Rot of the GOP starts with the voters

That was some show in the House of Representatives. Where do those yahoos come from, asked many Greenwichites. We’ll save the policy post-mortem for later but today, let’s acknowledge that what happened in the House Speaker Farce is a direct result of our collective tolerance and accommodation of a one-and-thesame MAGA/Republican party, plus one unassailable truth. That the clowns in Washington didn’t just appear out of thin air, the voters put them there. Walt Kelly and Pogo once said, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” And right now, like it or not, the Republican Party is the MAGA Party and MAGA is us.

How so?

Two former chairmen of the Greenwich Republican Town Committee recently implored us in print to ignore what we see with our own eyes: that the Republican electorate has changed. Here’s a news flash, local Republican candidates weren’t trounced, smashed, or otherwise humiliated in the last election. Those losers came thisclose to winning most races because thousands of Greenwichites liked what the Patriot and Freedom zealots were selling, despite the pearl-clutching of our Republican Town Committee ex-chairs.

In Colorado, the Denver Post editorial board sternly warned unrepentant traitor and Congresswoman Lauren Boebert, “We’re looking at you.” Unfortunately, their attempt to hold Boebert accountable misses the bigger point. Like so many in punditry, those editors never say what really needs to be said: that we’re looking at all of you, the voters, who must also be held accountable for continuing to endorse and enable politicians like Boebert.

Very serious people refer to the Republican Party as being rotten at the core, but it’s actually rotten throughout. Saying just the core is rotten makes it easy to blame only high-profile extremists for the Dumpster fire Republicans have lit, and absolves the phantom “moderate” politicians and voters who are happy to stand back and watch it burn with their silence and appeasement. The rot starts with the voters, who have seen the treachery, corruption, stupidity and disregard for the democratic norms this country was founded on, and decides to vote for it anyway.

Sidebar: Lost during the Speakership Farce were revelations of Donald Trump’s personal sock puppet Hope Hicks and her Jan. 6, 2021 text conversation with another White House crony. “We all look like domestic terrorists” she whines, as they commiserate about not being able to get jobs, book deals or even speaking engagements, except maybe to the Kalamazoo Proud Boys.

Good. Even the worst agents and publicists know when it’s time to cut and run from their misbehaving clients, but the Trump staffers? They traitorously enabled the on-going debasing of a nation and for what? Book deals? A Fox News job? Hicks, along with any other member of that White House crime syndicate, should have to endure a lifetime of stares, whispers and finger-pointing shame anytime they try to get a job or even a seat at a decent restaurant.

But back to our main topic: Millions of Americans recently voted for people they know are dangerous, treasonous or simply ill-equipped to serve. And they do it for reasons that too often go undiscussed in polite society: that they are also terrible people. Their “economic insecurity” is a red herring. “Owning the libs” is a sham. Even their co-opting of “Freedom!” is a ploy. Voters vote for awful candidates because they agree with them, both in Greenwich and nationwide. Which is why our former RTC chairmen have it all wrong. The problem isn’t the current local Republican leadership who, as it turns out, are actually a pretty good representation of what a near majority of Greenwich Republicans actually believe.

We have met the Republican Party and it’s the MAGA Party. A regressive Taliban-like party unconcerned with bettering the lives of its constituents, but more interested in using culture war issues to destroy democratic institutions through political corruption where possible, or with violence if necessary. We know this because we can see it. But like editorial boards that only hold politicians accountable, and RTC chairs who desperately wish it was still 1980, we’re blind to the reality that Republican voters, the ultimate enablers of the rot, aren’t looking for moderation, they’re willing accomplices in the chaos.