So, just what is it with this Bevin guy?
It used to be during the long, sultry, Kentucky summers, with lawmakers out of town and anyone with a lick of sense off somewhere drinking sweet tea in air-conditioned comfort, a governor would lay low, hope things remained calm and start planning for his/her political future.
Not so with Mad Matt, obviously. First, there was the contretemps over his rather curious surprise at finding a chess club, an enterprise requiring plenty of smarts, one would think, in the African-American predominated West End of Louisville.
Then there he was picking on state workers for about the zillionth time regarding the commonwealth’s troubled pension system after castigating teachers endlessly during the legislative session that concluded in April.
“I’m being fought, in some instances, by the very people that we’re trying to save,” St. Matt the Divine reasoned during an appearance on the Cincinnati-based “Brian Thomas Morning Show” on WKRC-AM “It’s like saving a drowning victim, Brian. It’s like somebody — they’re fighting you, biting you, pulling you under. You just need to knock them out and drag them to shore. It’s for their own good and we have to save the system.”
From the Governor’s Facebook page)
Not exactly the way most governors would choose to describe their constituents – floundering victims in desperate need of a conk on the noggin. But then we’re talking about Mad Matt.
During his three-plus years in office Bevin hasn’t been shy about ripping anyone who disagrees with him, whether that person be the attorney general of the great commonwealth or your average line worker in Paducah trying the earn enough dough to keep his/her family above water. It seems any criticism of St. Matt draws venom.
That differs from the traditional pattern of vying, sometimes vitriolically, with your political opponents, current, and future, while paying homage to voters of all stripes. While a candidate for governor would obviously make appeals to like-minded voters, upon achieving the high office he/she would promise to represent the interests of all Kentuckians, black or white, male or female, Democrat or Republican.
Bevin represents a new type of elected official who pays heed almost solely to his fervent supporters while eyeing those who refuse to embrace his agenda with suspicion. It’s called punching down, attacking the less powerful to the apparent joy of the base. Thus, opponents of his pension reform plan, which was, indeed, pretty lousy, are portrayed as maintaining “a thug mentality.’’ When teachers staged what amounted to a walk-out from their classrooms to protest the finagling with their pensions, Mad Matt insisted they were placing their students in danger.
Mad Matt is one of those fellows who genuinely believes he is always the smartest guy in the room and that those who oppose him, therefore are stupid and not worthy of his majestic consideration.
This punching down while catering exclusively to your base while in office – in Mad Matt’s case, white conservative Christians – is relatively new and the results are inconclusive. The most famous practitioner, President Trump (holy cow!) attained the highest political office anyone could hope for through a flood of slurs and insults. But after 20 months in the White House his approval ratings continue to hover in the lower forties and his continued attacks, along with a general acceptance that he isn’t up to the job, have placed the fear of god in fellow Republican seeking election in November.
Bevin at the White House
Back during the 2016 campaign, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, in her own instance of punching down, referred to what she characterized as half of Trump’s supporters as “deplorables’’ – “They’re racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic — Islamophobic — you name it. And unfortunately, there are people like that. And he has lifted them up.’’
In her post-campaign book, What Happened, Clinton acknowledged that the description was one of the factors that contributed to her loss.
But there’s a feeling that political times have changed as the division between the two parties has widened and become more bitter. A candidate’s supporters want and expect him or her to punch down and crush all opposition. That can widely be seen in the campaign-style rallies the Trumpster conducts on a semi-regular basis, which almost always include chants of “lock her up’’ directed at Clinton, who hasn’t even held political office since stepping down as secretary of state in 2012.
This has actually been coming for some time. Back in late 2015, Republican pollster Frank Luntz reported that focus groups established that “Trump voters are not just angry — they want revenge.’’
“Mr. Trump delights in unleashing harsh attacks on (former Florida Gov.) Jeb Bush, the Republican establishment and the ‘mainstream media,’” Luntz wrote. “His childlike joy in ridiculing his critics is tantamount to healing balm for the millions who have felt silenced, ignored and even scorned by the governing and media elite for so long. Is it any wonder that his declaration of war against ‘political correctness’ is his most potent and predictable applause line?’’
And, at least in some cases, that attempt to demonize not only opposing candidates but their supporters is working. In Minnesota this week, former Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who has consistently represented himself as a “Sam’s Club Republican’’ during his political career, lost a primary to reclaim his old job to a county commissioner, Jeff Johnson, who came across as much more in the Trump vein than Pawlenty, who once sought the GOP presidential nomination, if only for a short time.
“People are going to ask me, ‘What do you see in this result?’” Pawlenty said after the loss. “I think, you know, the circumstances we live in in the era of a different kind of leadership in terms of President Trump and the like, I just don’t fit well into that picture, into that era.’’
Unlike Pawlenty, Bevin has been on the cutting edge of that punching down style from his initial political endeavor. And given his recent proclamations, there’s no reason to believe he is going to change course and embrace all facets of Bluegrass life. The result is widening a political divide that is quickly becoming a chasm and might someday result in an abyss.
St. Matt hasn’t announced if he will run for re-election in 2019. But he almost certainly will, telling Brian Thomas that he has the job he wants and won’t listen to Washington’s siren call. The question becomes, having intentionally alienated a large portion of the voting public to solidify the worship of his base, will there still be enough votes to get him in.
The NKyTribune’s Washington columnist Bill Straub served 11 years as the Frankfort Bureau chief for The Kentucky Post. He also is the former White House/political correspondent for Scripps Howard News Service. A member of the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame, he currently resides in Silver Spring, Maryland, and writes frequently about the federal government and politics. Email him at williamgstraub@gmail.com.
