However you measure modern political history, the media's unwritten rule of politics during this era has been to allow the Republican party to get away with this bit of legerdemain. Everyone understood that, starting with the Powell Memo and Nixon's Southern Strategy, the base of the party was going to be comprised largely of bigots and imbeciles -- Archie Bunker chumps who listened to Limbaugh and watched Fox News.
Ah, but the thin, outer shell of the party would be a candy-coated carapace of respectable front men and women who would not embarrass themselves on "Meet the Press", would know which wine paired with what at Beltway cocktail parties, and wouldn't run screaming into the night for fear choosing the wrong Italian meat for their sammich.
And for as long as I can remember, it has been the job of the media to pretend that the latter was the Republican party...and, despite being the overwhelming majority within the party -- the mob without which Republicans would never win another election -- it was also the media's corollary job to pretend the former did not exist at all, and to mock anyone who said otherwise as unserious kooks and alarmist crackpots.
That was it. That was the job. Denigrate Democrats as out-of-touch snobs, laud Republicans as sensible and sober and, when this gigantic hoax inevitably had a containment breach -- when the crazy got out of the lab and into the world for all to see -- it was time to double down on the Both Sides Do It lie to calm the public and reassure them that, however bad things looked at the moment, Democrats were somehow worse.
My quote searching kung fu has not been sufficient to locate the exact quote, but I distinctly remember, after Trump won and the MAGA lunacy had kicked the doors entirely off the lab and were (and are) abroad in the land, hearing one or more freshly-former Republican ad men or spokescritters -- maybe Michael Steele, maybe Stuart Steven, maybe Steve Schmidt, but most likely Rick Wilson --- saying words to the effect that of course they knew wide swaths of the Republican base were bigots and loons, but that was irrelevant. Not their department. Their job was to get their guy elected, period. And to do that they needed to fire the base up enough to put shoes on, get out of their La-Z-Boys, and get to the polls, all bug-eyed and furious, on election day. Then shut them back in the basement or attic until next time.
That's how little thought they gave to the toxic waste they were storing in leaky barrels directly under our democracy. How little thought they gave to doomsday machine they were building, or to what the consequences would be if containment failed completely.
And then, one day, Donald Trump showed up, swept right past the respectable front men and women, the handlers, the ad men, the complicit media and told they base they didn't have to be ashamed anymore. That it was, in fact, a great and glorious thing to shout their racism, misogyny, homophobia and batshit conspiracies from the rooftops.
He shut the containment down.
And that was all it took for the thin, outer shell of Republican respectability to disintegrate almost overnight. Shown up as the political equivalent of the "whited sepulchres" of Matthew 23:27 --
“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.”
-- as the real Republican party emerged fully into the light.
And you'll never guess what? That real, emergent Republican party looks exactly like the Republican party about which Liberals had been sounding the alarm for decades, and for which we were dismissed as unserious kooks and alarmist crackpots. Which is why we all have op-ed columns in all the major newspaper now, and, when we can get away from our top-rated, well-funded and heavily promoted podcasts, we try to find time between that and our book tours to hop on MSNOW where we are tirelessly congratulated for being right about the Right all along.
Honestly it's too much! You're embarrassing us!
Meanwhile, back in the real world, we come now to the today's object lesson in containment failure.
Meet Jeremy Carl.
Who is Jeremy Carl?
Great question! This is from one dingy wing of the GOP's policy abattoir.
Jeremy Carl is a Senior Fellow at the Claremont Institute, where his primary focus is on immigration, multiculturalism, and nationalism in America.
Prior to joining Claremont, Jeremy worked for a decade as a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, serving as a policy advisor to many national political figures. While at Hoover, U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz praised his “mastery of subject matter” and “ability to write comprehensively and with clarity.”
And right now Jeremy Carl is up for an important job in the United States State Department. But it looks like maybe he won't get that job. And do you know why? From The Rolling Stone:
Trump Nominee Crumbles When Pressed on White Nationalist Posts
Jeremy Carl is the president's pick for a top State Department position, but his confirmation prospects aren't looking good.
Donald Trump last summer nominated Jeremy Carl to lead the Bureau of International Organizations. It’s a top position in the State Department, acting as the primary nexus between the U.S. government and several international organizations like the United Nations, and requires Senate confirmation. Carl served in Trump’s first administration and is now a fellow at the Claremont Institute, a conservative think tank. He’s also a prolific poster with a long history of espousing white nationalism, antisemitism, solidarity with the Jan. 6 rioters, and other extreme viewpoints.
Carl sat before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday, which is weighing whether to confirm him to the key diplomatic position the president wants him to hold. Senators pressed Carl on his social media posts. It did not go well.
Here’s one exchange between Carl and Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Ct.), for example:
Murphy: “Tell me how you define white identity and what you think has been erased about white identity
Carl: “Certain types of, umm, Anglo, uhh, derived culture that comes from our history…”
Murphy: “Like what?”
Carl: “Umm, let me think about this. Uhhh, you know, senator, I would say if you were to look at the book by one of your Senate colleagues Born Fighting about the sort of Scotch-Irish military culture and certain, you know, pride that went with that, that would be one example. Obviously, you could have sub-elements of that culture. You could have Italians, you could have Irish…”
Murphy: “But you’re now retreating to ethnic identity. You don’t speak about ethnic identity. You speak about white identity. So tell me the values that stitch together white identity, that make it different than Black identity.”
Carl: “I would say the white church is very different than the Black church in terms of its tone and style, on average. Food ways could often be different. Music could be different.”
Murphy: “And those are being erased?”
Carl: “Well, if you look at the Super Bowl halftime show, which was not in English…”
Murphy: “Our ability to access white churches or white food or white music is being erased?”
Carl then said that mass immigration has “Balkanized” what he described as “common American culture,” that this weakens America and that he won’t apologize for his comments on the issue...
1 comment:
I heard the excerpt of his Q&A. Not only is he a ball-less poltroon, he doesn't seem particularly bright and no-where in the neighborhood of eloquent. Which leads one to wonder just what does it take to be a fancy senior fellow and a research fellow and policy advisor? Did he get his degrees out of a Cracker Jack box?
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