"The GOP Is A Failed State, Trump Is It's Warlord"

The above title is paraphrased from Will Saletan in 2016 within the confines of this Josh Marshall analysis of the ongoing Jim Jordan scandal.  Basically, the idea is that the GOP has become more than a typical European ethnonationalist party; they have become a sort of right wing Venezuela: dysfunctional, insular and autocratic with no sense how the real world works.  As the real world is wont to do, the facts can sometimes overwhelm even the most stubborn set of assumptions.  The question that the future of American democracy depends on is whether the facts have penetrated the GOP Hivemind enough to swing the House and/or Senate this November.

There are some parallels between Jordan and Mark Foley.  Foley's behavior was obviously worse, in that unlike Jordan, he actually abused those kids.  This is why Foley wasn't re-elected.  The reason Foley became an additional anchor on the GOP during a tough re-election year was that the GOP rallied around him (including pedophile Denny Hastert).  Jordan is lying; as Marshall points out, it's pretty obvious at this point.  Jordan knew about the harassment.  And in scandals like these, there are always more incidents, more allegations.  It's the steady drip-drip-drip that gets you.

Can this penetrate the Fox News bubble?  Does it need to?  Where are the winnable votes?  I feel pretty strongly that the winnable votes are in the suburbs.  Doug Jones did reasonably well in the suburbs of Alabama, despite it being, well, Alabama.  If Democrats can flip the suburbs of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina, Texas and California...they are well on their way to a House majority.

The other question is what effect yesterday's Kangaroo Kourt had, if any.  Democrats are currently in the curious rhetorical space of denouncing ICE and embracing the FBI.  People looking for an excuse to reject Democrats will only hear the "Abolish ICE" chants, and not the defense of the FBI's integrity.  However, the bonkers hearing yesterday with Peter Strzok has to make some sort of impression. 

There are a fair number of Americans who live and breathe politics.  They are like obsessive sports fans, watching stat lines, reading prospect scouting reports, dissecting strategy. Most Americans simply watch the game if it happens to be on at the bar or tune in for the title game.  Every once in a while, a game is so off-the-hook that everyone tunes in.  That feels a little bit like the Strzok hearing.  Partisans already know how they feel about the FBI's conduct in 2016.  What will the uninterested mass of people think upon seeing those hearings?

(Also, the Democratic performance in those hearings was amazing.  Getting the gavels of these committees in Democratic hands is imperative.)

Between Jordan and the Strzok hearings, we were able to seejust how fully the GOP lives within it's Fox News curated bubble.  They actually seem to believe that repeating the lie over and over again makes it true.  Franlky, they have some reason to believe this.  As an electoral strategy it has worked. Hillary is more corrupt than Trump.  Lowering taxes on the rich is good for everyone.  The only racism in America is against white people.

Back in 2005, that ability to entirely within their fictions unravelled in the face of Social Security repeal, Terri Schiavo and Hurricane Katrina.  Hopefully it is happening again.