The Unbearable Opportunism of Elise Stefanik
Stefanik is now mentioned, seriously, as a possible running mate in ‘24. WTF?!
Congresswoman Elise Stefanik’s stock in Trump World is rising, rising, rising — to the point that she is mentioned, seriously, as a possible running mate in ‘24. It might be the perfect exit ramp for Stefanik from Congress after today’s ruling in a New York Congressional District map re-draw.
Saturday Night Live’s cold open this weekend launched the Congresswoman — a Washingtonian status-chaser of the highest order — into the popular imagination. Stefanik is a celebrity now. But who is Elise Stefanik, really? Briefly: Stefanik graduated from Harvard in ‘06, was elected to Congress from an upstate district in New York near the Canadian border and has worked her way into a House leadership position through a cynical combination of hustle and shamelessness.
More to the fact, she is so absurdly loyal to the former President that the House Republican Conference Chair and most senior Republican in New York is known as “Trump’s Handmaiden.” Stefanik — of Italian and Czechoslovakian ancestry — has actively sought to minimize the crimes of the January 6 rioters (Accurately called “Whitewashing,” a strategy also pursued by the new Speaker of the House), which is her master’s bidding. But her ambitions — near-infinite in scope — have often clashed with her Spaniel-like fidelity to the 45th President. In 2021, for example, she was removed from the Harvard Institute of Politics advisory board, a pretty sweet deal for a 38-year old, because she had made unfounded accusations of voter fraud during the ‘20 election. In other words, her fealty to Trump actually impeded her vertical ascent.
So what did Representative Stefanik do when her vertical lift was thwarted? She stewed quietly after the rebuke by her alma mater, Harvard, and then bade her time until the opportunity for revenge — best served cold — presented itself. Her aggrieved master would be proud of the retribution collected. Stefanik invited the Presidents of Harvard, UPenn and MIT to testify before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. There, Stefanik crafted her revenge against the same “elite” from whence she herself was wrought. From Politico:
Elise Stefanik’s viral line of questioning of an elite trio of university presidents last week over how to respond to calls for the genocide of Jews didn’t just spark bipartisan outrage and lead to a high-profile resignation. It settled a personal score the congresswoman had with her alma mater, which had all but disowned her in the wake of Jan. 6.
Back then, in 2021, the dean of Harvard University’s school of government said the New York congresswoman’s comments about voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election had “no basis in evidence,” and the Harvard Institute of Politics removed Stefanik from its senior advisory committee. Stefanik at the time criticized what she described as “the ivory tower’s march toward a monoculture of like-minded, intolerant liberal views.”
You almost have to give her some sort of credit for targeting the perfect political prey — unsympathetic, elite college Presidents. It was a massacre made for Fox TV. That having been said, it is particularly shameless that Stefanik claims to have been investigating campus antisemitism in the wake of the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack in Israel. She, the “Handmaiden of Trump.” Really? The same Trump who, in 2017, defended the Nazi slogan shouting crowd at Charlottesville as “very fine people.”
Say what you will about Trump, but he knows his base. Trump — and his handmaiden — will have some work to do if they want to persuade American Jews that the GOP is their safe refuge in a dangerous world. History says otherwise. A 2020 Pew Poll found that Democrats still have the advantage over the party that has only chosen white men for the Presidential nomination. “…(O)nly about one-third (31%) said (Trump) was friendly toward Jews in the United States, and 37% described him as unfriendly toward U.S. Jews; the remainder saw him as neutral,” said the report.
Still, the GOP has been in search of a wedge-issue, something to get in between the support that Jewish voters have for the Democrat Party, for decades. But it is something of a singular obsession with Trump, culminating in his anti-Semitic Rosh Hashanah missive — and so it is also an obsession with his handmaiden, naturally. This might indeed be that issue, a shrewd combination of revenge, anti-ivy “boob bait for Bubba,” all the while carrying out Trump’s primary directive to capture the Jewish vote from the Democrats once and for all. The sheer theatricality of a Republican resolution condemning antisemitism made waves last week, meanwhile the Israeli aid package languishes in the House. What gives? Or, rather: “Where does Elise Stefanik get off lecturing anybody about antisemitism, when she’s the hugest supporter of Donald Trump, who traffics in antisemitism all the time?” Congressman Jamie Raskin said Sunday, during an interview with Ali Velshi. She is, after all, the handmaiden to the man who dines with Nick Fuentes.
Again — who is Elise Stefanik?
To understand Stefanik’s particular style of opportunism it is best to look at the 21st Congressional District of New York, which she represents (and which includes Fort Drum). The sprawling northern New York district, which runs through the Adirondacks, is one of the largest geographically in the United States. It has changed, like much of the country, particularly the rural white parts, with the riser of Trump. From Spectrum Local News:
Stefanik’s turn toward Trump-ism mirrors the evolution of her North Country district.
In the five years before Stefanik was elected in 2014, Democrat Bill Owens was the congressman there.
Counties like St. Lawrence and Franklin voted for Barack Obama in 2012, and then swung dramatically to Trump in 2016 and 2020 — part of a tectonic shift of voters in largely white, rural areas across the country.
“I think it shows that President Trump and the Make America Great movement has really expanded today's Republican Party — people who felt that they've been left behind by the status quo in Washington,” Stefanik said in an interview with Spectrum News 1, when asked about the change seen in her district.
The massive, newly redrawn 21st Congressional District stretches from the outskirts of Albany, across the Adirondacks, edging along Vermont and Canada.
She and Kevin McCarthy — RIP, politically — engineered the Republican Majority. Together they flipped three battleground seats in blue New York. One of them, it should be noted, belonged to disgraced former Congressman George Santos, who was just the 6th member of the House ever to be expelled. So there’s that. But with McCarthy gone, she has the opportunity to rise even higher, if not as Vice President (number one in line after the President), then, possibly, as a future Speaker (number two in line after the President).
Elise Stefanik should not be underestimated, as she often is. But never by Politico, which worships the very ground she walks on (great going Politico)! Elise Stefanik is more than just a “humble, approachable Congressperson” representing a rural, swing district in a blue state. And she is more than just the silly caricature on the SNL cold open. She is an intelligent, cynical, shameless opportunist. She is Trump’s handmaiden and his biggest enabler in the House now that “Kevy” is gone. I suspect Stefanik is at present the front-runner to be Trump’s running mate, despite the lack of geographical diversity that would give to the ticket (but, since when has Trump ever cared about diversity at his organizations). Her role in minimizing the January 6th riot should highlight just how dangerous Elise Stefanik is in her ruthless fidelity to Trump.
Has the mainstream media figured this out yet? It remains to be seen.
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