I’m sometimes reminded that Michael Steele still exists, and my soul cringes a little bit.
Steele, political addicts might recall, is best remembered for his one term as head of the Republican National Committee between 2009 and 2011. The party didn’t do too poorly electorally in that period immediately after Barack Obama’s election, but that was in spite of Steele — a RINO and practiced bore who had mastered the art of saying as little as possible in as many words as time would allow — and not because of him.
As for elected office, Steele’s star only rose as high as the lieutenant governor of Maryland between 2003 and 2007. He made a big splash as a GOP challenger to Democrat Sen. Ben Cardin in 2006 but lost by 10 points.
Since then, Steele has been active in the media as a professional “I’m a Republican, but not one of those Republicans” pundit, lamenting the crazies who might prefer something more conservative than lukewarm liberalism masquerading as centrist pragmatism.
As if to make the transformation into professional NeverTrumper complete, he joined The Lincoln Project in 2020 and endorsed Joe Biden.
Trending:
Well, as you may have heard, plans have changed markedly for Joe in 2024 as of late:
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) July 21, 2024
Alas. We hardly knew ye, Uncle Joe. You hardly know ye either, anymore, which is why you’re no longer running.
Does Kamala Harris have a better chance of winning than Joe Biden did?
Presumably, Steele spent the first 24 hours after or so after Biden’s recusal re-reading Walt Whitman’s “O Captain! My Captain!” over and over to console himself. He then took to social media and endorsed Biden’s presumptive heir, the considerably more left-leaning Vice President Kamala Harris, in the most cringeworthy way possible:
Hey @realDonaldTrump. You ready for this? pic.twitter.com/GHBy697yRI
— Michael Steele (@MichaelSteele) July 23, 2024
Uh-oh. Look out, Donald! A forgotten former RNC chair, bad AI art and intellectual property theft are coming for you! You clearly aren’t ready for this.
Now, to be fair to Steele — or to make it worse, I’m not sure which — this image of Kamala as Captain America was popping up on every terrible Democrat stan account on social media. Here’s nominal podcaster and professional social media troll Brian Krassenstein, for instance, posting it to his account with a prediction that Captain Kamala would be leading every major poll in five weeks:
Prediction: Kamala Harris will Lead in Most Major polls within 5 weeks.
Do you think Im weird for posting this image?
Now you know how we feel… pic.twitter.com/ic3I3H2ugl
— Brian Krassenstein (@krassenstein) July 23, 2024
Krassenstein, however, is barely the chair of the Krassenstein brothers (his twin, Ed, is marginally less annoying than him simply by dint of being less visible on social media), much less the former chair of the Republican National Committee and a member of the Lincoln Project — which will have to do a lot more this time to convince Trump-skeptical conservatives that no, really, they’re better served by Kamala than by Donald.
And, as plenty of responders pointed out, this definitely wasn’t the way for this particular Lincoln Projecteer to make the case:
Wow. This is just painful to see.
— Kevin Sorbo (@ksorbs) July 23, 2024
Omg – No dignity, cringe AF.
— Catturd ™ (@catturd2) July 24, 2024
This is an illegal amount of cringe, you’re under arrest.
— Salty Cracker (@SaltyCracker9) July 24, 2024
And, beyond those noting the cringe, this perhaps best summed it up:
Weren’t you the GOP chair at one point? What happened?
— The Cuban Dude (@dude_cuban) July 24, 2024
“Weren’t you the GOP chair at one point?” one account asked. “What happened?”
Yes. What indeed happened, Mr. Steele?
Because one can see the poor anti-Trump Lincoln Project supporters who were duped into think that Biden wouldn’t really be that bad for America. He’s not too far left, they told themselves, he’s some old white guy who bragged on working with Dixiecrats to stop busing during the 1970s. That’s kind of cringe and precisely the wrong sort of people to work with to stop racial busing, but hard left? Nah. Boy, were they wrong.
That was going to be a difficult sell again in 2024, but Kamala Harris? That’s an impossible sell, even for a RINO.
“What can be, unburdened by what has been” — to use Harris’ obnoxious catchphrase — is abortion on demand until birth as the law of the land, a federal deficit that will swell like Ted Kennedy’s liver during the 1980s, and Supreme Court nominees that will make Ruth Bader Ginsberg look like Samuel Alito, inter alia.
If that’s your superhero, then the GOP isn’t your party, nor was it ever.
