Now that Elon Musk, with his armed wing of Twitter, has become the hero of the American extreme right, Newt Gingrich, one of the most idolized politicians of the Republican Party, who rocked Bill Clinton's presidency, has launched a notice that has misplaced many of his co-religionists.
"Let's stop underestimating Joe Biden," he wrote on his website, because the president "is winning the battle." A bombshell.
Gingrich, a Trumpist to the core, marked a turning point in the way he held the position of speaker (president) of the lower house (1995-99) leading the impeachment against Clinton for the sexual case with the scholar Monica Lewinsky. His style, marked by his ethical violations and his pressure on his colleagues, paved the way for undermining democratic norms and promoting confrontation, the seed from which Donald Trump grew.
And yet, amid the insults and disregard for Biden, who is described as a gaga grandfather, the most unexpected voice came out in his favor. “President Biden is carefully and cautiously waging the war in Ukraine without an American soldier,” he noted. "And he just had one of the best midterm elections in history," he continued.
“We dislike Biden so much that we narrowly focus on his slurred speech, bizarre behavior at times, clear memory lapses, and other flaws that make us and the Democrats despise him,” he said.
“The hostility of conservatives towards the Biden administration tends to blind us to how effective Biden has been in his term,” Gingrich surprised in his text. "He has been more successful than we are able to give him credit for," he concluded.
Faced with this totally unexpected publicity, Ron Klain, the president's chief of staff, was pleased and tweeted a link to Gingrich's column with this message: "You don't have to take my word for it anymore."
But his clarion call to the Republicans caused consternation among right-wing commentators (Gingrich is a regular on Fox's most radical shows) and many extremist lawmakers.
Instead of this self-criticism, the Trumpist and pro-sedition sector preferred to side with its new savior: Musk.
In the midst of the controversy over the discredit of Twitter since it was under his command due to the proliferation of neo-Nazi messages, the billionaire started a transparency campaign that consists of launching what he has called "the Hunter Biden files."
In this operation, which began on Friday with the collaboration of the "exclusive" journalist Matt Taibbi, Musk leaked a series of internal documents from the platform about the discussion that led to the prohibition of the dissemination of information from The New York Post in October 2020. , relating to the documents found in an alleged computer belonging to Hunter, the president's son, his business and the possible involvement of his father. In principle nothing new, since Twitter backtracked and recognized the conflict. But he gave air to the conspiracy theory and Trump, who encouraged a coup, called for suspending the Constitution to nullify the 2020 elections.
