It sure looks that way to me, too.
“The Republican National Committee is welcoming … Mike Lindell into the fold … despite his continuing baseless claims that foreign powers stole the 2020 election from Donald Trump by hacking into voting machines and his post-coup-attempt visit to the White House with papers advocating martial law,” Huffington Post reported on Monday, January 30, 2023 (read story here).
Mac Stipanovich, an ex-GOP consultant, describes Lindell as an unhinged lunatic “crazier than a sprayed roach,” adding the RNC’s “embrace of Lindell … is a sure sign of advanced, irremediable moral decay.” I don’t disagree.
Of course, you don’t need a GOP insider to tell you that; you only need to read the news. For example, this Guardian article reporting that after the hammer attack on Paul Pelosi in his home, “prominent rightwingers including Donald Trump Jr., the Fox News host Tucker Carlson, the Tesla and Twitter owner Elon Musk and Republican members of Congress including Ted Cruz and Marjorie Taylor Greene eagerly spread jokes, misinformation and conspiracy theories.” Now that’s just plain sick.
So what happened to the Grand Old Party? I can’t say for sure, because I don’t know any Republicans personally. We have one in my neighborhood who drives past school bus stops where parents are picking up young children with a big “F*** Biden” flag flying from his pickup truck; but I don’t ask him why he does that, I only give him wide-eyed, jaw-dropping stares. I’m not even sure I want to know.
What the GOP’s moral collapse suggests to me is the demographics of the party have changed. Old-time Republicans wore suits, owned businesses, belonged to the Chamber of Commerce, and volunteered through organizations like the Rotary or Boy Scouts. They’ve been displaced by uncouth individuals like the one described above, kind of like algae taking over a pond.
And when that’s who a political party’s supporters are, the party itself becomes like them. That’s the best explanation I can think of.
