Governing for Dummies®
A unified theory of Republican politics
Jeffrey Denny
It’s vexing:
The mainstream professional media seems mystified that the Republican Party stands for so many outrageous positions and policies.
To me, it’s simple: This is not your grandfather’s GOP.
Today’s Republicans have no choice but to behave in a way that would outrage your conservative grandparents who believed that decency and comity were the glue of society and democracy.
Here’s why:
As America becomes less white, religious, and conservative among the new gens, the GOP faces an existential crisis more urgent to it than climate change. They’re running out of Republicans!
In desperation to remain relevant, the GOP is doubling down on its loud, proud, Trump-loving MAGA base.
They animated the MAGA monster, we all know, by rigging the system through decades of gerrymandering safe party seats, suppressing opposition votes, inciting fake culture wars and racial division, and other political hook and crook that would make Nixon blush with pleasure.
The strategy worked so well it Frankensteined the party. And now the MAGAs, while a distinct minority, are running the country. Even though many can barely run their own lives.
Thus, the unified theory of today’s Republican Party is Governing for Dummies.
The GOP needs to do whatever possible, however degrading to The Honorable Senators and Representatives or destructive to our republic, to bow and scrape to the dumbest Americans.
These are the reckless, feckless numbskulls who spread Covid deaths including their own, rioted on J6, scream hate at Trump rallies, rant on Facebook in first-grade English about the stupid libs, and declare Tucker Carlson tells the only real truth.
The GOP’s Governing for Dummies strategy may be a grotesque distortion of Gandhi’s, “There goes my people. I must follow them, for I am their leader.”
But it answers every question about why the GOP, to quote Jeff Greene in Curb Your Enthusiasm, stands for a big bowl of wrong.
For instance:
Why do Republicans keep threatening to destroy the US economy with brinksmanship about defaulting on our debt?
Because MAGA dummies knee-jerk hate government. Even though many depend on government, face the fewest regulations, pay the least in taxes, and barely understand how it works. Most couldn’t pass the civics test that the immigrants they hate fly through.
Why is Ron DeSantis?
Because MAGA dummies hate cancel culture except to cancel culture they don’t understand; e.g., books and history. Many are proud to be uneducated because education makes you liberal; i.e., stupid.
MAGA dummies also demand the right to cancel the rights of their fellow Americans who are LGBTQ+, especially if they demand their rights.
Bear in mind that DeSantis governs Florida, the People’s Republic of MAGA Dummies.
Why is Donald Trump?
Because MAGA dummies are racist, misogynist, nativist, angry, resentful, blaming, and thin-skinned victim bullies like Trump. Although without Trump’s privileged background or billions.
Why did the Republican audience at the CNN Town Hall laugh when Trump mocked his rape victim?
Because the MAGA dummies who did are the dregs of society. They don’t care about sexual abuse if it doesn’t happen to them or their loved ones.
Why do Republicans human traffic refugees by rounding them up and dropping them off in Democratic towns?
Because heartless MAGAs get a kick out it. Hilarious prank!
Why are Republicans threatening reproductive freedom against the wishes of most Americans?
Because MAGA dummies, who hate government intrusion, are too dim to realize they’re giving government awesome power to invade and dictate our personal lives.
MAGA Dummies only care about their First Amendment freedom to insult people they hate without a punch in the nose. Or the Second Amendment freedom to amass AR-15s for fun, paranoia, and other self-serving spin they parrot from slick NRA PR ghouls without concern about the slaughter of children.
Few MAGAs have clue about the rest of the Constitution.
Finally, why doesn’t the professional mainstream media follow the power and call out the MAGA minority that’s destroying our country?
Because real journalists (versus the Koch-funded propagandist posers) are taught to blame politicians not the people who elected them.
But before we lose our republic, the real media needs to stop giving the poor MAGAs a pass and call them out for using their inordinate power to make America worse.
Jeffrey Denny is a Washington writer and former journalist.
