Michael, Dan, I get it. I do. But every election season we hear the same bunk from the same rubes and carnies and the same lame rationalizations from people who know this is bunk from rubes and carnies but think we shouldn’t say so out loud.
You get what you tolerate, and, at some point, it’s time to say “No.” This is just normal politics, Dan says. This is going to keep being normal politics if we decide to keep letting it be normal politics. I think we should insist on better politics at once.
“But we want a Republican majority!” Okay, sure — why? To give a bigger megaphone and a better-placed monkey wrench to Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lindsey Graham? So that Lauren Boebert can have a better position on the House Budget Committee?
Count me less-than-enthusiastic about that.
“But the other guys are worse!” used to be a pretty persuasive argument, until the Republicans tried to stage a coup d’état and nine-tenths of the conservative commentariat decided to try to justify that or explain it away in the hopes of selling one more doggie-vitamin advertisement. Donald Trump is out there right now calling for himself to be installed as president through some unconstitutional means. And Republicans act like he’s either the Second Coming of George Washington or, at worst, the wacky sitcom neighbor of U.S. politics.
Enough, finally, is enough.
Regarding socialism, I once observed that either there’s something inherently wrong or it’s just the unluckiest ideology in history, one that just happens to keep producing tyrants and monsters. I find it difficult to look at the Republican Party in 2022 and not ask the same question. Does it just happen to end up hand-in-glove with Q-Anon kookery — with every quack, charlatan, cretin, crackpot, tiki-torch Nazi, and Brideshead-cosplaying dork across the fruited plain — or is there something profoundly wrong with this organization, its animating spirit, and its people?
I know what’s wrong with Blake Masters — he thinks Republican voters are shallow, rage-addled, and exploitable. And he’s probably not wrong.
How many clowns do you have to see getting out of the clown car before you realize you’re at the circus?