When Bad Parties Go Worse

​A friend wrote me last night and asked, “Am I just a clueless cockeyed optimist for thinking we've actually reached a turning point, and the two Justins, and that army of kids and mothers, and the women who've had their bodily autonomy turned over to red state legislatures, and the students who don't want their libraries placed off limits, and the voters who in the ABC Ipsos poll this morning gave Trump a 25% favorable / 75% unfavorable rating are going to read the last rites to the right.”

What leaped out from this is not what you would expect.  That’s because this friend is someone I regularly have to talk down from the ledge whenever the Republican Party looks like it might be gaining support or is doing well in an action.  So, first of all, I would never describe him as a clueless cockeyed optimist.  Even if he got cast in a gender-blind production of South Pacific as ‘Nellie Forbush.”  So, for him to ask such a thing was stunning.

And second, no, I don’t think he is wrong.  Though with a caveat.  I don’t think we’ve necessarily reached a turning point, but (and perhaps this is sort of semantics, though it’s different), I think we’ve reached a point, as the Republican Party inexplicably triples down on fascism, where enough galled Independents and moderate Republicans are slipping from being able to support the GOP that the Republican Party is facing the risk of being swamped in 2024.

Interestingly, much as I wish Democrats had kept control of the House, just yesterday I was thinking that for all the hell it’s creating, it might have been the best thing for democracy that Republicans won the House, which not only emboldened them but also Republican state houses into – for some insane reason – thinking they had a mandate, while also freaking out that they didn’t do as well as they anticipated, and as a result they’re tripling down on their worst, horrific instincts and showing the public who the Republican Party really is. 

(To clarify, by “might have been the best thing for democracy,” I mean that it showed the public quicker who the GOP is than would like have happened if Democrats kept control of the House in 2022.)

I’m not going to reiterate all the many deep-fascist, inexplicable actions Republicans have taken in the past month or two – not just deep-fascist, but against what all polls clearly show the vast majority of Americans support.  My friend mentioned many of them, but also things like banning books, making it a felony for a parent to take their child out of state to get an abortion where it’s legal, removing the need to have a permit or training to carry a gun in public, passing a law where the state legislature can replace a D.A. who does something they don’t like, banning drag performers reading stories to children, having its party leader call for defunding the FBI and Department of Justice (who are both investigating him), discussing impeaching a liberal judge the day she was elected, letting the federal government investigate a local D.A. because he indicted someone they didn’t wanted indicted, and considering closing down all libraries in a Texas county because a federal judge required it re-shelve 12 books the county had banned.  And so much more.  And more.

The short version:  I think the GOP is having a mass nervous breakdown.

I thought Trump at 34% approval in the CNN poll last week was awful.  But now we have an IPSOS poll that has his approval at 25%.  So, what this means is we have is a party that is tripling down in support of a guy who lost the presidency, has a 25% approval and has already been indicted and is facing other investigations and a rape trial.  And seem to have decided that this is the hill they want to die on.

I think the GOP is having a mass nervous breakdown.

And unless they have an intervention, it’s only going to get worse.