Party of fools

Yesterday, we learned that one of Mark Meadows pen pals during the January 6 assault on the Capitol was Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. The Washington Post got copies of 29 texts that show Thomas and Meadows were determined to overturn the outcome of the election. Thomas urged Meadows to “Help This Great President stand firm, Mark!!!” Meadows described the effort as a “fight between good and evil.” For my part, I just have a hard time believing people this stupid have this much power. 

Thomas is a right wing activist who attended the Stop the Steal rally that preceded the assault on the Capitol. The texts also show that Thomas believed and spread falsehoods about the election. She shared a video made by a guy who called the Sandy Hook a massacre a false flag event, telling Meadows, “I hope this is true.” She urged Meadows to listen to right-wing hucksters like Rush Limbaugh, Dan Bongino, and Mark Steyn. She considered people like Louie Gohmert, Paul Gosar, and Jim Jordan to be the ones standing up, instead of just standing out. She supported the loony theories of Sydney Powell, texting Meadows, “Release the Kraken!” 

There’s a lot of disturbing stuff in those emails. She was clearly discussing the situation with her husband, Clarence Thomas, who she referred to as “my best friend”, for his part, was the only Justice to dissent in the Supreme Court’s decision to force Trump to turn over documents relating to January 6. Meadows clearly saw the battle as a religious war for the soul of the country. But I just can’t get my head around how stupid these people are. And I can’t understand why so many Republicans are standing with them.

 I’ve always believed the right-wing media clowns were playing to an ignorant and largely uneducated GOP base that’s easily manipulated. I thought that most of the GOP leadership just cynically stood by them to exploit their grievance-driven votes. These emails tell a different story. Here’s a woman who runs among the GOP elite believing all of the crazy. She IS the establishment.

How can any thinking person look at someone like Louie Gohmert or Paul Gosar and not see a clown? How can anybody with a sense of worldliness listen to Donald Trump and not know that he’s full of shit? And if some Republicans DO see through the BS, why aren’t they calling for accountability? 

 The only conclusion I can come to is that all of the so-called Reagan Revolution was a ruse–or, at the very least, is lost. It was based on a demand for personal accountability, a respect for institutions, a belief in free markets, and a commitment to democracy. All of that is gone from Republican Party.

Today, nobody in the GOP wants anyone held accountable. The personal accountability mantra of the late twentieth century only applied to poor people, especially people of color. The reverence for institutions only went so far as the institution of the evangelical church. Free markets were fine until they sent working class jobs overseas. And spreading democracy only applied to imposing it on countries that didn’t have it. 

There’s no ideological underpinning of the modern GOP other than holding power. They’ve ceded any intellectual foundation to the likes of Mark Meadows and Ginni Thomas. If they aren’t held accountable, they, or people like them, will be back. It’s truly unbelievable. A party of fools.