What is wrong with these people?
By Michael Winship for Common Dreams
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| By Mike Luckovich, Atlanta Journal-Constitution |
Can
you imagine how the Former Guy felt when he heard the news that his man-crush,
Russian President Putin, just signed a law allowing him to run for two
additional terms? Given the largely meaningless nature of elections over there,
the legislation could keep Vlad in office until 2036, when he’ll be 83.
Boy,
Trump may have thought, how come he gets to do that and not me? I constantly
have to lie about the election results, keep bellyaching that I won, and foment
an attempted coup d’etat at the US Capitol. None of which worked. Let me tell
you, it’s exhausting! Now watch this putt...
Nonetheless,
based on his great election fraud lie, all that prevarication does keep the
Trump coffers filled with campaign dollars -- cash that’s still being collected
by the hour from the readily bamboozled. There’s some $85 million in his Save America PAC,
according to one of his advisors. Legally, much of it can be used for whatever
Ol’ Punkinhead feels like.
That’s a good thing for Trump, because his much-vaunted business acumen continues to come back to nip him in the butt. Not only are his taxes and most of his other corporate records being ever more closely scrutinized for criminal activity by New York State Attorney General Tish James and Manhattan DA Cy Vance.
As Dan Alexander at Forbes magazine reports, “From the time
he entered the White House in January 2017 to his departure a few months ago,
Donald Trump’s fortune fell by nearly a third, from $3.5 billion to $2.4
billion. The S&P 500, meanwhile, increased 70%.” You’ll recall that he
refused to divest his portfolio when he became president. As a result, “Trump
bogged down his presidency with ethics issues for years, while also missing a
chance to cash in on a market boom he helped propel.
If
he had sold everything on Day 1, paid the maximum capital-gains taxes on the
sales, then put the proceeds into a conflict-free fund tracking the S&P
500, Trump would have ended his presidency an estimated $1.6 billion richer
than he is today.
The man’s a financial genius. Just ask him. Or better yet, ask what remains of the Republican Party which, as per veteran GOP fundraiser Fred Zeidman, is being roiled by “a tremendous complication” – the controlling influence of Trump and his demand to continue leading the Republicans.
“He’s already proven that he
wants to have a major say or keep control of the party,” Zeidman told The New York Times, “and
he’s already shown every sign that he’s going to primary everybody that has not
been supportive of him. He complicates everything so much.”
Saturday night, Trump went off his prepared remarks for a Republican National Committee donor dinner at his Mar-a-Lago resort and delivered one of his notorious rants, still insisting he won the November election and profanely going after everyone from Biden and “Barack Hussein Obama,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Dr. Anthony Fauci to his supposed allies former Vice President Mike Pence, Georgia governor Brian Kemp, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell – “a dumb son of a bitch” -- and McConnell’s wife, Trump’s former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao. Trump claimed that her appointment was a quid pro quo, a favor to insure Mitch’s loyalty. Perhaps it was the most honest thing he said all night.
The
man’s crazier than a junkyard rat and yet the faithful still kneel before
him. A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll finds that
60 percent of Republicans continue to believe that Trump won the election – and
50 percent of them believe Trump’s new big lie that the January 6 insurrection
was actually a peaceful demonstration of love and respect, spoiled only when
some nasty antifa infiltrators turned it violent.
Oh,
for a simpler, saner time – and I don’t mean that white American idyll that
never was, a rightwing fever dream in which all is falsely remembered as
sunshine, jellybeans and petroleum products burnt without a care. Rather,
as columnist Frida Ghitis notes, “It wasn't very
long ago that the country had two reality-based, generally centrist parties.
Democrats and Republicans, with different philosophies, debated the merits of
their ideas, in search of a workable compromise.
But
then, bit by bit, the GOP started veering in a different direction. By the time
Trump became president, the maximalist, nativist, conspiracy-driven,
scandal-manufacturing, hate-stoking wing was already ascendant, propelled by
the engines of Fox News and other far-right provocateurs. Trump's victory was
the coup that toppled the old GOP and turned it into the extremist MAGA
machine.
And
now, what’s left? A handful of old-fashioned, conservative Republicans in
Congress and their supporters who apparently still believe in some semblance of
democracy and the republic that gave their party its name. But they’re
overwhelmed by a crowd of fanatics and sycophants: men and women, in Frida
Ghitis’ words, busily “promoting the delegitimization of America’s duly elected
president, people who are endorsing or refusing to rectify dangerous lies.”
You
know who they are: Cruz, Hawley, Graham, Jordan, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren
Boebert, et al. They include, of course, Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, “rewarded
by recklessness,” to use campaign strategist Rick Wilson’s phrase, and as of
this moment still standing, despite more and more evidence of his misogyny
and possible abusive behavior, sexual and
otherwise.
Like
so many among these ranks, Trump fanboy Gaetz is one of the smarmy, privileged,
attenuated frat boys who refuse to believe that rules and norms apply to them –
much like the man who was their president and would be forever more if the rest
of us become indifferent and lower our guard. Gaetz cares about his job title
only as far as it gets him booked on talk shows and the lecture circuit – so
far, he has failed to sponsor a single piece of significant legislation.
In
his new memoir, former Republican House Speaker John Boehner describes these types of
Republican rabblerousers as “the chaos caucus,” not caring about the country
but only about their power base and appearances on Fox News and right wing talk
radio: “They didn’t really want legislative victories,” Boehner writes. “They
wanted wedge issues and conspiracies and crusades.”
Not that Boehner is blameless. He and so many Republican colleagues let themselves be bullied, then acquiesced to our current dilemma, yielding to those pledged to lunacy and a lemming-like fealty to a president as bereft of thought and feeling as they are.
You see the results: a shattered party not of ideas and
programs, but only insults and bogus intrigues. No wonder the Biden
infrastructure proposals infuriate them; they have nothing to offer in return.
(Remember Trump’s Infrastructure Week, always imminent but never occurring over
the whole four years of his presidency?)
They fear any and all success during Biden’s first term. Think back to 1993, when now anti-Trumpist conservative Bill Kristol advised Republicans to shun any healthcare plan from Bill and Hillary Clinton.
In a memo—Kristol was then
head of the Project for the Republican Future—he warned his colleagues, “It will revive
the reputation of the party that spends and regulates, the Democrats, as the
generous protector of middle-class interests. And it will at the same time
strike a punishing blow against Republican claims to defend the middle class by
restraining government."
Substitute
the name Biden for Clinton and any of Biden’s proposals for Clinton’s failed
healthcare plan and you see what today’s GOP strategy is—a replay of Kristol’s
fears now made deeper and more paranoiac by the lowest common denominators who
have taken control of the party. Their anger at Biden’s early successes and
their fury at the popularity of his proposed programs—even among many
self-described Republican voters – have sent them ‘round the bend.
Instead
of opposition that in past years may sometimes have been based on actual
conservative principles, all that really matters to them now is the personal
power and campaign money that come from “winning.” Mitch McConnell’s risible
warning to corporations last week that they should “stay out of politics” was
a demonstration of just how frantic their party has become.
(McConnell, who relies on corporate dollars, backed away from his statement the very next day. It’s worth noting that he made it in reaction to the opposition of many businesses—including Delta Airlines and Coca-Cola—to Georgia’s new voter suppression laws.
Pained by the increasing voting power of Black, indigenous
and people of color, rather than strategize as to how to win them over with
ideas, the GOP has determined to stamp out their voices wherever possible, thus
acknowledging just how feeble their party’s ideology has become.)
Add to this mix a steady drumbeat of rabid, often ad hominem attacks on Democrats and those of different races, genders and creeds, characterized by a mad inclination toward nihilism and anarchy, that encourages such rightwing violence as January 6. Counterterrorism experts warn that this could bring the country down.
A recent report from the Director of
National Intelligence finds that domestic violent extremist (DVEs) "pose
an elevated threat." Daniel Block, executive editor of The Washington
Monthly, notes, "Unlike in the 1990s, when right-wing extremism
was overwhelmingly disavowed by national Republicans, the modern GOP actively
courts the far right."
Ever
confrontational, with their rank brand of child-like bullying, a bad habit made
worse by the words and deeds of their ex-president, in the end, Republicans are
flailing and lashing out. At this point in time, West Virginia’s Democratic Senator Joe Manchin is
only fooling himself if he truly believes bipartisanship within this Congress
is possible.
He
makes a mistake in thinking these men and women are redeemable. They’re not.
But we can build and strengthen support from others with constructive change
like much of what the Biden administration is proposing. We can end the
filibuster to pass a program of legislation unlike anything since Lyndon
Johnson’s Great Society and FDR’s New Deal.
We’ve
seen there is danger in the GOP’s flailing; a lot of collateral, fatal damage
can result. The party may be about to die like a harpooned whale, lashing out
and dragging too many beneath the waves with it.
As
the saying goes, when you stand for nothing, you’ll fall for anything.
Republican leadership still clings to their #1 False Prophet, living in fear
that Trump and his followers might turn on them and support opponents that
he’ll endorse if incumbents fail to toe the increasingly thin line that bends
toward bloodshed and despair.
In
November, we voted him out, kept control of the House and now hold a narrow
lead in the Senate. But it was too close a call. To return him to the top
office, Republicans will do anything—anything except come up with good,
constructive ideas. Don't drop your guard: we cannot let him and his cult back
in.
Michael Winship is the Schumann Senior
Writing Fellow for Common Dreams. Previously, he was the Emmy
Award-winning senior writer for Moyers & Company and
BillMoyers.com, a past senior writing fellow at the policy and advocacy group
Demos, and former president of the Writers Guild of America East. Follow him on
Twitter: @MichaelWinship