This is the Republican Party
Madison Cawthorn is a twenty-six year old freshman Republican congressman who got elected, (a) because he is young and handsome, (b) because he is in a wheelchair, (c) because he lied during his election campaign about how he was on his way to the Naval Academy before the accident that crippled him (in fact, as he was later forced to admit, he was rejected by the Naval Academy before his accident, probably — just my guess — because they judged him too stupid and compliant to be officer material), and (d) because he proved that no mere physical disability can stop a devoted Christian patriot from serving on Donald Trump’s team of ring-kissing shoeshine boys.
Today, I see that Adam Kinzinger, about whom I know almost nothing except that he is one of the tiny handful of elected Republicans who had the decency to throw his political fate (and his family’s dinner invitation) to the winds by daring to publicly deny that Trump is the Son of God, has announced that he will not seek reelection due to the “cancer” in the Republican Party. Just to clarify, for the uninitiated, which cancer he is referring to, here is Congressman Cawthorn’s Twitter comment about Kinzinger’s reelection bid prior to his withdrawal:
“If you fight the MAGA agenda I will make it my life’s mission to primary the hell out of you & throw you out of Congress,” Cawthorn tweeted. “Little Adam couldn’t stand up to his constituency’s anger & my endorsement of his opponent.”
First, notice that the comment is, true to cult form, framed and issued as a social media rant. Second, notice the hyperbolic, vitriolic, and end-times tone of the attack — “my life’s mission,” “primary the hell out of you,” “throw you out.” Third, notice the girlishness of the mocking nickname — “Little Adam,” as if Kinzinger’s physical stature puts him at a disadvantage in manhood next to Cawthorn, who is currently in the process of proving himself to be a textbook example of a wee man. Fourth, notice the all too familiar attempt to aggrandize his own personal power while hiding behind a mob at the very same time — “his constituency’s anger & my endorsement of his opponent” — which is a Trumpian pseudo-tough-guy trademark. (That ampersand is very revealing, as Cawthorn tries as hard as he can to hide the fact that he is merely the tagalong threat here, though pretending to be the front man.) Fifth, notice that the man being derided for his smallness has already proved himself, on the standards that Cawthorn and his supporters believe in, to be a giant next to Cawthorn, who lied about being rejected by the Naval Academy while Kinzinger was serving as an actual officer in the actual United States Air Force and flying actual missions, including two actual deployments in the actual Iraq. And, sixth, of course, notice that the whole Twitter rant is about defending “the MAGA agenda.”
What, I ask to all the Trump idolaters out there for the millionth pointless time, is “the MAGA agenda”? It is nothing, of course. Or it is nothing but love of Donald Trump, worship for the dumbest man ever to serve as head of state of an advanced country, and lust for the protective populist power of money and vulgarity in the form of “Daddy,” as Milo Yiannopoulos had the honesty to label Trump in 2016.
This is the Republican Party today: pathetic, incompetent, stupid, thuggish, and in thrall to absolute ignorance.
Please, please someone wake the fifty million who cannot drag themselves out of the American establishment’s binary choice hypnosis, and shake them by the collar until they understand that today, a Republican is not better than a Democrat, a Republican-controlled congress is not better than a Democrat-controlled one, and a Republican demagogue with a cult of personality is not better than a Democrat tool of progressives. If those fifty million cannot wake up to this reality now, then there is no hope for them, because the truth will never be more obvious than it is at this moment. Madison Cawthorn is just Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for “right-wing” populists, as his leash-holder is just the authoritarian preference of people who believe (deludedly) that they are “against the socialists.”
