What If This Is Just the Beginning?

By Christian Schneider

Thursday, February 15, 2024

 

Someday, we will all put our feet up, crack a cold one, and look back at those crazy years when America lost its damn mind.

 

That’s the view of the New York Times’ David French. Never one to sugarcoat the dire state in which modern conservatism finds itself, he nonetheless ended a recent column with a note of optimism.

 

“This era of American politics will end, one way or the other,” French wrote. “And when it does, historians are likely to debate whether its defining characteristic was stupidity or malice.”

 

While his point is submerged in a sentence full of acid, his overall outlook demonstrates promise.

 

But what exactly is the evidence that this era of American politics will eventually end?

 

Sure, someday Donald Trump is going to shuffle off this mortal coil (he’d better not have Alina Habba making his case before Saint Peter), but the incentive for politicians to behave like energy-drink-swigging gremlins isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Trump has unlocked a style of politics in which Congress is a safe home for psychotics like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz but not dignified conservatives like Liz Cheney.

 

And the sanity in politics is continuing to trend downward. This week, Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington decided, joining other fed-up Republicans such as Patrick Henry of Indiana and Kay Granger of Texas, to wash her hands of it. Utah senator Mitt Romney, realizing that urging his colleagues to behave with dignity was like telling a Tyrannosaurus rex to go vegan, will similarly call it quits at the end of the year.

 

Later last week, Representative Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, a future political star in the making, also ejected himself from his congressional cockpit. Gallagher tried to play ball with the MAGA wing, casting some truly head-scratching votes, but in the end it wasn’t enough, and now his political rise is over — or, one can hope, interrupted.

 

Perhaps clarifying the point, Gallagher is only the most recent Badger State politician to meet this fate. Wisconsin’s most robust export isn’t beer or cheese, it is dark-haired, square-jawed, traditional conservatives built in a factory for the purpose of one day inhabiting the national stage. But Paul Ryan, Scott Walker, and now Gallagher have had their bones crushed to dust by the Trump political machine.

 

Had there been any sign that the Republican Party was on the cusp of some return to normalcy, perhaps the onetime Washington up-and-comers would have stuck it out. But instead of voting on the floor, they are now voting with their feet and hightailing it out of public life.

 

Of course, the departing Republicans won’t be replaced by traditional, small-government, low-tax, personal-freedom enthusiasts (or by Republicans at all). Those people are glaring at Congress as if it were the Eye of Sauron and opting to stay away.

 

No, in 2025, Congress will once again see the levelheaded defectors replaced by people who won GOP primaries where the only disagreement among candidates was whether vaccines or the 2020 election results are more imaginary.

 

And they will have plenty of backup from the House members and senators they will be joining. They will be sitting beside people like election-denying Ohio senator J. D. Vance, who thinks sending aid to Ukraine is part of a secret plan to impeach Donald Trump in 2025. Or maybe they can cozy up with Wisconsin senator Ron Johnson, who believes Covid can be cured with mouthwash and who gives interviews to people like Jack Posobiec, a man who thinks Hillary Clinton ran a child-sex-trafficking ring in the basement of a D.C. pizza parlor.

 

Of course, that is just the people who have actually been elected. In the foreseeable future, Tucker Carlson will continue to command his Army of the Uninformed, and those looking to unseat Carlson as the president of Planet MAGA will veer into even more demented territory.

 

Again, for both elected officials and Trump-aligned pundits, attention is the only currency that matters. Their incentives are thus to be reflexively contrarian and/or to behave like a buffoon. For as far as our eyes can see into the future, the quickest path to stardom in politics is to comport oneself like a moron.

 

There is currently a popular YouTube show in which the world’s most famous people try to answer questions while eating hot wings. (If you whispered that sentence to someone ten years ago, they would have had you involuntarily committed.) During their spicy-wing journey, the guests always get to an inedible sauce called “Da Bomb Beyond Insanity,” which makes them contort their face, start screaming, and in some cases, openly weep. It is as if this unholy condiment emanated from Lucifer’s armpit.

 

But there is no doubt that this sauce is the best-selling flavor on the show. No matter how toxic, people want to try it for themselves because it gets such a reaction. It transforms famous and powerful and beautiful people into whimpering messes. And although it tastes thoroughly wretched, it is undeniably attention-grabbing. It makes you feel alive.

 

So for those of you wondering how House Republican Conference chairwoman Elise Stefanik is like hot sauce, you have your answer.

 

Sadly, this is what the people want (terrible politicians, not condiment metaphors). As H. L. Mencken said, this is the democracy people crave, and they are going to get it good and hard.

 

Further accelerating our acrid politics are the tools used to spread fear, distrust, and misinformation. The role of the modern politician is to scare the public into thinking America is on the brink of an existential crisis that, coincidentally, only they can solve. With artificial intelligence and deepfake videos, we are heading into an era when reality is twisted beyond recognition, and when those who practice that deceit the best will be rewarded with clicks and cash. Who is going to be the first to turn down money or political power just to stand on principle? Future historians debating the causes of the political fever of the 2020s might do so in a TikTok video while hitting each other with folding chairs.

 

This is even worse news for those holding out hope that a traditional conservative will one day vanquish this nationalist nonsense and return the party to its former Reaganite glory. But that is likely gone forever. By the time the 2028 election rolls around, traditional conservatism will have been absent from the Republican Party for twelve years. Twelve years ago, the biggest hit in America was Korean artist Psy’s “Gangnam Style.” When’s the last time you popped that jam onto Spotify?

 

Will things continue to devolve forever? They will until voters recognize a daily injection of rage serum doesn’t solve their problems. As folk crooner Sufjan Stevens sings, “Even in his heart the Devil has to know the water level.”

 

So, may David French’s optimistic words make their way from his keyboard to the Lord’s iPhone. But until then, we will all be slathering our politics with a numbing dollop of Da GOP Beyond Insanity.