This is you Azog
There is no civil war in the Republican Party—the Confederates won long ago.
Instead, we are witnessing the end of a long molting process as the GOP slithers into its final form: a counter-majoritarian, fascist entity.
Republicans are shedding their masks and hoods, spitting out their dog whistles and outright embracing the Big Lie and the violent insurrectionists, conspiracy theorists, and racists who make up the party’s base and, increasingly, its representatives in Congress.
The GOP Is Now the Party of Thugs, Terrorists, Racists and Dopes
The foolish hope that Donald Trump was merely an outlier, a freakish aberration whose eventual exit would allow “adults” like Mitch McConnell to go back to their belligerent obstructionism, court packing, and shameless cravenness to corporate America and the 1 percent— you know, “business as usual,” as if any of that was normal or healthy — is gone.
During a House Oversight Committee this week, Rep. Andrew Clyde tried to gaslight America by declaring there was no riot and that the violent insurrection actually resembled a “normal tourist visit.” I would hate to vacation with Rep. Clyde and his family. The majority of Republicans believe that the 2020 election was rigged in favor of Biden.
Trump was not a cancerous growth but the end product of the party’s decades-long molting process. He’s the beating heart. He’s Republicans’ orange avatar, their unrestrained id, their boiling, festering rage that quenches its appetites while securing power and wealth by any means necessary. Democracy, rule of law, equality, fairness, voting rights are all unnecessary and cumbersome obstacles that must be either removed or weakened to achieve the ultimate goal: power for an overwhelmingly white, Christian conservative minority.
Just because Trump is golfing in Mar-a-Lago instead of rage-tweeting from the White House, doesn’t mean the threat has been removed. His tactics and tantrums have merely been picked up and copied by Republicans desperate to ride the same strategy to power in 2022 and 2024, perhaps with less sensationalism and fanfare.
Story continues
There is no civil war in the Republican Party—the Confederates won long ago.
Instead, we are witnessing the end of a long molting process as the GOP slithers into its final form: a counter-majoritarian, fascist entity.
Republicans are shedding their masks and hoods, spitting out their dog whistles and outright embracing the Big Lie and the violent insurrectionists, conspiracy theorists, and racists who make up the party’s base and, increasingly, its representatives in Congress.
The GOP Is Now the Party of Thugs, Terrorists, Racists and Dopes
The foolish hope that Donald Trump was merely an outlier, a freakish aberration whose eventual exit would allow “adults” like Mitch McConnell to go back to their belligerent obstructionism, court packing, and shameless cravenness to corporate America and the 1 percent— you know, “business as usual,” as if any of that was normal or healthy — is gone.
During a House Oversight Committee this week, Rep. Andrew Clyde tried to gaslight America by declaring there was no riot and that the violent insurrection actually resembled a “normal tourist visit.” I would hate to vacation with Rep. Clyde and his family. The majority of Republicans believe that the 2020 election was rigged in favor of Biden.
Trump was not a cancerous growth but the end product of the party’s decades-long molting process. He’s the beating heart. He’s Republicans’ orange avatar, their unrestrained id, their boiling, festering rage that quenches its appetites while securing power and wealth by any means necessary. Democracy, rule of law, equality, fairness, voting rights are all unnecessary and cumbersome obstacles that must be either removed or weakened to achieve the ultimate goal: power for an overwhelmingly white, Christian conservative minority.
Just because Trump is golfing in Mar-a-Lago instead of rage-tweeting from the White House, doesn’t mean the threat has been removed. His tactics and tantrums have merely been picked up and copied by Republicans desperate to ride the same strategy to power in 2022 and 2024, perhaps with less sensationalism and fanfare.
Story continues