When it comes to American politicking, there is no doubt that semantics is a rather sizable part of the skill set required to make a career of it. Our elected officials are constantly and consistently attempting to talk their way either into or out of trouble, and there is little doubt that this will continue to the foreseeable future.
Of course, some of this drivel is fairly easy to spot. Often, we’ll see a wholly unqualified and likely uninteresting character attempt to take a big, bold shot at someone far outside of their echelon within the party. If it were a sporting maneuver, it would be a Hail Mary.
This week, it was Rep. Adam Kinzinger’s turn to get a little too big for his britches.
Representative Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he had been a member of the Republican Party “far longer than” former President Donald Trump and declared that wasn’t going to “let him come in and hijack my party.”
Anchor Chuck Todd said, “How long do you fight to stay a member of a club or reform a club that doesn’t want you? I’m referring to the Republican Party.”
Kinzinger said, “Look, I’ve been a Republican far longer than Donald Trump has, and I’m not going to let him come in and hijack my party and turn it into something that great people like Ronald Reagan and George W. and George H.W. Bush and all the great leaders back didn’t want it to be. I’m not going to let Donald Trump win at that. That’s what the fight is about. I believe in what we used to believe in with 21st-century solutions, though.”
Trump is an undeniable force in the GOP at this time, and there is little chance of that chaining in the coming years.
Kinzinger, on the other hand, has derived nearly every single ounce of his relevancy from his manufactured outrage aimed at Trump, which should be, in and of itself, an indication of just how seriously we should take his statements.
