The GOP is Still the Stupid Party
Trump was defeated, but Republicans still elevate deranged candidates
The worst president in history might have been defeated, but we still have to deal with the GOP, a party that seems to love to elevate the most deranged and ignorant candidates. As I’ve written before, it’s not just Donald Trump that’s the problem. The impeachment process showed that dozens of other GOP legislators were also in the pocket of Russia. And several Republicans support Trump’s quixotic attempt to overturn the election. Sec. of State Mike Pompeo recently talked about a “second Trump term” even as Vice President Joe Biden secured 306 electoral college votes.
Many Republicans don’t “believe” in climate change or the coronavirus. How many more Republicans are going to die because they refuse to “believe” in a disease that’s killed 250,000 Americans in eight months? The latest is Bishop Harry Jackson, a member of Trump’s faith advisory team, who attended super spreader events at the White House, sans mask, even though he was a cancer survivor. He died last week. You would have thought the death of former presidential candidate Herman Cain, who attended a Trump rally in Tulsa and flouted mask rules, would have served as a warning. He was also a cancer survivor.
However, some of the incoming Republican legislators are disturbing:
Marjorie Taylor Greene
Greene is one of the most high-profile idiots who believe in the QAnon conspiracy theory, that suggests a cabal of cannibalistic elites controls the world. Greene has made offensive comments about Muslims, Black people and Latinos.
She’s also a gun nut who was pictured holding an assault rifle and threatening “the Squad,” a group of progressive congresswomen led by Rep. Alexander Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY.) Listening to her rants makes me wonder if she’s running for a gig on AM radio or a spot on FOX News, where her conspiratorial rants would fit right in. But the voters of her conservative district elected her. Greene knows how to get headlines, but she has no idea how to govern. How are you supposed to run the government with people who want to debate reality?
One thing I’ve learned from the last election is that if you’re a Republican running in a conservative district, you’ll get elected no matter how badly you screw up or no matter how stupid you sound.
A good example of the insanity Greene brings to Washington, D.C. was seen on freshman orientation day, where she pushed back on lectures about mask wearing and the coronavirus epidemic. She later tweeted, “Our first session of New Member Orientation covered COVID in Congress,” she tweeted. “Masks, masks, masks…. I proudly told my freshman class that masks are oppressive. In GA, we work out, shop, go to restaurants, go to work, and school without masks. My body, my choice.” She was later pictured wearing a mask.
Lauren Boebert
Like Green, she’s also a QAnon cultist who was elected to a seat in Colorado’s Third District. (Both women have tried to walk back their QAnon ties). She’s a gun fetishist who runs a restaurant where the staff pack heat. She’s also a science denier who values her freedom over her health. She refused to shut down her restaurant, Shooter’s Grill, during the coronavirus, until she was forced to comply. “More recently, Ms. Boebert defied state orders against opening her restaurant until the Garfield County sheriff obtained a cease-and-desist order against her,” said The New York Times.
Madison Cawthorn
At 25, Cawthorn is the youngest member of Congress. He’s a TV-friendly conservative who has far-right views on issues such as abortion and justice. But he’s been dogged by white nationalist problems. He was pictured at the Eagle’s Nest, Adolph Hitler’s compound in Germany, and claimed it was on his bucket list. And more disturbingly, he criticized a journalist for working with “non-white males, like Cory Booker, who aims to ruin white males.”
Cawthorn, who claims he hates racism, also responded to his election by tweeting “Cry more, lib.” During his race, several former college mates accused him of being a sexual predator. He was safely elected in a conservative district.
Tommy Tuberville
Tommy Tuberville is a winning football coach who rode his fame into a senate seat. He has no political experience, but he’s from Alabama, where people love their football, so of course they elected him. (People still haven’t learned their lessons from the Trump years.) But I researched his background and it’s even worse than you think.
After he retired from coaching he got into investing, where he had no experience. Several of his ventures were accused of fraud and filed for bankruptcy, just like Trump. And to top that, Tuberville is aggressively ignorant. “I tell people, my dad fought 76 years ago in Europe to free Europe of Socialism,” said Tuberville in an Alabama Daily News interview. “Today, you look at this election, we have half this country that made some kind of movement, now they might not believe in it 100 percent, but they made some kind of movement toward socialism.” That statement illustrates the depths of his stupidity on multiple levels. He also dismissed the effects of climate change, claiming it won’t affect anyone for 400 years! Try telling that to Californians.
But like the other people listed in this article, Tuberville’s headed to Congress. One thing I’ve learned from the last election is that if you’re a Republican running in a conservative district, you’ll get elected no matter how badly you screw up or no matter how stupid you sound.
Hannibal Lecter could get elected to Congress if he put on a MAGA hat and ran in a conservative district. Meanwhile, the Democrats are fighting amongst themselves about whether to move to the left or be “Republican-lite.” And 60 million Americans thought Trump’s reign of error was a good thing. God help us.
