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As I was writing this introduction, the nightmare in the Middle East, the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, Israeli preparations to invade Gaza, the Biden administration's decision to move a second aircraft carrier task force into the eastern Mediterranean, and the possibility that the crisis there might explode into an even larger conflict was the news everywhere. It was, however, remarkably hard to find much reporting on the extreme (and extremist) chaos that is now the definition of the Republican Party in this country. That right-wing extremist nightmare Congressman Jim Jordan years ago, before Donald Trump became president, former House Speaker John Boehner claimed he'd never met someone "who spent more time tearing things apart" was then failing in his bid to find enough Republican votes to become speaker of the House of Representatives. And yet that news was largely missing in action, as was the possibility that a few "moderate" Republicans might pair up with House Democrats to elect such a speaker. Missing as well was the daunting possibility that Congress might not even be able to pass an interim budget to keep government funding from drying up entirely.
Yes, by the time you read this, congressional chaos may indeed be back in the headlines, but the very fact that, however briefly, it could be swept away by the increasing chaos of our world should have been striking in itself. Today, we find ourselves in a new world (in the worst sense of that classic American term imaginable). And that's before you even consider that Mr. Chaos himself, former president Donald Trump, could indeed either drive the Republican Party further toward its grave or, worse yet, win the 2024 election and drive the country in that direction.
With all of that in mind, let TomDispatch regular Rebecca Gordon put our potential Republican hell on earth in grim context, while the "founding fathers" of this country assumedly twist and turn in their graves. Tom
Republican Contradictions
Are They Fascists or Nihilists or Both?
Sometimes the right wing in this country seems like a riddle wrapped in an enigma encased in a conundrum.
Do they want to strengthen the government in line with the once-fringe doctrine of the "unitary executive," concentrating most official power in the hands of a president who would then rule more or less by fiat? That's the fascist position.
Or would they prefer to destroy the government, to "starve the beast," something anti-tax activist Grover Norquist used to call for decades ago? "I don't want to abolish government," he declared. "I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub." That's the anti-government nihilist position.
You might not think that those two goals could coexist comfortably within a single party. And of course, you'd be right if you were talking about an ordinary American political party. But the Republicans are no longer an ordinary party. In many respects, in fact, they have become the however-fractious sole property of one Donald J. Trump. That former and quite possibly (God forbid) future president has no trouble simultaneously advocating contradictory, not to mention devastating, ideas. That's because, for him, ideas are an entirely fungible currency that he deploys primarily to maintain the attention and adulation of his and it is increasingly his alone GOP "base." And precisely because Trump has so little invested in actual policy, the right wing believes he's a weapon they can point and shoot in whatever direction they choose.
You might also wonder why, at a moment when horror is being heaped on horror in Israel/Palestine, when wars continue unabated in Ukraine and Sudan, I find myself focusing on some distinctly in-the-weeds aspects of the American political system. Perhaps it's partly to distract myself from all the other nightmares around us. But even if I believed (which I don't) that the right response to the crisis in Israel/Palestine involved sending more weapons and money to Benjamin Netanyahu, Congress isn't in a position to appropriate anything at the moment.
Just as we face so many crises globally, the legislative branch of the world's (theoretically) most powerful country has ceased to function. Perhaps by the time you read this, Republicans in the House of Representatives will have stopped squabbling over which right-wing bigot should be speaker. Maybe they will have opted for Jim Jordan, who has accused the Biden administration of planning to replace white voters with immigrants, or perhaps someone else entirely. Remember, too, that whatever joker emerges as speaker from such a chaotic process will be second in line to the presidency, should something happen to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
Fearsome Power
Recently, I've somehow managed to end up on a few right-wing email lists. The strangest people (Ron DeSantis, for example) are writing to ask me for money. My most recent supplicant was Stephen Miller, former senior adviser to President Trump and co-author, with Steve Bannon, of Trump's 2017 inaugural address in which the new president inveighed darkly against the "American carnage" he saw defiling the nation's landscape. These days, Miller is himself a president of something called the America First Legal Foundation, which bills itself as "Fighting Back against lawless executive actions and the Radical Left."
Miller, it turns out, has written to let me know that "we are living in extremely perilous times and a truly dangerous moment for our Republic." As it happens, I agree with him, though obviously not for the same reasons. "The federal bureaucracy has turned against the American people," Miller's missive continues. "It has been completely corrupted into an ideological monolith of hard-left loathing for America. The fearsome power [his emphasis] of the state is raining down on political dissidents, while violent and vile criminals are released into our communities." The solution, of course, is to send money to America First Legal, so it can get on with the business of "Fighting Back against lawless executive actions."
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