Opinion

Republicans are posturing without a purpose

The verb “to posture” is not widely used by normal human beings, but it was invoked all the time when I covered the New York state legislature, back when politics wasn’t nearly as polarized as it is now.

There was an admirable, if peculiar, honesty to admitting that what was being said wasn’t actually what was meant. Typical off-the-record comments ran from “We’re taking this posture now to try to get us to X,” X being the real goal; or “He’s posturing so he looks tough to his caucus before he tells them they have to cave.”