From a nasty New Yorker profile of Ron DeSantis and the “radical” GOP in Florida comes this comment:
The Republican Party’s rank and file became increasingly radical, and G.O.P. leaders appeared only too happy to follow them. “There was always an element of the Republican Party that was batshit crazy,” Mac Stipanovich, the chief of staff to Governor Bob Martinez, a moderate Republican, told me. “They had lots of different names—they were John Birchers, they were ‘movement conservatives,’ they were the religious right. And we did what every other Republican candidate did: we exploited them. We got them to the polls. We talked about abortion. We promised—and we did nothing. They could grumble, but their choices were limited.
“So what happened?” Stipanovich continued. “Trump opened Pandora’s box and let them out. And all the nasty stuff that was in the underbelly of American politics got a voice….”
Stipanovich is speaking for a type in American politics that we’ve seen over and over again at the very top: the cynical consultant who just wants to get his secretly or not-so-secretly moderate Republican over the line so we can cut taxes, bomb Islamic nations, and get a few good rounds of golf in — damn the hippies and the snake-handlers. This is the type of person that ran the McCain campaign and the Romney campaign into the ground. The only success this type ever had in politics was George H. W. Bush, and only because he was riding in after Ronald Reagan and running against Michael Dukakis. Nixon and George W. Bush had these types on staff, but they also had “movement conservatives” around. Because each of them understood that a party needs a lot of invites.
This type thinks they got the best of the religious Right and “movement conservatives.” They made their money, won a few elections, and get to go home, and now the New Yorker calls them up to get them to trash people they believed were marks and mooks.
I think the exploitation works both ways in politics. Stipanovich wanted the votes and to do nothing. But by forcing his candidates to “talk about abortion,” by forcing them to “promise and do nothing,” we used them to normalize the idea that Republicans should talk about abortion and should do something about it. Over time, that pays dividends. In fact, we used them so well that we forced Donald Trump, a guy who did cameos in pornography, to put three anti-Roe justices on the Supreme Court.
Thank you for your service to the cause, Stipanovich. Enjoy your golden years, and go to hell grateful that we found something you could be used to do.