It looks like the Long Island drag queen— with his golden crown— tweeted a silly, empty threat aimed at the New York Republicans who tried-- and failed-- to get him expelled last night. This has got to be the first time MAGA Mike Johnson— who built his career, at least in part, on the relentless persecution of members of the LGBTQ community— has protected a drag queen. Soon after Santos posted this tweet, someone persuaded him to delete it.
The New York Republicans who voted to expel him were the 5 who have been pushing the idea— Anthony D’Esposito, Nick LaLota, Mike Lawler, Marc Molinaro and Brandon Williams— plus Nick Langworthy. Santos’ Long Island neighbor, political coward Andrew Garbarino, absented himself from the chamber so he wouldn’t have to vote.
The three New Yorkers voting with Santos were Nicole Malliotakis and the state’s two most overt MAGAts, Claudia Tenney and, of course, Elise Stefanik, the one who originally vouched for Santos to other Republicans.
All Republicans knew expulsion was the "right" thing to do but most— though not all— of the Republicans who voted to expel Santos are in, or could be in, serious reelection battles. These are the Republicans in electoral danger (with their districts’ PVIs) who voted for Santos' expulsion:
Don Bacon (NE-02)- even
Mike Carey (OH-15)- R+6
Lori Chavez DeRemer (OR-05)- D+2
Anthony D’Esposito (NY-04)- D+5
Monica De La Cruz (TX-15)- R+1
Brian Fitzpatrick (PA-01)- even
Mike Garcia (CA-27)- D+4
Tony Gonzales (TX-23)- R+5
John James (MI-10)- R+3
Tom Kean (NJ-07)- R+1
Kevin Kiley (CA-03)- R+4
Nick LaLota (NY-01)- R+3
Mike Lawler (NY-17)- D+3
Max Miller (OH-07)- R+7
Marc Molinaro (NY-19)- even
David Schweikert (AZ-01)- R+2
Brandon Williams (NY-22)- D+1
The districts colored blue were won by Biden and the districts colored red were won by Trump. There were only 7 safe-seat Republicans who bothered to do the right thing by voting for explusion: James Comer (KY), Jake Ellzey (TX), Nick Langworthy (NY), Dan Meuser (PA), Nate Moran (TX), Lloyd Smucker (PA) and Steve Womack (AR).
By the way, there were 31 Democrats who voted with 182 Republicans against expulsion, most of them conservative assholes. But among them were 6 solid progressives— Jamie Raskin MD), Rashida Tlaib (MI), Chris Deluzio (PA), Mark Takano (CA), Nikema Williams (GA) and Morgan McGarvey (KY)— who voted no on principles worth considering. I don’t agree with them by I respect their opinion, set out here by Raskin:
and what raskin did NOT say: if kitara is still around or, better, on the ballot for the nazis, we have a better chance of failing to lose that seat because we can campaign against him/her/it.
Which is the DWT philosophy too.
That said, Raskin has a point. Was this whole expulsion thing a charade performed before findings of the committee and/or the court... just so they could have an excuse for refusing to expel him? And keep him around as a campaign issue?
For some reason, almost everyone presumes face value on everything done and said in congress when, in fact, very little said or done SHOULD be taken at face value.