The Toxic Avengers Assemble

Doors open at 5, lyin’ begins at 5:01.

The Toxicity is the Point.

Let me explain.

The GOP is a toxic party that encourages and celebrates toxic people. It simply is. It’s like the GOP looks around for the loudest, most obnoxious person in the room, the person everyone just trying to have a civil conversation veers away from, and they point and scream “That’s the one!”. They then give that person a high-level job in the party infrastructure, make them a TV pundit for ‘balance’ on cable shows, or run them as a candidate for office. And since Republican legislatures have gerrymandered districts within an inch of their lives, they are gifted with safe havens, stone pulpits from where they can spew anything they want with impunity. All they have to worry about is getting ‘primaried’, but they can take care of that by running as far to the right as they possibly can. It’s the ‘No Daylight’ strategy, ‘let there be no daylight on the right’; and you’ll be safe.  

Doesn’t really matter if you help your constituents, if you write, sponsor, or actually pass bills (you know, do your job) as long as you say the right things and ‘own’ enough ‘libs’. In fact, you can be in trouble if you do pass a bill, because it could be easily used against you. Pass the ‘wrong’ bill, and you become part of the system, the ‘Deep State’ (TM and © GOP) or the oppressive ‘Big Government’ (TM and © GOP) and someone will pop up suddenly in your district (probably having recently moved there) and oppose your reelection. Yep, you’ve been primaried. Suddenly you will have to go to extraordinary lengths to prove your ‘rightness’. Maybe hang out at the border (even if it’s not your state) in front of the TV cameras and wrestle a few migrants to the ground to prove how right-crazy you are, or bow over farther to an out-of-work- grifter at Mar-a-Largo. The ushe’.

The GOP built a system that rewards extremism, and pushes, begs, for more while punishing any sort of moderation. It’s the system that ever since the founding of the John Birch Society (oh, you can go down that rabbit hole further to the Dixiecrats in ‘47, the OG ‘America First-ers’ in the 30’s and beyond, but this is an essay, not ‘Game of Thornes’), to their backing of failed presidential candidate Barry Goldwater leading to a far right thought takeover in the late 60’s to an Avengers Assemble moment in the 70s with the Christian Evangelist movement, finally to the presidency in the 1980s. Whew. Been a long, hard and ugly road to the disaster that was four years of Trump, but it was always on the horizon. Extremist movements always burn and consume themselves eventually, but they leave much ash and destruction in the path of their flames.

So here we are.

In congress, we have some of the most aggressive, extreme, performatively ignorant (most of them aren’t that stupid, they’re stupid for pay and power) since the Civil War, when Democrat Preston Brooks of South Carolina beat abolitionist Republican Senator Charles Sumner with a cane, nearly killing him. Of course, from there to today, the parties are reversed. The difference being today the GOP mostly outsources its violence to their supporters, like the mob on January 6th.

These people are all stunt, not actual policy. Unless ‘owning libs’ can be a policy. Well, if not a policy it’s certainly a goal.

The new Preston Brooks’ of the GOP are people like Jim Jordan from Ohio’s 4th district, a district both famous for being far right and safe, and for being so gerrymandered and twisted (redundant?) as to resemble a duck. Jordan has a ‘colorful’ past in which he has been accused (pretty credibly) of ignoring sexual abuse as a wrestling coach at Ohio State. Several team members have come forward, saying they informed Joran directly about the abuse, and at least one referee claims to have confronted Jordan about it. Jordan claims he had no idea.

And he’s still in congress where he’s never written and passed a bill in his ten years there, he just holds them up, insults people and yells. And yells some more, all while refusing to wear his suit jacket, man-of-the-people that he is.

There’s Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, son of former presidential candidate Ron Paul, who has inherited his father’s aggressive style of ignorance. Paul’s biggest claim to fame is acting like a jerk during senate hearings, and trying to score stupidity points off Dr. Anthony Fauci. He’s yet another Republican who has nothing to fear from the electorate, as Kentucky hasn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate since Wendell Ford, in 1992.

There’s Marjorie Taylor Greene, a far-right conspiracy nut serving from Georgia's 14th congressional district, yet another safe district. She ran unopposed, as the Democrat running against her received so many threats that he feared for his life, ultimately leaving the state. The vile threats she made against her congressional colleagues were so bad, they stripped her of her committee assignments and her power within congress, but not the GOP where she is a money raiser and ‘rising star’. Recently she compared the torture and deaths of millions of Jews in the Holocaust with her having to wear one of her ‘Trump Won’ masks on the floor of congress. And then doubled down on it. GOP leadership has been very, very silent on this. Her grotesqueness is only rewarded. I’m sure the fund raising off the ‘Cancel Culture’ (TM and © GOP) of people telling her she’s waaaaaaaaaay out of line here has already begun.

Right now, Taylor-Greene is on a ‘Summer of Hate 2021’ Tour (not official name) with another equally horrible person, Florida (of course) congressman Matt Gaetz. Gaetz is part of the ‘frat boy’ style of politics, like if one of the guys from Animal House, only with Red Kryptonite levels of evil, were elected to congress. He, almost more than his fellow Toxic Avengers, thinks stupid congressional pet tricks done in front of TV cameras equals ‘policy work’. He is the ‘policy wonk’ of dumb stunts, like leading a charge into a secure room where a meeting was being held, thus violating security and forcing the Capitol security team to perform a sweep and examination to re-secure the room, wasting hours and money, of wearing a gasmask on the House floor during a vote on covid relief while his constituents were literally dying in Florida. He’s just a petty, vile, smug jerk. There, I said it.

That’s not the worst. Gaetz has been accused of massive illegal drug use, paying girls for sex, statutory rape, human trafficking an underage girl, showing nude photos to his fellow frat boy congressman on the floor of the house, and for being a disgusting clown.

I can say he’s guilty of at least one of those.

I could go on, and that’s the problem, I could go on. I didn’t even get to Ron Johnson, Mo Brooks, Paul Gosar, John Kennedy, Lauren Boebert (who brags about illegally packing a Glock, because she’s an idiot), and the King Of Cynical Performative Toxicity (may not be real title), Senator Ted Cruz, who at least should know better. Probably a part two coming on this…

But that’s the point, you can’t tell the true believers from those just going along with the scam. How many actually believe Trump won the 2020 election? Even in their warped reality, probably very few. In the end, it doesn’t matter who among the GOP leadership actually believes the nonsense they vomit; because they’re all united in the message and in shouting it from whatever mountaintop they can find. They’ve convinced the majority of their voters it’s true, and that’s where the danger comes in. That’s where January 6th came from and it’s where the next January 6th will come from as well.

They restrict voting to gain power, they gerrymander to keep power, they lie to their supporters to maintain power.

They take that hate cannon they’ve constructed and aim it right at democracy. Because it’s in the way. The have toxic leaders because the system they’ve built rewards that very toxicity. Toxicity = Strength, and the more they show, the more money flows to them and that system is reinforced and grows stronger while their base becomes a reduction of intense hate.

Toxicity is the point, and will be until it finally breaks the party.

That can’t be soon enough.

Cover Your Neighbor’s Ass as You Would Cover Your Own.

Two people who should be out of a job.

Kevin McCarthy is screwed.  

Rightly so. How is he screwed? He just showed the country and his own party just how weak a ‘leader’ he is. He sent Rep John Katko (R-NY) to negotiate with the Democrats over the makeup and reach of the January 6th commission, adding a bunch of demands that McCarthy figured the Democrats would never go for; equal representation, subpoena power for both parties, with both the chair and vice-chair having to agree on the issuing of the subpoenas, you know stuff the GOP would never agree to. You just have to look at the biased Benghazi ‘investigations’, controlled by a Republican majority and designed to drive down Hilary Clinton’s polls numbers (which McCarthy admitted) for proof of what McCarthy thinks is a ‘fair’ committee. He figured the Democrats wanted a political witch hunt, because that’s exactly what he would do, so he would undermined it from the start.

While Katko negotiated in good faith, McCarthy gave him nothing but a bottle of what he figured were poison pills to offer the Democrats. The problem was, McCarthy was too cynical for his own good. He figured the whole investigation was a show, ‘insurrection theatre’ designed to just embarrass the GOP. He was wrong. The Democrats actually accepted the GOP demands. They wanted a bi-partisan commission, and they agreed to just that. Katko succeeded when he was supposed to fail, so that when he failed, McCarthy could show that the whole thing was a cynical ploy by Pelosi and the Democrats. Checkmate!

The political cynicism though was all on McCarthy, like pie on Stan Laurel. His version of 3-D chess was actually one-finger checkers, and he had just jumped himself. Hard. Now, he had to deny his own deal, lie about it, calling it a one-sided sham (it wasn’t), and throw his own hand-picked negotiator under the bus. And then back it up over him. He demanded his members vote against the bill, and the GOP House Whip, Steve Scalise announced he would whip his members against the commission.

Kevin and Steve failed.  

35 Republicans broke with their leadership to support the commission. 35. Might not seem a huge number (it should be much bigger, really) but to the credibility of McCarthy’s leadership, and to the extreme partisanship of the GOP, this is a foghorn, a wrecking ball, a Spinal Tap goes-to-eleven feedback blast.

It’s an embarrassment. And all poor Kevin’s fault.

Word is leaking out that many members were pissed off over McCarty’s shameful treatment of Katko, and they just couldn’t go along with the transparent nonsense of ‘peaceful tourists’ invading the Capitol on January 6th to take selfies and admire statues. They remember hiding behind seats, barricading themselves in their offices, fearing for their lives while armed officers kept the insurrectionists at bay with pointed weapons on the floor of the US House of Representatives. They remember calling family to tell them they loved them one last time.

Like the Democrats, those 35 Republicans want answers, Kevin McCarthy be damned.

But…

Oh, there’s always a ‘but’ with today’s GOP, isn’t there? 175 Republicans — That’s 84% of the Republican conference — voted to memory-hole the insurrection. Voted to shrug and walk away. Like they did at both impeachments, like they’ve done over and over since 2015 when Trump descended that ridiculous gold escalator and started his campaign against democracy. A campaign that in January turned into open warfare.

175 Republicans who would rather let Trump and his insurrections control their party than stand up for democracy, stand up to the very people who came to kill them. Make no mistake, the people who stormed the Capitol, by their own account, were armed and looking for blood. Trump has sent out his orders about the commission on his pitiful little blog calling it a “democrat trap” to “shut it down” and they bowed and tried.

Then Mitch McConnell joined in. Both McConnell and McCarthy after the insurrection, blamed Trump. Both said he was culpable. Both have now forgotten all about that, preferring to toe the Trump line and undermine democracy. It’s what Donny would do (is doing), after all. McConnell will now direct the Senate to vote against the commission because… vague reasons. He cited overlap with the DOJ investigation, which he knows is a criminal one, not one into the origins of the mob and the violence. He has no real reason or excuses, except protecting the guilty infesting his own party.

Cover your neighbor’s ass as you would cover your own.

It is essential not only for the GOP to kill the commission, but to hide why they want to kill it. They love to go on about ‘re-litigating 2020’ (isn’t that what these Republican demands for recounts are?), but what they’re really afraid of isn’t exposing the past, it’s the threat of daylight on their on-going campaign against democracy, to undermine confidence in our elections and their fairness. They are laying the groundwork, right in the open, to deny the electoral victory of a Democratic candidate and install a losing Republican one, regardless of the outcome.

They’ll do it, or will at least try.

That’s why the commission must die.

With the bill for the commission now passed in the House, it will go to the Senate, where it will surely be filibustered. If all the Democrats vote for it, that means they have to get 10 Republicans to cross party lines for it to pass. Don’t hold your breath. McConnell has a much better hold on his caucus than McCarthy, and few have shown much will to buck him. I can see a few that might; Romney, Murkowski, maybe Collins. Maybe there are enough secret, closeted Republican senators that will put country over party.

This is where we are, hoping that sanity will break out in the GOP, and enough will step forward to actually do the right thing.

This is where we are.

All Because of a Lie

They came in answer to a lie, told by a tiny man with pointed them at out democracy and said ‘sic’ em’. Photo by Jessica Griffin.

2024. The election is a decisive one, the Democratic candidate wins the popular vote by some 8 million, the electoral by 30-40 points. Maybe even enlarging the senate control. Everything will be fine… right?

What happens when local GOP controlled election boards in both red and purple states decide they don’t like the way their own voters have voted, when Republican controlled state legislatures refuse to certify Democratic wins, sending instead their own slate of electors to Washington? What happens when a GOP House refuses to certify the presidential vote, when the GOP refuses to seat Democratic senators?

What happens?

Think this nightmare scenario can’t happen? Remember January 6th. We believed it couldn’t happen then. Well, maybe “believed” is too strong a word, “hoped” is better. We already had all the signs, the right-wing violence and threats against officials, the storming of state capitols and city councils, the lies from top officials, Trump on down. It was building, making the violent insurrection on the DC Capitol inevitable. It was a mad rush and build, an escalation to madness and attempted coupe, and then they all went home, contrite and regretful… right?

No. It’s not over. 1/6 was prologue. It was the person before the play, it was Shakespeare, sending his actor out on the stage to tell you what you will be soon seeing, that while you are witnessing this, there is so much more you don’t see. When you see fights, please, gentles all, imagine wars.

This is the GOP; they start fights but they are planning for wars.

All for a lie, all because the huge ego of a tiny man could not deal with the obvious fact that he lost an election, could not admit he was not the god of his speeches but the grifter and con man the election revealed him to be. So, he decided he didn’t have to admit it, didn’t have to accept it, and that his voters and members of his party would back him up. And they did, to the great disgrace of this nation and the weakening of our democracy.

A lie and a man’s ego has managed to kill people and brought us where we are today. It’s… crushing, the shear stupidity of it all. Here we are, still dealing with the muck and suck of the hate and violence. Because it ain’t over, as Yogi maybe said, ‘til it’s over.

Because the insurrection didn't end with the Capitol Hill police ushering the violent insurrectionists out of the Capitol. Like an out-of-control AI, they have learned, absorbed, pinpointed where they failed and are shoring up the weak spots; ridding themselves of anyone moral enough to say ‘no’ to Trump’s election lies, casting out anyone who might have enough principle to stand against a naked power grab, and readying for all-out war on a democracy that stands in the way of total power.

Citizens don’t want to vote for them? Fine. They’ll just take that little voting problem away, thank you very much.

No, the insurrection continues with the nearly 300 anti-democratic voting bills being introduced and passed around the country, with the 'forensic audit' being conducted by the GOP version of the 3 Stooges in Arizona for no other intention than to undermine a fair election and to bolster lies. This is all leading up to the 2024 presidential election where the GOP will try, once again, to steal an election.

This time, with those objecting purged, who will say no? That's a big thing that saved us; many in the local state GOP didn't go along. These are officials who I’m not so sure were brave, but defending a system that they set up to elect Republicans that failed to do so. Not sure much ‘brave’ as defensive and indignant. But they were there and they stopped it.  

Republicans are in the process of fixing that. Stefanik for Cheney, censure and eventual expulsion of anyone who pointed out the lies (listen, I have no love for Cheney, who supported wars and torture, but in this stand, she’s actually right) anyone who might slow the Trump train to election must be crushed, whether Trump is the engineer this time or not.  

The clear message the GOP is sending to its representatives is: you stand up for the Constitution and democracy, we’ll knock you down, hard. We’ll erase you not only from the face of the GOP but the earth. Scorched earth against their own party. The reps hear, and obey.

That's what this is about; hobble democracy with even more restrictive voting laws to make themselves completely voter-proof, and if somehow that's not enough, just take it. Claim victory anyway and this time with the entire GOP on their side, they're that much closer to succeeding. 2022, 2024, they will try until they succeed.

That's the plan; permanent Republican rule, voter proof. Will it work? doesn't matter, it's what they'll try. They've been setting it up for decades.

How can they be stopped? Through attention paid, taking them seriously and heading them off though public opinion and the courts (Trump and McConnell have made that much harder, but not impossible).

This is why there are and will be constant lawsuits filed against these bills, playing a legal whack-a-mole, that's why more grassroots are forming to re-register the people the GOP are purging from the rolls. It's why the spotlight has to keep shinning and pinning them down like an ant in the sun, paying attention to the state and national GOPs and their efforts to kill democracy and snatch power.

They love to work in the dark, the bright daylight gives them away.

They’re probably working on blocking the sun.