Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Friday, February 17, 2023

Clown Car

 Look, Andy Ogles (R-TN) is not George Santos, but he's not exactly Honest Abe, either. People exaggerate their accomplishments all the time, but there is something pathological going on in the GQP. Some of this, I think, has to be a product of Trump's "ability" to break what were previously considered ironclad rules and still "win" the presidency. Because he weathered scandals that would have immolated any other politician, there must be an assumption among a certain type of sociopath that they can simply lie their way to elected office.

Ultimately, however, the fault lies with Republican voters. It was they who decided to stick with Trump after...well...everything. The lesson this delivered to the GOP was unmistakable. It's not just that Trump embraced a form of White Nationalism that won over some WWC voters, it's that he demonstrated that norms are meaningless within the GOP political sphere. 

The people who say that Al Franken resigned over far less are perhaps missing this point. Al Franken cared about the norms of a functioning political system. The GOP currently does not.

UPDATE: We got another one! In this case, it seems pretty clear that Anna Luna (R-FL) is someone who's pretty and cynically opportunistic about her biography. That combination of good looks and low key sociopathy is preferred by the Charlie Kirks of this world who found her.

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