humiliation. Kimmel read out Trump’s Truth Social post live from the Oscars stage just before the last award of the night was presented for best picture.

After sharing clips of "kitchen lady" Senator Katie Britt's widely mocked State of the Union response and the corresponding parody of the Alabama Republican's speech on Saturday Night Live, the hosts of "Morning Joe" focused on Donald Trump's latest humiliation when he went to war with comedian Jimmy Kimmel late Sunday night.

According to co-host Joe Scarborough, the former president's old tricks are blowing up in his face these days, after he used his Truth Social platform to attack Kimmel's hosting performance during the Oscars ceremony.

After Trump sneered at Kimmel by writing, "His opening was that of a less than average person trying to be something that he is not and never can be. Get rid of Kimmel and perhaps replace him with another washed-up but cheap ABC talent, George Slopanopoulos," Kimmel returned fire by reading the post live on-air and then adding, "Well, thank you, President Trump. Thank you for watching, I'm surprised you're still — isn't it past your jail time?"

Jimmy Kimmel to Trump, "Isn't it past your jail time?"

That in turn led to uproarious laughter from the Hollywood crowd and immediately made headlines, with Trump having no way to quickly respond with the same kind of reach.

As Joe Scarborough pointed out, the former president set himself up to fail. 😜😒😏 

"That's the thing, he just doesn't — I guess he doesn't understand," the MSNBC host explained. "He just keeps walking into traps. 

Trump acts old, he keeps — again, you know, it's like an old fighter that's past his prime. The things that may have worked, that may have been disruptive six, seven, you know, 2016, everybody knows what's coming."

"He's the butt of the joke for millions of people last night," he added.

Kitchen Lady Republican creates false narrative about a trafficking incident in Mexico

"Kitchen Lady" Republican Senator Katie Britt speaks "Fake News" and admits to it❗😲 Echo report by David McAfee and Jay Stahl in RawStory. 

"Kitchen Lady" Senator most probably cannot even boil water. In fact, her fake "kitchen" stage set is too shiny to be real.  

As expected, Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL) got the Saturday Night Live treatment for her #FakeNews response to President Joe Biden's State of the Union address with actress Scarlett Johansson nailing the Alabama Republican's over-the-top misleading storytelling and wild mood swings.

Here's Republican Senator Katie Britt's answer to allegations she lied in her State of the Union speech response.

Introducing herself with, "My name is Katie Britt and I have the honor of serving the great people of Alabama. But tonight I’ll be auditioning for the part of ‘Scary mom.’ I’ll be performing an original monologue called ‘This country is hell,'” Johansson’s Britt added, "You see, I’m not just a senator, I’m a wife, a mother and the craziest b---h in the Target parking lot — worried about the future of our children. And this is why I have invited you into this strange and empty kitchen because Republicans want me to appeal to women voters. And women love kitchens.”

“My husband Wesley and I just watched President Biden’s speech, and what I saw was the performance of a permanent politician. But me? I’m not performing. I’m not! I’m not!” Johannsen said, donning a similar cross necklace and green blouse as Britt.

The late-night program spoofed Britt's kitchen table speech from Montgomery, Alabama, which has received criticism for claims she made about a rape that occurred at the hands of a sex trafficking operation run by cartels. But multiple reports have noted that the assaults likely did not happen in the United States or during Biden’s term in office.

So, it took to other reporters to pick up the story. Enter AL.com columnist Kyle Whitmire. He contacted Britt, and was able to get a statement from her people on whether the reporting was true, i.e., that she was talking about a woman by the name of Romero, and that the scenario occurred during George W. Bush's administration.

"Here is the answer I got from Senator Britt’s spokesman Sean Ross. I don’t think it answers the question and, as you can see, I have asked for further clarification,"...the local columnist wrote on social media on Saturday...'but to the question, the woman she met, it was Romero, correct?'" Whitmire adds to his readers: "Ross hasn’t responded further."