Talk-radio types like Limbaugh taught generations of ambitious Republicans how to talk. Trump taught them what it meant to govern. https://t.co/6PMclcWqyO
— Tim Murphy (@timothypmurphy) June 4, 2021
A purely parasitic organization:
… The Republican Party has long been infused with an irrepressible hustle, what the historian Rick Perlstein calls “mail-order conservatism.” Talk radio and direct mail were not only effective at peddling reactionary politics to voters; they were also perfect vehicles to sell products, such as gold and home-security systems. For decades these conjoined strains of politics, entertainment, and marketing have eroded trust in public institutions and the media and provided a template for self-aggrandizement and enrichment. There is nothing really like this on the left; Infowars and Goop sell the same pills, but Gwyneth Paltrow is not fomenting rebellion…
But Trump’s presidency blew past the old frontiers: The performance of politics became the purpose of it, and the grind of governance became secondary to the responsibilities of posting. It was as if, after years of awkward but largely profitable power-sharing between conservative politicians and conservative media, the Republican Party at last stumbled upon the ultimate efficiency: What if both roles could be played by the same person? Trump once dreamed of spinning a losing presidential bid into his own media entity. During the pandemic, in lieu of crisis management, he turned briefings into a variety show, assembling a rotating cast of characters, and plugging an array of sponsors—MyPillow, Carnival, Pernod Ricard. You would not necessarily get good medical advice, but you would learn that Hanes is a “great consumer cotton products company” that’s being recognized more and more.
There was no issue grave enough to take seriously and no controversy too petty to weigh in on. Anything could be resolved via tweet, precisely because nothing really can; the ephemerality was the point. And a rising generation of politicians learned an important lesson about what conservative voters wanted. If Limbaugh taught them all how to talk, Trump taught them how to govern. His enduring gift was a caucus of content creators…
When Marjorie Taylor Greene, the QAnon representative from Georgia, was stripped of her committee assignments in February by colleagues upset that she had harassed fellow members of Congress and blamed forest fires on the Rothschilds, she greeted the news with relief. “If I was on a committee, I would be wasting my time,” she said. Now she was more free to share videos of her CrossFit workouts with the hashtag #FireFauci. Not that showing up for committee hearings necessarily means you’re there to work. Colorado’s Lauren Boebert, who like Cawthorn and Greene spent her first weeks on the job scaring the shit out of her co-workers, recently hijacked a virtual committee hearing by posing like John Wick in front of a shrine of firearms in her living room. (“Who says this is storage?” she responded to critics. “These are ready for use.”)
Cawthorn, Greene, and Boebert were all members of the National Republican Campaign Committee’s “Young Guns” program, which takes its name from an earlier trio of House Republicans—one of whom, Paul Ryan, went on to become a vice presidential nominee and speaker of the House and unite the party behind a vision of budget austerity. There is surely some sort of ideology at work here, too, but it’s more Jake Paul than Paul Ryan; they are treating the Capitol like their own hype house, using the stature of their office for clout.
These younger, gunnier guns are taking cues from their elders. Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw, a content farm of a congressman who has filmed not one but two Avengers-style videos in which the ex–Navy SEAL parachutes out of airplanes to fight Democrats, also hosts a podcast. So does Devin Nunes. Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz has a podcast called Hot Takes. Before he became publicly embroiled in a federal sex-trafficking investigation (“If you aren’t making news, you aren’t governing,” Gaetz once said), he was considering retiring to take a job at the conservative cable channel Newsmax. In February, more than a dozen House Republicans—including Gaetz and Nunes—skipped work to speak at CPAC with Cruz. They took advantage of a covid-era policy that let members vote by proxy in medical emergencies; to them, promoting their brands is the job…
… In April, Marco Rubio called on the government to treat companies that pollute “our culture” just as harshly as it treats companies that pollute our water—sort of like an Environmental Protection Agency for tweets. Cruz, himself accused of poisoning the discourse by John Boehner, polled his hive on whether he should shoot the former speaker of the House’s new book with a machine gun. But none of the Republicans vying for Trump’s role have embraced the new posting reality as fluidly as DeSantis. In May, not long after guaranteeing Florida politicians the right to shitpost, DeSantis scored his biggest coup yet: passage of a bill to roll back voting access in the state, fueled by Trump’s lies about the 2020 election. When it came time to sign it, local reporters were stopped at the door—only a crew from Fox and Friends got in. DeSantis had turned an attack on fundamental rights into a live television event. Supporters of the ex-president stood behind him, cheering on cue, as the governor bantered with the hosts via satellite. Then he picked up a blue Sharpie, scrawled his name, and held up the embossed legislation for the cameras….
NotMax
Pants on fire, hair on fire. Two sides of the same co(i)n.
Spanky
Sure they’re grifting, but the article seems to ignore the fact that Republicans are eliminating democracy at both the state and Federal level.
Nice distraction to concentrate on the grift for a respite, I guess.
Mary G
Oh, for fuck’s sake:
SiubhanDuinne
@Mary G:
She’s a fucking menace to society. As a Democrat, I’m embarrassed that she has a D after her name.
WaterGirl
@Mary G: Sinema should just resign then. I mean, really, what’s the point, if that’s how you view things?
I want to use the word fuck, too, but it wouldn’t be as polite a usage as yours.
Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.)
I hate these fucking people.
SiubhanDuinne
@NotMax:
That’s an excellent observation.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@WaterGirl: Yup, if she doesn’t want to legislate, you know the job of a legislator, maybe she should find another line of work.
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: @Mary G:
She also seems not to be not very bright in certain ways.
BruceFromOhio
Doom and gloom ain’t welcome here, and this is a perfect reiteration of why we are truly fucked as a country. Whatever the hell remains after 1/20/23 will no longer be a democracy.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@BruceFromOhio: What happens on 1/20/2023? Is that the new date when TFG will be re-instated as President?
leeleeFL
Another Scott
(via Popehat)
Cheers,
Scott.
MisterForkbeard
@Mary G: I’ve never quite been on the “Sinema is fucking terrible” bandwagon, but this IS pretty bad. Not wanting to change the filibuster because Republicans might overturn your bill is a pretty terrible argument.
Guess what: They’re going to do that anyway if they can. So do the good while you can, while actually doing your job and preserving democracy.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Another Scott: That was quick(but expected).
BruceJ
@SiubhanDuinne:
As an Arizona Democrat I’m fucking enraged that she has a ‘D’ by her name. I am now wondering if she was groomed and put up by the likes of the koch’s dark money.
Omnes Omnibus
@Another Scott: I said that would happen. People nutpick trial court decisions too much.
Poe Larity
Another Senator at the edge of progessive thought leading:
Except not.
ET
This is all true.
What is also true is that the GOP has spent decades lyingbto the average GOP voter to get them to vote GOP or else…. Commies, libruls, etc But it had to have a veneer of respectability – or deniability. They had to convince people they weren’t racists, were pro life, and generally better people. And it had to so embedded it was considered gospel no matter all the evidence to the contrary.
They now have voting blocks that either want to be part of the grift or who have no idea that they are the marks. My stepmother is one of those that bought into the GOP long con and has absolutely no idea the GOP was never what she thought it was but now is definitely the farthest you could be from that. She will still vote GOP. That is why they need to gerrymander and otherwise fuck with the right to vote. They need the marks because there are not enough of the grifters to keep the power going,keep the grift going.
dmsilev
@MisterForkbeard:
For example, see the ACA. Passed (initially) with a 60 vote filibuster-proof margin, and the GOP has spent the last decade trying to destroy it.
?BillinGlendaleCA
I think my neighbors are moving out, they’ve been carrying boxes out today. They’ve been there for less than a year.
WaterGirl
@Poe Larity: I don’t know anything about this in particular, but it always seems to me that Senator Sheldon Whitehouse has pretty much been on the right side of any issue I have seen in the past.
Cacti
@Mary G: Senator Sinema believes that the right to vote is a small price to pay to protect the august traditions of the Senate.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. It won’t be fascists who end us. You know where they stand.
It will be the corrupt, feckless “bipartisans” who thought there was a middle ground to be found with them.
WaterGirl
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Something you said?
Steeplejack
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Is their leaving good or bad? Always a bit tense waiting to check out the new neighbors.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@WaterGirl: Guess so.
Actually, for the first time since they moved here, the skating rink down the street has opened up again, it makes parking on this street a problem(we have to use street parking) when they have skate parties(which is every night). When I went out week before last I had to park 2 streets over since there was no parking spaces on this street, THE WHOLE STREET.
This lot has a front house and a duplex in the back, I’m in one of the units in the duplex. I’ve been here 11 years, in that time the other unit has had 7 tenants, and for over 2 1/2 years it was empty.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Steeplejack: They seemed nice, had two dogs that I liked.
Uncle Cosmo
And you’ll continue to be full of shit every time you say it, asshole.
craigie
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Aha, now I know where you live :-)
(I mean, apart from Glendale, obvs)
?BillinGlendaleCA
@craigie: Maybe not for long.
One of the reasons I rented this place and stayed here was for my girls. Since they’re gone, I may be as well.
Xavier
Republicans basically hate government and don’t want the government to do anything except protect their individual private property rights. So what is left but grifting and shitposting. Why would anyone expect anything else?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Xavier: True, it always amazes me that you’d hire someone to run something they hate. They’re never good at it.
WaterGirl
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I have never heard of such a thing. Is that a California thing?
@?BillinGlendaleCA: It’s always the good ones that move. The assholes stay forever.
*not meaning you of course! :-)
phdesmond
@SiubhanDuinne:
Ditto. it’s a chant, a koan, a slogan.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@WaterGirl: It’s pretty common in this area. Here, they built the front house pre-war and built the back duplex after the war.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@WaterGirl: Most of the folk next door only stay a year, with the last two landlords when the rent went up. I think the rent is too high, but it does have a yard for pets.
I think only one tenant has stayed for two years, a religion professor and his minister wife from Madagascar. I liked them.
Xavier
@?BillinGlendaleCA: their constituents feel the same way and elected them to do exactly what they’re doing (well, perhaps not grifting, but certainly to prevent the government from doing anything to help someone else.)
cain
I’m not surprised at all by Sinema’s bullshit – we all know who she is. Looks like once again when we have the power to change things we get screwed by a Dem. Last time I believe it was that asshole Lieberman.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@cain: It was Holy Joe and a few others.
ian
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
It’s the day we have already pre-ordained the puklicans as the winners, apparently.
Seriously people. We were in worse shape January 2017. Were not done yet.
WaterGirl
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Were your girls Madame and your daughter, or the pups?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@WaterGirl: The pups.
WaterGirl
@?BillinGlendaleCA: It seems like an interesting setup. Opportunity for built-in friends, like the dorms in college, assuming you like the other people.
WaterGirl
@?BillinGlendaleCA: :-(
?BillinGlendaleCA
@ian: Yup, as I always say, don’t watch the sausage being made.
James E Powell
Republicans are promoting the Big Lie, changing election laws, going full out radical right-wing, & putting their racism front & center. They not only believe this is the way they will take back one or both houses of the congress, they believe it’s the only way they can win.
It’s up to us to hold onto the house and get a majority in the senate that does not require Manchin or Sinema. We’re about sixteen months from election day and we need to focus on making sure our people can vote and do vote. There is nothing else we can do that will matter more than this.
Ksmiami
@Cacti: she’s not getting another penny from me. Fuck her
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Ksmiami: Suzanne says Gallego isn’t ready for a statewide run, I hope he primaries her anyway
Ksmiami
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Rt.. with friends like these…
mrmoshpotato
@WaterGirl:
Yup. Fuck her.
As I’ve said before, I’m convinced she meant to run for state Senate, but oops!
Fuck her, and her “The people of Arizona didn’t elect me to…” bullshit.
Geminid
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: An Arizona commenter suggested that Greg Stanton (AZ-9) might challenge Sinema in 2024. Stanton ran for and won the 9th District seat when Sinema ran for Senate in 2018. Before that, he was mayor of Phoenix for six years. Right now job one for Arizona Democrats is Mark Kelly’s reelection next year, and I doubt if prospective candidates will move against Sinema until after that contest. Then, a good challenger could raise a lot of money, I think.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Geminid:
Right, and the way to makeSinema irrelevant is to make someone else, like Val Demmings or Tim Ryan the 50th and 51st votes.
Just Chuck
All I can say is the party had better not send Sinema one thin dime for her next campaign.
WaterGirl
@Just Chuck: So say we all.