Pritzker Out of Line to Compare Senate GOP to QAnon
Governor JB Pritzker speaks during a news conference Tuesday at the Statehouse. (Photo: Capitol News Illinois)
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OPINION
I get it.
It’s an election year. Tensions are high. The Governor knows crime is the Achilles' heel of his path to re-election. Governor Pritzker also likes his rhetoric and he wants to fire up Democratic voters.
But when he referred to Senate Republicans who opposed his nominees to the Prisoner Review Board as the “GQP,” a Democrat internet saying tying Republicans to the political conspiracy movement that seems to think Democrats are a cabal of cannibalistic sexual abusers of children operating a global child sex trafficking ring.
As a person who has worked mostly on Republican campaigns and generally considers himself right of center, I’ve been outspoken about how the unprincipled cult of Trumpism and the racist, xenophobic, conspiracy peddling hangers on have taken over the direction of the party. It’s part of why I’ve been shunned by a lot of Republicans and haven’t been working GOP campaigns since the spring of 2020.
But the Governor’s rhetoric was out of line. Senate Republicans in Illinois are, generally, not crazy. I have beefs with a few of them and don’t always agree with them on certain political positions. Their criticisms of Governor Pritzker’s nominees to the Prisoner Review Board may have been a little theatrical at times, but they were completely within reason.
The nominees for the job have records. They are responsible for the votes they’ve taken and it is up to the Senate to decide whether they should hold their position going forward. Whether liberals in Springfield like it or not, there are a lot of “normal” people who believe felons who murder police officers or rape children should never be released from prison, whether they’re eligible for parole or not.
If the Governor wants to be mad at a group of people who killed his nominees for the Prisoner Review Board, maybe he should be pointing his finger at Senate Democrats. Their reticence to approve the Governor’s nominees in the first place led to the back and forth game of withdrawing and reappointing nominees. And 15 of those Democrats voted with Republicans earlier this week to kill one of his choices.
The Governor needs to “man up” and stop blaming Bruce Rauner or all 18 Senate Republicans for failures in his administration. And if his staff didn’t know his nominees for the PRB were going to cause him huge political problems, then they should probably be moved to a special assistant to the assistant custodian at a CMS warehouse somewhere. This isn’t rocket science.
If JB Pritzker has a built-in advantage over other politicians, it’s that he can act like a CEO with a heart. He doesn’t have to play the BS political spin game. But he’s doing it, he’s dividing people more than ever, and it may end up being his downfall.
People who disagree with you aren’t necessarily evil and they sure aren’t peddling wild conspiracy theories. Senate Republicans voiced their opposition to these nominees and they convinced more Democrats to vote with them than the Democratic Governor did.
If the Governor wants to find out who did something wrong here, maybe the he should look in the mirror.