UPDATE Nov. 24.2020 | From the latest edition of the WestVirginiaVille newsletter. Subscribe for free at this link.
WV Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R) tried out the whole gravitas thing in a communique on Monday, Nov. 23, 2020: “At some point, the 2020 election must end.” And then: “Vice President Biden will be our next president and Senator Kamala Harris will be our next vice president.” We Capito scholars note that she never uses the Trump-disturbing-phrases “President-elect” and “Vice President-elect.” Yet Capito is surely—finally—noting the electoral toast popping up across America: “It’s done!” She knows she had better butter some bread: “As with any administration, I will look for common ground in the best interests of our state and of our country.”
Ha! Good one, from one of Donald and Mitch’s most loyal grunts these interminable four years, who has stood down or stood mute at all Trumpian crossroads—impeachment, ACA assaults, Russian bounties. Gun control. Etc. Our media shop had just posted the video (above) hours before Capito’s attempt to method act as an elder stateswoman. As I noted in a tweet—joining a stream of exasperated tweets responding to Capito’s attempt to win herself a “Profile in Courage”: ‘I will leave our video posted this morning up. Point still holds. Why does it take this much effort to get the right thing done?’
POSTED: Nov. 23, 2020
It is 15 days since the U.S. presidential election was called for U.S. President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris on Saturday, Nov. 7. WV Sen. Shelley Moore Capito has yet to acknowledge the next president of these not-so United States, at a time when comity and social harmony are essential to what will be a long recovery from Trumpublicanism.
Capito has been a loyal-to-a-fault foot soldier for Donald Trump throughout his negligent, destructive four years. She has been an obedient, dutiful private in Mitch McConnell’s army of Trumpublican senators, whose silence and enabling have inflicted as much damage and disarray as Trump upon American daily life.
In short, we here at the world headquarters of WestVirginiaVille.com, don’t put much stock in Shelley Moore Capito.
But, by now, you’d think she would have noticed the way the wind is blowing. You would think she would wish to establish some rapport with former Senate colleague Kamala Harris, who is about to become one of the most powerful people in the nation and world. Harris, after all, could well be president in the last two years — let us pray they are the last — of Capito’s newly-won six-year senatorial term.
You would think by now that Capito might look over her shoulder and recall what it feels like to have a backbone — if she ever had it — now that Trump is slowly evaporating into a disgruntled mist.
You would think.
~ Douglas John Imbrogno, WestVirginiaVille.com editor
RELATED
EDITORIAL | A Shelley Moore Capito Reader: October 29, 2020: We present for your reading and viewing interest a selection of three items pertinent to the candidacy and further office-holding of the Republican senator from West Virginia, Shelley Moore Capito.
EDITORIAL: “The Silent Senator Capito,” A Justice Project Video: October 18, 2020: Waiting on WV Senator Shelley Moore Capito to do the right thing—not just mouth the right thing—you might notice your hair turn another color and not from hair dye. So, WestVirginiaVille points its second Justice Project editorial video her way.
