The GOP’s New Crusade Is Destroying America’s Comeback

The Last Two Years Proved a Different America’s Possible — But the GOP’s Destroying it All Over Again

Image Credit: Bill Pascrell

It’s scarcely been a few days since the GOP took control of America’s House of Representatives — and the chaos, lunacy, and fanaticism’s already begun. There they are, pushing for Trump’s impeachment to be…expunged from the record, in a twist that’d make Orwell proud. And there they are pushing for even more draconian restrictions on women’s healthcare. Over there? An investigation into the persecution of the world’s greatest victims…Republicans. And there, the requisite investigation into Joe Biden.

All of this proves many things. Perhaps the first and foremost being that the Republicans have learned nothing. Despite fanaticism and lunacy being overwhelmingly rejected during the midterms, there the GOP is — doubling down on just those. Americans used the midterms to send a clear signal — solve America’s real problem. Enough of the nonsense — the scapegoating, hate, division, which, the last decade or so has proven, leads nowhere, except to self-inflicted catastrophe like Jan 6th. Get to work.

The GOP is getting back to work — but in the only way it knows how anymore. It’s back to being the party of destroying democracy from within.The first few days of the new Republican House have made it very, very clear what the next two years hold. We’re off to a bad start, at least if you’re interested in democracy and a functioning society. The Republicans are so comically backwards that there are more men named “Mike” chairing committees than there are…women.

The last few days have been an explosion of stupidity par excellence. And such moments are there for a reason: they send signals. For the last few weeks, maybe even months, you might have wondered: is the worst-case scenario really going to hold? Surely the GOP’s going to have learned something this time around. Probably, maybe, we can expect them to — even if reluctantly, even if they barely know how anymore — try to do something constructive.

After all, America’s list of problems isn’t exactly small. Four, five generations experiencing downward mobility and counting. Young people who can’t afford to start independent, adult lives of their own, while “nepo babies” giggle in mansions. A shattering loss of confidence in institutions and between social groups, as the Dream died. A lack of basic public goods, from healthcare to transport to education. Viable career paths drying up faster than the Colorado River, and being replaced by dead-end, go-nowhere “hustles.” On and on the list goes — I’ve barely scratched the surface.

Over the last year or two, something interesting, and something remarkable happened in America. Americans began to change. They learned. That is why the midterms were a repudiation of the kind of negative, hateful politics of the Trump years. Americans learned the hard way that it doesn’t work. Hate and bigotry and lunacy and conspiracy theories might feel good, in the moment, and they might even be a way to rebuild social bonds in all dying communities — but in the end? All they lead to is a worsening of the vicious cycle that produced them, because, of course, you can hurl pitchforks at a scapegoat, even burn them down, but in the end, it’s not going to solve the problem of a failing harvest — just waste your time, energy, and money. Americans learned that lesson, and they used the midterms to tell the GOP that they wanted it to learn that lesson, too. Enough is enough.

But the GOP clearly hasn’t learned anything. When I say anything, I mean that. Let’s take a simple example that many have discussed: Americans are dead set against taking away women’s reproductive freedoms even more, they consider the Supreme Court illegitimate for having done so, repudiating it even in Red States. And yet there’s the GOP…first order of business? Attacking women. Talk about not learning anything.