What's the matter with Republicans?
What's the matter with Republicans?
Plus, taking aim at "The Hunt"
If you were on social media over the weekend (and if you weren’t, good for you), you probably saw some coverage of the 2021 CPAC Part Two (‘Electric Boogaloo”). Highlights from the misleadingly named “Conservative Political Action Conference” included but were not limited to a painting of Donald Trump kissing the American flag that sold at auction for $35,000.
In addition, there was Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), who is currently being sued for his part in inciting the January 6 insurrection (and who is now saying that his speech was “coordinated” by the Trump White House), who told attendees to “fight” and “sacrifice” like Revolutionary War soldiers. QAnon shirts were reportedly common both as souvenirs and as convention garb. Among the attendees was Elmer Rhodes, the head of the Oath Keepers, a group that has been implicated in conspiracies surrounding the January 6 attacks. Rhodes is unindicted as yet, but that may be just a matter of time.
Another low point in the conference was when the failure to meet President Biden’s vaccine goals was met with cheers during a panel discussion. The vaccines were of course developed during the Trump Administration and the former president has taken credit for speeding development with his Operation Warp Speed.
Nick Fuentes also made an appearance. Or at least he tried to. The white supremacist and Holocaust denier who has been linked to another January 6 speaker, Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), led a group of apparent frat boys in an attempt to crash CPAC after promising the “most racist, the most sexist, the most anti-Semitic, the most Holocaust-denying speech in all of Dallas this weekend.” Fuentes was not allowed to stay, proving that some members of the right are even too far out for CPAC.
A “seven-point plan to restore Donald J. Trump in days, not years” being passed out at the conference showed that Democrats do not have an exclusive hold on low-information voters. It is uncertain how seriously attendees were taking this plan, but its seven points are more representative of political fan fiction (or fantasy) than a serious plan to restore Trump to the presidency. Of course, there is no way to restore Trump other than winning the 2024 election or launching another, more successful, coup attempt.
CPAC used to be a mainstream conservative event. These days, it seems to be more of a freak show, although I’m not certain that it doesn’t represent what has become the mainstream of Republicanism.
There seem to be two kinds of Republicans these days. The CPAC Republicans and the traditionalists. I don’t know what the exact breakdown between the two groups is. I’m not sure anyone does with any degree of certainty.
Most of my Republican friends fall into the traditionalist camp, but I’m far from sure that they represent the majority of the party. Even the traditionalists in the party can often be found reflexively, if not defending Trump, then at least being critical of anti-Trump elements.
That leads to the big question, which is “What’s up with the Republicans?”
On the one hand, some argue that the party and its base have crossed the line to authoritarianism in their support for overturning the election and reinstalling Donald Trump. On the other hand, some like Jonah Goldberg fire back that the Republican base doesn’t really want to toss out the Constitution. Instead, they believe that they are upholding the Constitution by seeking to correct a fraudulent election.
While I tend to agree that a large number of Republicans seriously think the election was stolen, that isn’t necessarily the good news that Goldberg and others see it as. Are we really better off if the people seeking to throw out election results and foment political violence are misguided into thinking they are saving the country rather than being dedicated to the overthrow of our Constitutional system? If we are, it is only marginally so to the extent that some people who are being misled might one day see through the deception.
Whatever their motive, polling paints a disturbing picture of the party. A May Ipsos Reuters poll found that 61 percent of Republicans believed that the election was stolen. PRRI found that almost a quarter of Republicans (23 percent) believe “the government, the media, and financial worlds in the US are controlled by a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who run a global sex-trafficking operation.” That is straight out of QAnon. Even more disturbing, 28 percent believe that “American patriots may have to resort to violence to save our country.”
The problem here is that if someone picks up a gun and acts to “save” their country, it does not matter whether that person is misled or is committed to the authoritarian rule of Donald Trump. The result is the same.
Down through history, we have seen gullible people get on board with charismatic leaders who led them - and sometimes their entire countries - to destruction. There are many examples from the obvious ones like Hitler and Lenin to Napoleon and Jim Jones.
In his address to the CPAC crowd, (former) President Trump let slip the root of the problem. With respect to polling, Trump said, “If it's bad, I say it's fake. If it's good, I say that's the most accurate poll ever."
And that is one of the most honest things that Trump has ever said. He lies and Republicans know he lies. They don’t care. The new theme song for the party could be Johnny Lang’s 1997 hit, “Lie to Me” or the Fleetwood Mac standard in which Stevie Nicks begs, “Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies.”
So Donald Trump tells the CPAC crowd that he’ll lie to them if the poll is bad and they reward him with an overwhelming victory in the straw poll. Trump won the support of 70 percent of respondents while Ron DeSantis, the second-place finisher, earned only 21 percent.
So there’s the real problem with the GOP. Too many Republicans don’t want the truth. They want someone to tell them what they want to hear. They want to be lied to. Republican leaders understand this implicitly and are afraid to speak up and tell the truth.
If the Republican Party is to be saved, and I’m not sure that it can be or even that it should, then it’s going to take my traditional Republican friends standing up and giving party leaders the backbone to start telling the CPAC base the truth. People like Mo Brooks, Paul Gosar, and Marjorie Taylor Greene should be given the same treatment as Nick Fuentes.
The fate of the party in the near term is going to be evident as we see the results of the 2022 and 2024 elections. If Republicans continue listening to the lies of Trump and his faction then there will likely be another reckoning at the polls. Most voters outside the GOP are immune to Trump’s charms and the trend that cost the Republicans the House, the Senate, and the presidency will continue.
But if there are enough Republicans who can ignore the temptation to have their itching ears scratched by the grifters, the GOP may be able to overcome its recent tragic past and rise to the occasion. But the road to restoration involves collective self-examination as well as purging the grifters, liars, and populists who unrepentantly still push the stolen election lie long after the insurrection. Even the traditionalists don’t seem interested in going to those lengths to save their party.
We stumbled across “The Hunt” last night on HBO Max. You may remember this movie from the furor it caused a few years ago.
The plot, which is derivative of the classic short story, “The Most Dangerous Game,” has a cabal of leftists hunting Trump supporters for sport. When the trailer was released, there was widespread gnashing of teeth among conservative pundits. Ultimately, the movie’s March 2020 release was overshadowed by the outbreak of the pandemic in the US and it proved to be a box office flop.
I won’t give away too many spoilers in case you want to watch the movie, but if you do want to avoid spoilers, stop reading now.
“The Hunt” isn’t the liberal fantasy that many pundits assumed it to be. Instead, the movie is more of a right-wing dystopian fantasy. In retrospect, that should have been obvious from the beginning.
I mean, think about it. How likely is it that liberals would go to a horror movie that fantasized about hunting down Republicans? If we’re honest, I’d say not very, but it is the assumption that Democrats would want to kill Trump supporters that fed the blowback from the right-wing press.
Instead of glorifying the slaughter of conservatives, the movie plays into right-wing talking points that the left is made up of bloodthirsty radicals and psychopaths who merely mask themselves as nonviolent and caring people. To many on the Republican right, it isn’t a stretch to think that leftists might kidnap and murder random Republicans.
The movie pokes some fun at the right, but it is much tougher on the left. Aside from the whole mass murder thing, there are a host of liberal stereotypes and lots of ridicule of political correctness.
I’m not recommending “The Hunt.” It’s not a great movie and deepening the partisan divide by making people think the other side wants to murder them isn’t helpful at this point in time. (Or any point in time really.) But the movie also isn’t what everyone assumed it to be.
The real lesson here is that groupthink can definitely exist on the right. Many times the pundits rush to opine before the facts are out and the entire industry ends up stampeding off in the wrong direction. The angst about “The Hunt” is only one example of such a misreading of reality from recent years.
It pays to question the conventional wisdom of the pundits.
If you haven’t subscribed to the Racket yet, click the button below to do so while it’s still free. And remember, with the Racket you get MORE than what you pay for!
You can also find The Racket News (@newsracket) on Twitter and Facebook. Join the discussion online with our Racketeers Facebook group.
Follow The Racketeers on Twitter: Jay, Steve, and David.
As always, we appreciate shares. If you see something here that you like, please send it to your friends and tell them that all the cool kids read the Racket!
I kind of expected CPAC to be a shell of its former self, given the trends of the past several years. I used to attend these years ago, when they were a serious intellectual force for limited government constitutional conservatism. But I didn't expect them to fall even this hard this time around. It was painful to watch. They should just rename it QPAC while they are at it.
And regarding Jonah Goldberg, I can understand what he was getting at when he mentioned how most rank and file Republicans don't want to overthrow the Constitution. Yes, some who are hardened, MAGA Superfans do. But I think the majority of them are good people who are gullible and easily misled. Because conservative media used to be a lot more responsible than they are now, I think many of these Republican Trump voters still give it the good stamp of approval, without realizing how much worse they've become. With the QAnon and superheated MAGA types, I think they are too far gone, from my experience. But I think where some of us non-Trump conservatives have fallen short(Not you David, as I know you make that distinction), is how we approach these gullible and misled Republicans who aren't nasty people operating in bad faith. Sometimes my lack of patience for those who spread the Big Lie and other talltales from Trumpdom, causes me to lump the everyday Republican who voted for Trump and is gullible, with the hardcore MAGAbots who purposefully peddle the lies. I remember telling some Trump voting folks after the election, that they ought to slip, fall, and take a plunge into the Grand Canyon(after I unfortunately lost my cool) and go straight to hell. And as expected, they didn't take kindly to that. But I found out after the fact that these were otherwise rational people who voted for Trump. So now I firmly but politely talk to these non-hardened Republican voters of the truth, with the intent of love and concern. And I've seen many people in my social circles wake up to the truth, and reject the Big Lie, and tell me that they won't ever support Trump again. Had I lumped them in with the crazy Q types and Trumpbots and treat them in that regard, I might've not had that opportunity to lead them to the truth. I do want these redeemable Trump supporters in my social reaches to view me as someone with credibility and as an approachable Trump skeptic. I tell them that these folks peddling the Big Lie, among other things, are playing and using them for chumps, and don't care about them, in addition to debunking them. Once most of them know that I care about and respect these people enough to spend all this time debunking what they've been misled to believe, they can and do change.
And I completely understand and share the frustration of the GOP's seeming inability to move on from Trumpism. It seems endless. But even if my experiences in addition to what I've heard from a few others, are anecdotal, my sense is that the conservative movement is imperceptibly inching its away from Trump. I wish it wasn't so slow, and I know most of you feel that way. The best thing us Trump skeptical conservatives can do is to keep being vocal about the truth in a firm, but compassionate manner. And to always look for opportunities to change minds of the reasonable minds out there who have used and misled. David deserves kudos because he already does that, and quite well.
Charlie Syke's breakdown of it was exceptional on Monday David and follows along the same thread of your comments. I can only smile when i see LP saying he was there and all he saw was FREE WILL (GOTTA LOVE THOSE CAPS...AT LEAST TRUMP LEFT US SOMETHING IN HIS WAKE OF STUPID).
I'm not sure how the death toll rising and the covid virus spreading is a good thing, or why anyone would cheer it on, but that's what we got a glimpse of this past weekend. Doesn't say much about those in attendance does it LP?
Sadly is is exactly what much of the right has become. There is a game plan though that you have discounted David and may well work. By dramatically changing voting laws in key states, they may well win enough to change outcomes. Couple that with gerrymandering and who knows, perhaps they can pull it off. Way easier doing that than trying to appeal to voters based on real issues eh?
BTW, it flat out disgusted me to see the orange one wrap himself in the flag when he did it so i guess it's no surprise some idiot would pay 35K for a painting off it. Talk about unpatriotic. Pathetic.