The opinion of this writer does not align in anyway with the fundamental Christian beliefs of my publication. I do believe in freedom of speech as described in the 1st Amendment and believe it is good to know what beliefs contribute to our community.
Senator Katie Britt, Alabama Republican, gave her soap operaticrendition of the State of the Union rebuttal to laughter, cringing, and mockery. She lit up social media: “She’s whispering so her maid won’t find out she’s in the kitchen.” “She forgot to say‘and that’s why my doctor prescribed Xybrelta.’”
Britt parodied herself. Scarlett Johansson, funny as she was in the SNL cold open, needed only to imitate. Except for Johansson’s hand-on-brow moment, Britt’s delivery that careened from joy to sorrow to terror could not be topped.
Even Johansson failed to match Britt creepy-smiling through it all. That’s a beauty pageant smile that would-be queens are taught: have a vocabulary of smiles, big and small, but always keep the corners of your lips turned up. (Google “how to learn to fake smile.”) Britt didn’t quite have the lesson down; her smilesnever reached her eyes.
Fellow Alabama senator Tommy Tuberville explained, “She was picked as a housewife, not just a senator.” Tuberville was a football coach. Britt was the Chief of Staff to Richard Shelby, the Senator whose seat she won after he retired. Before that, she was the President and CEO of the Business Council of Alabama. She is also the first female Senator in Alabama’s history and the youngest women ever elected as a U.S. Senator.
The Republicans took that accomplished woman, put her in a kitchen, coached her in histrionics, infantilized her, and offered her as the face of Republican women. She submitted.
If Katie Britt perplexed you, you weren’t her real audience. That was supposed to be American women, the ones Trump and Tuberville believe will share their excitement over the modelhousewife with her modest diamond cross, her $10,000 Sub-Zero fridge, and her southern lady anguish over the state of the union.
Katie Britt played to the director for whom all the MAGA women pols now constantly perform. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Nancy Mace, Elise Stefanik, and Katie Britt, all seek Donald Trump’s gaze and his approval.
So was Britt a success? Did Trump love it? “She was compassionate and caring, especially about women’s issues.”Oh, dear, maybe not.
Trump should have loved the performance because Britt adopted his best trick: just play to your audience. Tell them what they want to hear. Listen to his riff at any rally. “Let Russia do whatever the hell it wants.” The audience laughs and cheers. Mocking a disabled reporter, playing Joe Biden too old to find his way off the stage, and then quoting Hitler in the same tone of voice. It’s all just playacting. The lies are just jokes. Until you read the transcript.
Britt played American carnage at the kitchen table. A “nation in retreat,” “fentanyl poisoning,” “horrific murder,” “brutal murder,” “nightmare,” “rape,” “sex trafficking,” and Chinese communists brainwashing your children.
Like so many of Trump’s bits, the most bizarre portion of Britt’screepy SOTU rebuttal was a total invention. She blamed President Biden’s border policies for a woman whom the cartels sex trafficked from the age of 12. The woman was raped every day, a mattress on the floor, men sent in “over and over again for hours on hours.” Britt enunciated the details, but whispered so the children wouldn’t hear.
A true story, but about a pimp, not drug cartels, in Mexico, not the United States, in 2004 to 2008 while George W. Bush was president, not Joe Biden, told to a congressional delegation by a woman Katie Britt never met personally.
Taking one step further back – Democrats offer asylum to such victims. Republicans, like Katie Britt, would prevent her from crossing our border.
There was one particularly hypocritical hiccup: Britt actedterrified at Putin’s aggression, which seems to be happening because Joe Biden abandoned our allies, related by Senator Katie Britt who just voted against aid for Ukraine.
Towards the end of the scene, Britt found an honestly chilling topic that should get all moms’ attention – TikTok – controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, “conquering the minds of the next generation.” Something should be done.
In fact, this week, the US House passed a bill that says TikTok is a “foreign adversary controlled application.” and must be sold to an American company. TikTok wouldn’t be shut down, but Chinese communist control would end. President Biden supports it.
Sadly for the little lady who’s hitched her star to Donald Trump, last week Trump met with hedge fund manager Jeff Yass who has a $33 billion stake in Tik Tok. Trump needs money. Money from Russia, money from China. Suddenly Trump opposes thesale of TikTok that will only help “Facebook and Zuckerschmuck”
If you perform for Trump, he will inevitably turn on you and let you down.
It’s an ugly old unfunny joke told by powerful men who “just need a housewife” that women’s place is in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant. I really wish Senator Katie Britt had stood at a podium and given a serious Republican woman’s rebuttal of the Biden State of the Union – if she has one.
In 2022, the Supreme Court did as Trump promised when he appointed three conservative justices to overturn Roe v Wade, stripping women of their right to control their own bodies. Abortion, bodily autonomy, and reproductive rights didn’t get a mention at Katie’s kitchen table, but in real kitchens they do.
Women’s rights didn’t make the script because if the sex-trafficked woman got pregnant, Republicans would require her to carry the child. Most women don’t think that story ends well.
America is not a play, a game, a performance, a shtick or reality TV. Vote for Joe Biden for President and give him a Democratic House and Senate to restore women’s rights.
