"The Republican base actively embraces Trump’s grievances; it emulates his pettiness; it supports his childlike inability to accept responsibility. These voters are not sighing in resignation and voting for the lesser of two or three or four evils. They are getting what they want—because they, too, are set on revenge."
"These voters are not settling a political score. Rather, they want to get even with other Americans, their own neighbors, for a simmering (and likely unexpected) humiliation that many of them seem to have felt ever since swearing loyalty to Trump.
A lot of people, especially in the media, have a hard time accepting this simple truth."
"Millions of Americans, stung by the electoral rebukes of their fellow citizens, have become so resentful and detached from reality that they have plunged into a moral void, a vortex that disintegrates questions of politics or policies and replaces them with heroic fantasies of redeeming a supposedly fallen nation."
The electoral rebuke that stung them bitterly was Obama's election.
These voters want chaos. They want cruelty. They want vengeance. They want power-grabs. More than anything, they want a sense that people like them are in control — and people who are not like them are being put back in their place.
"We now have a Republican Party where power, divorced of any cogent, animating policy aims, is king. Spectacle, muscle flexing, reflexive opposition and, most importantly, owning the libs, is the currency of the realm. That dynamic not only allows for no compromise, but makes compromise with Democrats a capital crime —" (continued in /2)
"even when that posture consistently leads to outcomes farther from this hard-right group’s stated goals, since they completely remove themselves from the negotiating table. …
For a party so lacking a coherent worldview, where doling out losses and humiliations and bending the knee to Trump are the only guiding stars, it’s no wonder that basic governing has become impossible."
"Swatting increases in a declining democracy because it is what chaos agents do: it is the equivalent of the information warfare tactic of 'flooding the zone with shit,' to quote Steve Bannon."
"The goals are to debase the truth (is this a real emergency, or a fake one?), expose the swatter’s targets to psychological duress and possible physical harm; smear their reputations; and exhaust the resources of law enforcement officials, who are distracted from other operations and investigations."
"Extremist Republicans today shut down House business by refusing to pass a procedural vote to take up a spending bill, as they had threatened to do in retaliation for the passage yesterday of the continuing resolution to fund the government into the new year."
"This is the fourth time the extremists have defeated special rules in the House this year, and as deputy chief of staff for Representative Don Beyer (D-VA) Aaron Fritschner pointed out, their doing so is highly unusual. In the previous 20 years the House voted down no such measures at all.
Although they were in the middle of a 17-vote series, the Republicans then recessed the House until after Thanksgiving."
"Representative Chip Roy (R-TX) angrily said to his colleagues: 'One thing. I want my Republican colleagues to give me one thing. One. That I can go campaign on and say we did. One! Anybody sitting in the complex, if you want to come down to the floor and come explain to me, one material, meaningful, significant thing the Republican majority has done besides, "Well, I guess it’s not as bad as the Democrats."'"
"I’ve never before seen so many Americans who actually hate America enough to support someone so determined to destroy it. It’s like a family watching their home burn inviting the arsonist standing beside them with gasoline and a lighter to run the Neighborhood Watch."
"The current Republican Party is not a coherent political entity. It’s not even a consortium of interest groups. It’s a toxic mass of self-interest, thriving in a right-wing media ecosystem and driven by a mix of fealty and fear toward an erratic, undisciplined, untethered, and egotistical would-be autocrat."
"Even as Americans watch as the mean-spirited, violence-threatening, authoritarian face of the GOP rears itself, they are being taught a valuable lesson that would never have occurred had Democrats simply done the 'nice' thing—the “expected” thing—as they nearly always do, in keeping Rep. Kevin McCarthy afloat."
"The MAGA party is a pro-chaos party, straight out of Steve Bannon’s playbook. Whatever their name implies they’re about, they have as little to do with making America great again as Trump’s “stop the steal” slogan had to do with protecting election integrity."
"McCarthy thought he could harness forces of disruption. Instead they devoured him.
As far back as 2009, the future House speaker tried to channel the anti-politician, tea-party wave building into a political force, but the movement crushed him."
~ Paul Kane
Destroying is what destroyers do. Unleash those energies, and there's no controlling them.
"When you yoke yourself to an extremist, justifying his threats, his corruption, and even his attempt to overthrow the government, you can't be too surprised when the violent and lawless energies unleashed by that extremist take on momentum. That is what has happened with the GOP, which is in the midst of a spiral of radicalization."
"McCarthy enabled that radicalization by denying the 2020 election results, seeking to obstruct the investigation into the Jan. 6 coup attempt, and then apparently blaming Democrats for the destruction. 'What they did to this institution, what they did to this building, was so wrong,' he declared the other day."
"In a refreshing turn of events, House Republicans are putting on such a dazzling display of self-immolation that many mainstream media outlets have been forced to accurately portray the level of pandemonium these so-called lawmakers have unleashed on the institution they supposedly govern and the country they purportedly serve."
"The Gaetz phenomenon is indicative of a much larger trend within the Republican Party and within the House: the use of emergency measures — the heaviest available political artillery — to thwart majority rule, disrupt democratic institutions and oust political opponents."
~ Jonathan Allen
Put lethal weapons into the hands of malicious children in adult bodies: what could possibly go wrong?
The éminence grise is still there, still scheming and stiring it behind the scenes:
"Representatives Matt Gaetz of Florida, the instigator of the rebellion, and Nancy Mace of South Carolina, one of seven other Republican defectors, huddled with Mr. Bannon for a morning meeting ahead of a joint appearance on his 'War Room' podcast."
"For weeks, Mr. Bannon has been strategizing with Mr. Gaetz on the bid to take down Mr. McCarthy, offering himself up as a sounding board as Mr. Gaetz plotted his moves.
'KABOOM,' Mr. Bannon texted a reporter on Monday night, minutes after Mr. Gaetz filed his long-dangled motion to oust the speaker."
"It is the nature of nihilistic, burn-it-to-the-ground extremists to destroy everything around them, including the very party that once carried them to victory. …
One thing is clear, however: It was Trump, acting behind the scenes by pressing extremists to hold the line against the budget, who is in large part to blame for the destruction of the House GOP caucus."