The GOP Remains An Unserious Party
Day Two of Trumpless America
When we launched the Bulwark, we laid out our mission.
āThe Bulwark,ā we wrote, āwill stand in the breach and shout, āYou canāt be serious?āā
At that point, we were talking about a Republican Party in thrall to the Mad Orange God King; but even now, on Day Two of Trumpless America, the challenge retains its salience.
Even without Trump, the GOP remains a deeply unserious party.
A serious party, for example, does not number in its ranks someone like Marjorie Taylor Greene.
She is, not to put too fine a point on it: a nut, a fabulist, and a conspiracy theorist of the most wretched water. But todayās GOP has not only elevated her to a seat in Congress, but has made her a member in good standing, embraced by party leadership, and supported by the partyās apparatus and dollars.
A serious party has at least minimal standards of political hygiene, but when she and fellow crazy person Lauren Boebert were elected, GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy welcomed and defended them.
At a news conference on Capitol Hill, McCarthy (R-Calif.) was asked whether he was concerned about Greene (R-Ga.) and Boebert (R-Colo.) creating controversy for House Republicans after embracing elements of the theory, whose adherents believe President Trump is battling a cabal of ādeep stateā pedophiles who worship Satan. The FBI has deemed the group a domestic terrorism threat.
āOur party is very diverse. You mentioned two people who are going to join our party, and both of them have denounced QAnon,ā McCarthy said. āSo the only thing I would ask for you in the press ā these are new members. Give them an opportunity before you claim what you believe they have done and what they will do.ā
Since then, of course, Greene and Boebert have become the new hotness on the rightā¦ which tells you a great deal about the state of both the conservative movement and the GOP.
Greene has quickly become a vector of disinformation, recklessness, and dumbness. Just yesterday CNNās Oliver Darcy documented the ā11 false claims Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has tweeted in the last month.ā
But that only hints at the womanās full frightfulness. The Daily Beast is now reporting the woolly extent of Greeneās sojourn in the vilest corners of the fever swamps.
The Parkland shooting isnāt the only school shooting over the past decade that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) thinks was a false flag. In a 2018 post uncovered by Media Matters, the QAnon-supporting now-congresswoman responded āthat is all trueā to a commentator who asserted that the Parkland and Sandy Hook shootings were āSTAGGED [sic],ā along with the 1981 assassination attempt of Ronald Reagan and the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Earlier this week, Media Matters uncovered a separate post in which Greene wrote that āNancy Pelosi tells Hillary Clinton several times a month that āwe need another school shootingā in order to persuade the public to want strict gun control.ā Last week, Twitter suspended Greene for 12 hours for sharing similarly ludicrous theories that the 2020 election was stolen.
It would be comforting to believe that Greene and Boebert are merely aberrations in the GOP. But they are part of a growing Caucus of the Insane that is increasingly defining the party. (A short roster includes Louis Gohmert, Paul Gosar, Bob Good, Marsha Blackburn, Matt Gaetz, Madison Cawthorn, Andy Biggs, Debbie Lesko.ā¦) And they seem to attract one another.
This includes, of course, the full roster of the representatives who signed onto insane lawsuits to overturn the election and voted to uphold objections to the count.
But consider what else is happening. It isnāt just their refusal to wear masks; Republicans members of Congress are now in the midst of a tantrum over basic security measures like metal detectors.
Naturally, they try to pass off their recklessness as a matter of high principle.
Just yesterday, one of them actually tried to bring a gun to the floor of the House:
Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), who has repeatedly flouted the magnetometers that were installed near the House chamber after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, set off the metal detectors while trying to enter. When an officer with a metal detector wand scanned him, a firearm was detected on Harrisās side, concealed by his suit coat. Police refused to let Harris in, and the officer signaled a security agent that Harris had a gun on him by motioning toward his own firearm.
HuffPost witnessed the interaction and later confirmed with a Capitol official that Harris was carrying a gun.
It actually gets better. āHuffPost watched Harris try to get another member to take the gun from him so he could go vote. The member, Rep. John Katko (R-N.Y.), told Harris he didnāt have āa licenseā and refused to hold the weapon for him.ā
Appropriately enough, this unserious caucus is lead by a profoundly unserious leader. Politico reports:
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Thursday he does not believe former President Donald Trump incited the riot at the Capitol earlier this month, pivoting away from comments he made last week that the president bore some responsibility for the assault.
"I don't believe he provoked it if you listen to what he said at the rally," McCarthy (R-Calif.) told reporters.
Uh.
Just last week McCarthy said on the House floor that "the president bears responsibility for Wednesday's attack on Congress by mob rioters. He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding. These facts require immediate action by President Trump."
The unserious GOP leader calls to mind the immortal words from Ghostbusters:
Ray: Everything was fine until the grid was shut down by dickless here.
Walter Peck: They caused an explosion!
Mayor: Is this true?
Peter: Yes sir, itās true. This man has no dick.
Meanwhile:
Some thoughts on bullshit.
If you havenāt read it, you should check out Harry G. Frankfurtās classic essay, āOn Bullshit,ā which is indispensable reading even in the post-Trump era.
Professor Frankfurt distinguishes the bullshitter from the run-of-the mill liar. āThe bullshitter,ā he writes, ādoes not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it. He pays no attention to it at all. By virtue of this, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.ā
āWhen an honest man speaks, he says only what he believes to be true; and for the liar, it is correspondingly indispensable that he consider his statements to be false. For the bullshitter, however, all these bets are off: he is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all, as the eyes of the honest man and of the liar are, except insofar as they may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says. He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose.ā
Sound like anyone you know?
The transition in one picture.
Anthony Fauci seemed almost giddy as he declared his liberation. Via Upworthy:
Some thoughts on conservativism and authoritarianism.
In How The Right Lost Its Mind, I wrote about the āunnatural alliance with the authoritarian and nationalistic right.ā
In her 2005 book The Authoritarian Dynamic, Princeton professor Karen Stenner had noted that authoritarianism and political conservatism āappear to be largely distinct predispositions,ā and that conservatives, with their abhorrence to government power and radical change ācan be a liberal democracyās strongest bulwark against the dangers posed by intolerant social movements.ā
āThose by nature averse to changeā she noted, āshould find the āshining pathā to a āglorious futureā far more frightening than exciting, and can be expected to defend faithfully an established orderāincluding one of institutionalized respect for difference and protection of individual freedomāagainst āauthoritarian revolution.āā
This, however required that status quo conservatives be given āreassurances regarding established brakes on the pace of change, and the settled rules of the game to which all will adhere,ā as well as āconfidence in the leaders and institutions managing social conflict, and regulating the extent and rate of social change.ā In her 2005 book Stenner had written:
Liberal democracy would seem least secure when conservatives cannot be persuaded that freedom and diversity are authoritatively supported and institutionally constrained, and when authoritarians can be persuaded that greater sameness and onenessāthe āone right wayā for the āone true peopleāālie just at the other end of the āshining path.ā
Seems relevant today.
Outrageous. 'We feel incredibly betrayed': Thousands of Guardsmen forced to vacate Capitol.
Who was responsible for the original decision to order them out without making sure they had a place to go?
Thousands of National Guardsmen were allowed back into the Capitol Thursday night, hours after U.S. Capitol Police officials ordered them to vacate the facilities, sending them outdoors or to nearby parking garages after two weeks pulling security duty after the deadly riot on Jan. 6.
Yes, you can still convict an ex-president.
āWe differ from one another in our politics, and we also differ from one another on issues of constitutional interpretation,ā wrote the signatories, which include the co-founder and other members of the conservative Federalist Society legal group.
āBut despite our differences, our carefully considered views of the law lead all of us to agree that the Constitution permits the impeachment, conviction, and disqualification of former officers, including presidents.ā
You can read the whole letter here.
Quick Hits
1. Energy (and Honesty) in the Executive
Brian Karem in todayās Bulwark:
On Tuesday, the day before the end of the Trump administration, I found myself walking to the West Wing on a damp, cold morning.
Just before I pushed the button that opens the Brady Briefing Room door, I glanced up, as I occasionally do, at the White House residence.
The famous large arched window on the third floor, a central feature from that vantage point, caught my eye. The curtains, usually drawn, were open. Standing and staring out at the White House campus was a female figure. She looked like a ghost. I blinked. It appeared to be the first lady, Melania Trump.
She seemed to be looking right at me. I waved.
She didnāt move or return the gesture. But the curtains slowly closed. I felt a sudden cold wind and I shivered. It was like the closing scene in a Gothic horror film. Very Turn of the Screw.
A network photographer I know walked up behind me and said, āI saw that. Iām a witness.ā
2. The Origins of Trumpās Slapdash, Last-Second ā1776 Reportā
Joshua Tait breaks it down in this morningās Bulwark:
The world will little note, nor long remember, the 1776 Report. But before it passes entirely from memory, it is worth taking a moment to examine what it is and how it came to be, not because it is intellectually seriousāin fact, it is a self-plagiarized mishmash of sanitized history, high school civics, right-wing gripes, and authoritarian gesturesābut because of what it reveals about the rise of a certain strain of conservative ideology: fundamentalist āWest Coast Straussianism.ā
3. Fragments of Rage
Brent Orrell describes the neuroscience of how social media and fake news are hijacking our brains and fomenting violence.
Through the fragmenting lens of social media we are living, increasingly, in the left-brainās world. By stripping information of context and then actively manipulating it, social media has the power to prey upon left-brain tendencies and preferences by transforming bits of information into world-historic conspiracies. This phenomenon pre-dated the Internet, of course. Oliver Stone used the technique to brilliant effect in his film JFK, running and re-running the Zapruder film showing the killing of President Kennedy (āBack and to the left, back and to the leftā) to make it seem impossible that the fatal bullet shot from behind could have driven Kennedyās torso backward. Stoneās distortion helped fulfill the requirement for a second gunman and provided support for a conspiracy Stone said involved the entire U.S. military and intelligence apparatus. In fact, experts have demonstrated conclusively how that movement was not just possible but required by the ballistic and other conditions in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963. Partial information can be manipulated in the left hemisphere to create conspiracies; a fuller context protects against them.
Cheap Shots
Our pariah ex-president.
With the exception of the murdered cop, of course.
Dead-ender.
Thoughts and prayers.
Deep Thoughts
Witless Ape Rides Helicopter
ICYMI: Kevin Williamson isnāt holding back. āMaybe turning your party over to Generalissimo Walter Mitty, his hideous scheming spawn, and the studio audience from Hee-Haw was not just absolutely aces as a political strategy.ā
āBut the judges!ā you protest. Fair point: Trumpās absurd attempts to overturn the election through specious legal challenges were laughed out of court by the very men and women he appointed to the bench. Even his judges think heās a joke.
Everybody has figured that out. Except you.
And so, goodbye, Donald J. Trump, the man who wanted to be Conrad Hilton but turned out to be Paris Hilton. Au revoir, Ivanka and Jared, Uday and Qusay ā thereās a table for four reserved for you at Dorsia. So long, Melania ā itās still not entirely clear what you got out of this, but I hope it was worth it. A fond farewell to Ted Cruzās reputation and Mike Penceās self-respect, Lindsey Grahamās manhood and Fox Newsās business model. In with āDr.ā Jill Biden, out with āDr.ā Sebastian Gorka.
Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night.
Iām sure weāll all meet again. But Iād really rather we didnāt.
