Devin Nunes Explains Why He’s Less Conservative Than He Used to Be

Authored by motherjones.com and submitted by imagepoem
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Devin Nunes represents the conservative 22nd district of California. It’s an inland district near Fresno that’s about 60 percent Republican and voted decisively for both John McCain and Mitt Romney. As you can see from the chart on the

Nunes, who is the chairman of the House Committee on Intelligence, told me that the biggest change he’s seen since he arrived in Congress, in 2002, is the rise of online media outlets and for-profit groups that spread what he views as bad, sometimes false information, which House members then feel obliged to address. ….“I used to spend ninety per cent of my constituent response time on people who call, e-mail, or send a letter, such as, ‘I really like this bill, H.R. 123,’ and they really believe in it because they heard about it through one of the groups that they belong to, but their view was based on actual legislation,” Nunes said. “Ten per cent were about ‘Chemtrails from airplanes are poisoning me’ to every other conspiracy theory that’s out there. And that has essentially flipped on its head.” The overwhelming majority of his constituent mail is now about the far-out ideas, and only a small portion is “based on something that is mostly true.” He added, “It’s dramatically changed politics and politicians, and what they’re doing.”

This is the electorate that Donald Trump appeals to—and it’s why he’s dangerous regardless of whether he wins the Republican nomination. He says that thousands of Muslims in Jersey City celebrated on 9/11, and this gets repeated endlessly by right-wing media and conservative fundraising groups who are always on the lookout for something new to scare people with. Then these people start deluging their representatives with demands that they do something about all the Muslim celebrations on 9/11. Rinse and repeat weekly.

Nunes is no lefty. But he’d like to actually pass conservative legislation instead of wasting his time fending off nutballs. That makes life pretty tough for a Republican these days. They may be in the majority, but until they do something about their out-to-lunch faction they’re not going to get much done.

iveseensomethings82 on August 29th, 2018 at 12:31 UTC »

He is somehow compromised. I suspect that most of these Republicans that loudly support trump have some skeleton that either Trump or Russia are willing to expose

SovietStomper on August 29th, 2018 at 12:07 UTC »

Yeah. Most likely, the Russians hacked the RNC and Manafort used the proceeds to whip Republicans into supporting Trump.

imagepoem on August 29th, 2018 at 11:11 UTC »

1) Do read Nunes 2014 position on Russia, you'll be shocked Nunes wrote it.

Rep. Devin Nunes: The bear out there

For example, he specifically calls out Russian disinformation and says the US and NATO should be "supplying Ukrainians with lethal weaponry to help fight off Russian encroachments."

But at the 2016 GOP convention, the only change Trump made to the GOP platform was to weaken US aide to Ukraine.

2) Then in late 2015 New Yorker published a long story about how some Republicans were resisting the takeover by the crazy wing -- and Nunes was portrayed as one resisting the crazies.

For example, see:

Devin Nunes Explains Why He’s Less Conservative Than He Used to Be

Or:

A telling — and disturbing — anecdote about conservative media from a House Republican

Both excerpts from a long New Yorker article, archived here:

A House Divided - How a radical group of Republicans pushed Congress to the right.

Which includes:

Nunes, who is the chairman of the House Committee on Intelligence, told me that the biggest change he’s seen since he arrived in Congress, in 2002, is the rise of online media outlets and for-profit groups that spread what he views as bad, sometimes false information, which House members then feel obliged to address. The change has transformed Nunes from one of the most conservative members of Congress to one of the biggest critics of the Freedom Caucus and its tactics.

and:

Nunes told me that Ryan needed to figure out how to counter the rising populist forces in the Party. “It’s the difference between a democracy and a democratic republic,” he said. “We are a democratic republic, and yet populist rhetoric, speaking in platitudes, can lead to bad things happening when it’s just pure, unfettered kind of mob-style movements that are out there. And that’s what we’re kind of facing now.”

So what the hell happened in the first half of 2016 that resulted in Nunes completely changing his positions?

(/u/poppinKREAM -- if you're out there, curious what you think...)