The harm of mindless partisanship
Congressman Guy Reschenthaler has too much time on his hands, or maybe he has too little reason to worry about his reelection and being sent back to Washington.
Reschenthaler, a Republican who represents Fayette County in Congress, recently got entangled in a race for Congress in California — not the nearby borough, mind you, but the state.
Flexing his partisan muscles, Reschenthaler, currently serving his first term in Congress, took a swipe at the registrar and recorder of Los Angeles County, California.
The freshman lawmaker from the South Hills was offended that the official, Dean Logan, saw fit to place additional voting booths in Los Angeles County prior to a special congressional election.
Here is what Reschenthaler had to say about the matter on Twitter:
“When Democrats are down, they’ll do whatever it takes to ‘win’. @MikeGarcia2020 was in the lead to win a blue seat in #CA25, when @DCLogan opened Dem-heavy counties for last minute voting during a pandemic. California Dems are trying to steal the election from CA voters.”
You would think Reschenthaler would have enough to do. He represents Pennsylvania’s 14th Congressional District, which, in addition to Fayette County, consists of the counties of Washington and Greene plus a slice of Westmoreland.
Under the circumstances, Reschenthaler’s going as far afield as L.A. seems a bit much. His constituents might like to know he’s thinking of them during the pandemic and economic meltdown. They might be worried that they don’t have the congressman’s undivided attention.
Then again, Reschenthaler always has been a wild-eyed partisan. Running for Congress In 2018, he strongly suggested that Democrats were “swamp dogs” who didn’t share “our values.”
Being partisan is not necessarily a bad thing. It’s one of the ways we organize our politics. But slinging partisan BS is another matter altogether.
Reschenthaler is a tireless acolyte of President Trump, the slinger-in-chief of mud and whatever else will stick to the political wall.
In going after Registrar Logan in Los Angeles, Reschenthaler was only echoing the president.
This is what Donald Trump tweeted about the congressional tussle in California:
“So Democrats, who fought like crazy to get all mail in only ballots, and succeeded, have just opened a voting booth in the most Democrat area in the State. They are trying to steal another election. It’s all rigged out there. These votes must not count. SCAM!”
(Republican Mike Garcia won the contest and was sworn into office the other day by that stinker House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.)
Reschenthaler is as reliable for Donald Trump as can be. In many ways, he’s the president’s shadow. He’s following the president’s lead on China, for instance.
On Twitter — again, the Twitter – Reschenthaler had this to say, after being appointed to the House GOP’s China Task Force: “China has acted as a rogue nation for far too long…. We will hold China accountable and bring our critical supply chains home.”
China, of course, is a favorite Trump target in these days of COVID-19, which emanated in the Chinese city of Wuhan before spreading to the rest of the world. Trump has implicated both China and the World Health Organization in its spread to the U.S., never mind his own mistakes.
Maybe you’ve heard that President Trump and Speaker Pelosi aren’t talking to one another. This is the way Reschenthaler, on Twitter, talks about Pelosi:
“Speaker Pelosi is more interested in appeasing the far left, Democrat socialist base than helping the people in need throughout our country.”
But this isn’t nearly as bad as a Reschenthaler fundraising appeal in which the congressman’s campaign posted a cropped photo of the speaker standing next to President Xi of China. It appears the two are holding hands.
Never mind that the photo is FAKE.
Representative Reschenthaler’s mindless partisanship is an insult to his constituents and an affront to the separation of powers. The congressman doesn’t think for himself. He lets the president do his thinking for him, via Twitter and the daily presidential run-ins with the press.
Come to think of it, Pennsylvania-14 doesn’t have a congressman. It has a guy with a record button on his remote.
Richard Robbins lives in Uniontown. He can be reached at dick.l.robbins@gmail.com.