Sarah Sanders Tries Taking the Word ‘Crazy’ Back
Republican's rhetoric inadvertently attracts attention to unsavory elements from the right
Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the Republican governor of Arkansas, is attracting a lot of attention for her televised response to President Biden's State of the Union address.
But in her exhortation that “the dividing line in America is no longer between right or left. The choice is between normal or crazy,” she's inadvertently also drawing some unwanted attention back to some of the most unhinged elements within her own party.
Sanders, who previously served as White House press secretary for Donald Trump, delivered the traditional response from the president’s opposing party following the annual State of the Union address to the nation.
This year, Sanders delivered a response Tuesday evening from the governor's mansion in Little Rock, Ark., thick with the rhetoric and red meat of the MAGA movement.
Sanders undercut Biden’s speech as beholden to “woke fantasies” and untethered from mainstream America.
“Most Americans simply want to live their lives in freedom and peace, but we are under attack in a left-wing culture war we didn’t start and never wanted to fight,” Sanders, who is tasked with giving the GOP response, said in prepared excerpts released before the president’s speech.
She called Biden “simply unfit to serve as commander-in-chief,” and dove into a usual right-wing litany of grievances against the president — largely baseless — before offering Americans a stark choice.
“The dividing line in America is no longer between right or left. The choice is between normal or crazy. It’s time for a new generation of Republican leadership,” said Sanders, whose father was once also Arkansas governor.
While assailing what she sees as “crazy,” from the Democrats, Sanders however remained silent over some of more bizarre and unhinged elements and figures within her own Republican Party.
And that brought immediate notice from some political commentators and TV personalities.
“I also thought that Governor Huckabee was trying to claw back the use of the term ‘crazy,’ because she wasn’t referring to George Santos or Marjorie Taylor Greene or QAnon or any of the insurrectionists,” said CNN host Alisyn Camerota, referring to two prominent Republican lawmakers along with a baseless, bizarre conspiracy theory held by many on the political right. “She was trying to take crazy -- I mean, that’s the word that has been used by, as you know, Democrats for all of that, and she was, I think, trying to, like, take it back.”
Even on right-wing Fox News, Republicans' own brand of “crazy” got called out.
“I’m going to ask you, Sean, which side of that divide, normal/crazy, is Marjorie Taylor Greene? Is she that new normal? Because if she is, the Republicans won't win any more elections,” Fox personality Geraldo Rivera commented while appearing on Sean Hannity's program.
Hannity responded by defending Sanders, falling on talk about “Green New Deal radical socialists,” and other right-wing talking points. But, Rivera summed up with, “So now Marjorie Taylor Greene will set the tone for the rest of us? That is our future?”
A prominent figure on the right, Greene made headlines Tuesday night for shouting, “Liar!” at Biden during his speech. She's also been known for defending the violent insurrectionists who stormed the US Capitol Building on January 6, 2021, as well as her support of QAnon and the idea that wildfires in California were caused by lasers in outer space owned by Jews.
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