The Nihilist Party, Part Duh

Elected Republicans ard Dumb; Their Activists are Outright Insane

Last month, I posted a piece titled “The Nihilist Party,” where I made the case the nation’s conservative party was dead and what had replaced it is a Nihilist Party. It received some notice, including some likes by liberal commentator Molly Jong-Fast and former Representative Liz Cheney. In that piece, I documented how the leadership let the inmates take over the asylum, today I want to talk about how appealing to the lowest denominator got them here. The latest ruckus in the House, kicking out McCarthy and not scrambling for a new Speaker, is just the latest symptom, because as Tom Nichols notes, this is what the Nihilists in the party wanted.

To be sure, not every member of MAGA is stupid. In my piece talking about MAGA being a cult,¹ many cults are geared toward actually intelligent people, and you don’t have to be dumb to be in one. The idea that its more a cult² rather than just pure nihilism or stupidity has some resonance; we want to believe our fellow Americans are smart and not want to put the country off the ledge willingly. Alas, no, this really is what they actually want; its why they buy bunkers, stockpile weapons and talk openly about Civil War. They want a “cultural reset” where they are no longer on the outs and where they can control the direction of the country. They were weeds in a noxious garden that GOP leadership astro-turfed onto thinking they could control it, but the weeds have taken over the garden now and they’re being choked by they fruits of their own labors.

Let’s go back.

The Rise of Rush

I remember the first time I listened to Rush Limbaugh. It was the early 90s, I was about to graduate high school, my parents were divorced and my father was living in another town. My brother and I flew in to see him. He took us fishing (one of his favorite things to do) and brought along a small radio where he listened to Rush Limbaugh. He was all excited about him. He talked about politics, sprinkled in some humor and essentially made fun of liberals for three hours. Now, coming away from listening to that, I didn’t think much of it; Rush clearly was pretty dumb not knowing what he was even talking about, his humor was ribald and although I chuckled once or twice it was pretty basic, and he wasn’t so much as making fun of liberals as he was making fun of their activists.³ To my father though, he struck a chord and as my father did not understand government to the extent I did, he deferred to what Rush was saying. Rush said it with confidence and authority, to my father and many like him, he HAD to know what he was talking about (news flash, he didn’t.)

So a month later I was kind of dumbfounded when I saw Rush on the cover of Time as the voice of a new generation of conservatism, and that he had a book out that was selling out all across the country. His cocksure, ultarconservative confidence had found it’s audience in the AM radio dials of a nation of public policy idiots and morons. To them, he spoke the truth. To everyone else, he was a demogogue with a svengali like hold over his audience. But Rush did something with this group that still resonates; he planted the seeds of the memes, ideas, perspectives and attitudes that would take root and flourish once the Internet matured and right wing media blew up. The biggest one, the one that still captivates that group today, is that liberals are the enemy of America, and that Republicans who compromise or work out deals with them⁴ are RINOS who should be kicked out as traitors.

Rush’s antagonism fueled the GOP during the ‘90s, giving life to mindless hearing and pseudo-scandals about the Clintons, culminating in Clinton’s impeachment in 1998 over a white lie in a deposition relating to an affair.

But while the media silos still preached this toxic sludge of incoherent an inaccurate news infotainment, the elected Republican officials worked to stay above the fray. Sure, they would give it some lip service and nod along to the chorus, but they understood you couldn’t actually govern that way. To them, this was beneath them, and more a sword for political leverage than any semblance of truth people would take seriously. The thing is, to a lot of Republican voters, it WAS to be taken seriously. They were true believers even if their electeds were more practical in their thinking.

The Tea Party

With the collapse of the housing market in 2007-8, people wanted heads. They wanted the bankers in jail, they wanted those who pumped up the bubble by overextending their credit to be bankrupted, they wanted to give none of them a lifeboat.

The problem with that approach is that it sends everyone in America, and likely around the world, into a depression. The number of people alive who remember the Great Depression are few; when the market collapsed they would’ve been in their 80s. Bad things happen when economies collapse, including wars. These short-sighted ultarconservative lunatics would have been fine with that. When Rick Santelli announced from the floor of the Chicago Exchange that we needed a “new Tea Party” movement in this country, they took it up as a clarion call to do so.

The targets of their ire? Obama,⁵ the banks (who let’s face it, are largely Republican as they like deregulation a lot), and particularly the bailouts (which were started under President Bush). These people think they would have been fine with the economy collapsing. Their vitriol could be easily confused with borderline insanity. But once the Tea Party came to power in the 2010 elections, their targets were much more closer to home; the Republicans who voted for the bailouts. They primaried all of them and were successful in a lot of places, including ousting Majority Leader Eric Cantor. To them, the vote to save America was conservatively impure, and a betrayal to everything Republicans and right wing media had preached to them over 20 years. The inmates were taking over the asylum.

So in 2016, after 25+ years of a diet of political stupidity, ultraconservative dogma and innuendoes, with an entertaining panache, they nominated Donald Trump as President. In hindsight, there were no other candidates who could even have competed with these hardcore Republican activist voters. Trump just merely gave them everything that Republican right wing media have been preaching about for decades. Yes, it was racist, offensive, impractical and uncompromising. However, that is exactly what right wing media had been advocating in forever. That’s why they are still with Trump now; he finally delivered on what they wanted.

That’s why Trump’s Presidency was nothing but a disaster in every way. Thing is Trump doesn’t know the public policy implications of what he is doing either. He’s a first class buffoon, offering what sounds good, just like Rush and those in the right wing silos expounded on, but have no clue what the eventual impacts and fallout would be. Trump never thinks of collateral consequences to his actions or inactions, just like those listening on AM radio don’t. They just like that it SOUNDS good, or funny, or entertaining. It’s why of everything bad that happened during the Trump term the only thing he was most upset about was Twitter locking him out; he could no longer entertain his troops directly.

That contingent, the True Believers who have taken over the Republican Party, they’re the real Nihilists of the bunch. They genuinely don’t care. They hate everything and everybody else. But they are active in campaigns, active at the local level, and very, very vocal. You can’t reason with them, you can’t compromise, you can’t build a coalition of which they are a part. How does that work out in governance. Just ask these guys.

If there is a sign of hope, it’s that right wing crank and Trump favorite Jim Jordan failed in his (multiple) bids to become Speaker of the House. It shows there are signs of serious legislators left within the Republican Party. But all signs are still pointing down; it’s a Nihilst Party now, and with a Government Shutdown on the horizon, aid for Ukraine and Israel on the table as they face wars and an election year coming, that Nihilist faction within the party will only become more vocal.

It’s the Nihilist Party now, Republicans just caucus in it.

PurpleAmerica’s Cultural Corner

If’ you’ve ever watched Jordan Klepper from the Daily Show, he has made a career out of exposing the stupidity, single-mindedness and lack of objectivity of Trump Voters and MAGA. This week, he was back talking with people waiting in line to see Trump.

Last month, he was at another rally, doing the same schtick. It practically writes itself. The activists are cannonballing into a pool full of shit, and Klepper just points out how shitty it is. The activists, god bless them, spend all this time with blank stares trying to defend it, often not realizing the stupidity of their positions. In this one, he talks about the activists’ fixation on Civil War.

PurpleAmerica’s Obscure Fact of the Day

In his first year as party leader and his first year receiving votes, Hakeem Jeffries has received more votes for Speaker of the House than anyone else in American history, never having won a majority on any one vote.

PurpleAmerica’s Final Word on the Subject

Reading this from the Godfather of Nihilism himself, you can see anyone in a red MAGA hat saying the same thing.

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Footnotes and Fun Stuff

1. I also applied the same criteria on whether Taylor Swift fans were in a cult; verdict, MAGA yes, Swifties No.

2. Again, yes, MAGA is a cult.

3. This last one I get. I personally dislike activists on both sides of the political spectrum, mostly for their absolutism, but also for the way they distort and muddy what the truth actually is.

4. You know, essentially legislate and do their jobs in Congress.

5. It should be noted he had nothing to do with the Housing collapse; he was elected two months after Lehman Brothers collapsed sparking the governent bailouts, and for the most part, he was just administering what the Bush Presidency began.