It's wild what a few short months of actually getting to know a person can do to your opinion of them. That's what House Republicans seem to have learned since October, when they replaced the glad-handing Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., with smarmy fundamentalist Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., for the Speaker of the House role. Johnson's election was treated like a big win at the time. Republicans were unified in cheering and chanting "Mike! Mike!" like they were celebrating a championship-winning quarterback, instead of a guy who serves creepy youth pastor vibes.
Johnson's popularity lasted as long as an embarrassing dance craze, however. It hasn't been five months and already Johnson's colleagues are pulling the Mariah Carey "I don't know her" bit. Tuesday, CNN reported that fewer than 100 House Republicans bothered to RSVP for their congressional retreat in West Virginia this week, meaning that less than half the caucus showed up.
"[S]ome Republicans have complained about the venue choice," CNN's reporters note. "Speaker Mike Johnson selected the Greenbrier Resort because it was 'family friendly,' in a break from past retreats which have taken place in sunny Florida."
No pity for people who elected a Puritan as their leader, only to find out he's serious about taking away everyone's good time. These same people were griping to Politico last month that Johnson's presentation at the last weekend retreat ignored pertinent-to-members issues like how to win re-election and grow their majority. Instead, "Johnson effectively delivered a sermon" about "declining church membership and the nation’s shrinking religious identity." They're just mad that they have to suffer the lives they're seeking to forcibly inflict on the rest of us.
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As fun as it is to pick on Johnson, however, it's not just him. Donald Trump and the larger MAGA movement are very much to blame. This is what radicalization does to communities. It stokes tensions and turns people against each other.
Authoritarians romanticize order, imagining a society where everyone falls in line without quarrel. In the real world, however, it's hard to communicate, much less organize, without some tolerance for disagreement. When authoritarians get together, it's a clash of big egos of people who all think everyone else should unquestioningly obey them. It's not just that they fight, they have no capacity to work through disagreements. Skills like listening, empathizing, or compromising run counter to the MAGA mindset. So instead resentments and anger fester and grow.
To get name recognition, fundraising, and support, Republicans must compete with each other to see who is most "MAGA," which usually means being the most willing to alienate others with grotesque stunts.
For instance, yet another House Republican decided to peace out before the end of his term. Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado apparently didn't bother to tell Johnson he was leaving before he told the press on Tuesday. To use the sort of language permitted at a Johnson-run retreat, to heck with the Speaker. "It is the worst year of the nine years and three months that I’ve been in Congress," Buck told CNN.
Buck's move doesn't just continue shrinking the already small Republican majority in the House, it also may be the final nail in the coffin of the political career of Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Beetlejuice. Boebert left her more moderate Colorado district after barely eeking out a victory last cycle to run in Buck's much-redder one. She had a good chance of winning the primary because the football stand's worth of identical white men running against her were going to split the anti-public groping vote. Now, there will be no primary, just a hastily scheduled special election with candidates chosen directly by party leaders, who probably will go with someone less embarrassing than Boebert.
The whole debacle underscores another reason why the perverse incentive structure of the MAGA movement conflicts with a party's need to maintain unity in the ranks. The right-wing media ecosystem favors loudmouthed trolls over boring workhorse politicians. To get name recognition, fundraising, and support, Republicans must compete with each other to see who is most "MAGA," which usually means being the most willing to alienate others with grotesque stunts. Even when, as they often do, those stunts run counter to what is good for the party.
Boebert is a classic example. Even before her humiliating screw-up at "Beetlejuice," she spent much of her time on Capitol Hill trying to become one of the most infamous MAGA villains through non-stop stunts, like trying to bring a gun into House chambers. One of her most chronic efforts at getting attention was demanding the impeachment of President Joe Biden, which threw Boebert into constant conflict with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who also wanted the mantle of "crazy lady who wants to impeach Biden."
This impeachment effort against Biden was a bad idea for the larger GOP, because he didn't commit any crimes and lying about that threatened to turn off independent voters in swing districts that Republicans need to maintain their majority. Buck, in particular, has been vocal about how politically toxic it would be to impeach Biden by falsifying evidence. He was proved right when the House committee tasked with that saw one phony piece of "evidence" after another exposed in a dramatic way, including the arrest of a fake whistleblower who appears to be working for a Russian spy. Buck preferred the more old-fashioned GOP strategy of pumping disinfo into the media ecosystem through lies and innuendo, but avoiding an attempt to frame someone for a crime he didn't commit, which draws the sort of legal and press attention that backfires.
But while pushing for impeachment is bad for the Republican Party, it was — for a time, at least — very good for the MAGA celebrities doing it. It got them on Fox News and other popular right-wing outlets. It juiced their fundraising. And, as most of them have some level of toxic narcissism, it fueled their bottomless need for attention. For some, like Boebert, it may be the end of them. But most of the biggest MAGAholes are in safe districts and are taking over the party. Meanwhile, people like Buck — and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. — are being pushed out.
Buck and McConnell, to be clear, are no heroes. They're reactionaries who, like their MAGA counterparts, exploit bigotry and right wing disinformation in order to push through policies that harm most Americans, to line the pockets of the already-rich. But both came up in a time when, to be successful, even very conservative politicians had to learn how to build alliances and even compromise with the opposing party. (Though McConnell prided himself on his extra-legal efforts to get around the latter when he could.) They did not think it beneath them to check their own egos to hold a coalition together.
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