The GOP zombie: Why the media refuses to let the myth of a "good" Republican die
The mainstream media is desperately trying to "save" the Republican Party from Donald Trump and the neofascist MAGA movement. Of course, this is an extreme challenge given how the so-called traditional and responsible Republican Party that the mainstream news media idolizes and romanticizes has not existed – if it ever truly did – for decades.
Today's Republican Party is a fascist zombie. It cannot be healed.
Some of the news media's most prominent outlets continue to engage in reputation laundering by allowing prominent Trump regime members and other Republican fascists and related figures a platform in the name of "fairness" and "balance".
Too many among the mainstream news media continue to advance Republican talking points and false narratives that for example, Donald Trump's upcoming criminal trials are about "election interference" – which sounds like partisan sniping — instead of the reality that the ex-president and his cabal attempted a coup to end democracy.
The Republican fascists in Congress have launched investigations into President Biden and his administration based on lies and false claims about non-existent crimes and other improprieties. The Republican fascists in Congress have even gone so far as to announce plans to impeach President Biden for non-existent high crimes as a way of getting revenge for Trump's criminal indictments and two impeachments. Again, the mainstream news media largely refuses to explain directly and clearly how this is an attempt by the Republican fascists and their allies to delegitimate and undermine the systems of accountability that were correctly applied to Donald Trump.
Too many in the mainstream news media are also treating Hunter Biden's alleged crimes (Hunter Biden held no government position of authority and is being charged with minor financial crimes) as somehow being remotely similar to Donald Trump's coup plot and attempt to become a fascist dictator for life, which involved a terrorist attack by the ex-president's followers on the Capitol. There is no evidence that President Biden has done anything illegal, wrong or inappropriate beyond showing care and concern for his troubled son.
The American news media also discusses President Biden's health and age as being of an equivalent concern to Donald Trump. Biden is by all accounts mentally and physically healthy for his age.
By comparison, Donald Trump, who himself is 77 years old, has shown through his public and private behavior that he has a diseased mind and is likely a sociopath if not an outright psychopath. Trump also appears to be morbidly obese, does not exercise, and has a horrible diet that consists mostly of fast food.
One of the most dangerous and irresponsible behaviors by the mainstream media in this moment of democracy crisis, is the years-long quest to find "responsible" and "sensible" Republicans, those "adults in the room" who will save the party from its worst behavior and instincts. Few if any such responsible and good leaders exist in today's Republican Party, what is a neofascist, de facto criminal, and white supremacist organization and political personality cult that is controlled by Donald Trump. By definition, people of good character have left the Republican Party in protest against what it has become in the Age of Trump.
In a widely read essay at Salon, Rich Logis, who is a former Republican MAGA Trump propagandist, summarized how the mainstream news media is desperately bending over backwards and into other contortions to level the playing field between the Republican fascists and the Democratic Party:
This endless "what to do?" cycle probably partly explains why centrist and left-of-center media is so concerned with the "who will save the GOP?" question.
But whether the GOP can actually be saved is a question the center-left press mostly avoids, likely because prominent media outlets largely consumed by Democrat-leaning readers are internally obsessed, in their boardrooms and editorial rooms, with proving that they're objective and free of "liberal bias."
Second, the centrist and left-center press analyzes the GOP voter base through an outside-looking-in lens. Its perspective is abstract and faux-scientific. Those reporters and editors have not lived a right-wing, politically traumatizing, mythological, fantastical, hysterical and paranoid existence. Members of the adult press have never consumed the nectar of the Republican Party's false prophets, from Ronald Reagan to Trump; they have merely observed others imbibing it. Viewing Republican primary voters from the outside is like looking through a filthy, smeared window; no matter how smart you are, you can't clearly see what's on the other side. …
Perhaps man's most quixotic delusion is that we can save someone, or something; I am not speaking here of faith but of our earthly endeavors. Our centrist and left-center press, important and necessary as it is, is being led far astray by its hopeless fantasy of saving the GOP.
A recent news analysis at the Washington Post is a particularly noteworthy example of the mainstream news media's dangerous and desperate attempts to save and rehabilitate the Republican Party in the Age of Trump.
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Here, the Washington Post is normalizing the Republican Party and its voters by highlighting the supposed differences between "MAGA Republicans" and "non-MAGA Republicans". Such differences mean little in a political party and movement that is neofascist and attempting to end multiracial pluralistic democracy. As the saying goes, would one like to be shot or electrocuted for their execution? In the end, the outcome is the same.
"7 Ways MAGA Republicans Differ From Other Republicans" begins with:
To start with, polls generally show that 4 to 5 in 10 Republican-leaning voters identify as MAGA. A Grinnell College poll late last year pegged the number at 42 percent. And the Monmouth poll last month showed that 31 percent identify as "strong" MAGA supporters, 21 percent identify as "somewhat" MAGA supporters, and 38 percent don't support MAGA.
The Washington Post highlights these key "differences", which average 20 or so percent points, between MAGA and non-MAGA Republicans:
1. MAGA is more evangelical, conservative
2. MAGA is less wedded to the Republican Party
3. MAGA is more rigid
4. MAGA is much more devoted to Trump
5. MAGA is more extreme on 2020, Jan. 6, news, vaccines — and Putin
There is one outlier:
MAGA Republicans are, as befits their hero, more conspiratorial and extreme.
The Suffolk poll (conducted shortly after Jan. 6) showed 89 percent of Trump-first/MAGA Republicans said Biden wasn't a legitimately elected president, compared to 59 percent of party-first/non-MAGA ones.
Just one-quarter said Jan. 6 was a "riot" or "insurrection" (it was both), compared to more than 4 in 10 party-first/non-MAGA Republicans.
The Washington Post offers this qualifier about the "differences" between MAGA vs. non-MAGA Republicans:
6. Even non-MAGA is falling in line with Trump
The splits in the ways MAGA Republicans and non-MAGA Republicans approach the 2024 election are perhaps unsurprising. But what's interesting is how much even non-MAGA Republicans are falling in line behind Trump.
The Monmouth poll in March showed Trump underwater among non-MAGA Republicans, 39 percent favorable to 48 percent unfavorable. But that result has since flipped, with them now liking Trump 55 percent to 34 percent.
Over that span, Trump has turned a 33-19 deficit against DeSantis among non-MAGA Republicans in a crowded field into a slight 24-19 advantage.
A majority of non-MAGA Republicans now say Trump is probably the party's strongest general election candidate, while only 29 percent saying DeSantis would be stronger.
Needless to say, if Trump is winning non-MAGA Republicans, he is going to win the nomination.
As one would expect from the Washington Post, this news analysis piece is factually correct. But here is the complication: context and implications matter if we are to better understand the complex nature of the country's democracy crisis, the Republican Party and neofascist movement's role in it, and why the crisis and underlying causes will continue decades into the future unless this version of the Republican Party is destroyed and then replaced by a responsible successor that is committed to real democracy, the Constitution, reality, facts, and the rule of law.
The problems with "7 Ways MAGA Republicans Differ From Other Republicans" (which are representative of the news media more generally) are in many ways captured by the cover image above the story, which is that of a stereotypical and almost caricatured white Trump voter.
The MAGA voter in question is a white woman with apparent dental problems who is wearing a red Trump hat and whose habitus signals "white working class" or "hillbilly" white rural voter. The image is what a poorly trained AI program would spit out if given such a prompt.
In reality, the median household income of Trump primary voters in 2016 was 72,000 dollars a year, which is well above the national average. Trump's support spans all income and educational levels – although it is strongest among so-called white "working class" voters and independents without college degrees who live in rust belt and red state America. Many Trump supporters – never mind the donors and members of the political and activist class — are upper-income professionals who live in affluent areas and blue states such as Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey.
The Washington Post news analysis begins by discussing Vice President Mike Pence and how he is representative of the supposed MAGA vs. non-MAGA Republican divide. To begin with Pence is very powerful and telling – in ways likely not intended by the Washington Post. Pence did his constitutional duty on Jan. 6 by certifying the Electoral College votes. But even though Trump and his MAGA attack force threatened Pence's life, he still publicly supports the treasonous ex-president and has publicly pledged his loyalty to him. For Pence and other Republican Party leaders, loyalty to Trump and the fascist MAGA movement is more important than loyalty to the country and the Constitution and its democracy. Pence is almost quite literally the human embodiment of how the Republican Party and its voters are willing, eager, and hungry submissives for Donald Trump and the neofascist MAGA movement.
Public polls and other research are showing that Trump's criminal indictments are finally beginning to weaken his support by small to moderate amounts (from single digits up to the low double digits) among so-called more "traditional" Republican and right-leaning independents who have not pledged full fealty to the MAGA political cult. But the larger trend and picture of Trump's support from Jan. 6 to the present is one where he is still the preferred candidate of the party and its voters by huge margins (he leads DeSantis by approximately 40 percentage points depending on the poll). Republican voters still largely support the Jan. 6 coup attempt and Trump's other attacks on democracy and the rule of law.
Polling and other research shows that a majority of Republican voters believe that Trump is innocent of his obvious crimes and is somehow being unfairly prosecuted by "the Democrats" and a "weaponized Department of Justice and 'deep state'".
Polling also shows that if Donald Trump is convicted of his crimes for Jan. 6 and attempt to end democracy, a majority of Republicans do not believe that he should be seriously punished – if at all.
Coloring any conversation about how Trump voters are supposedly different from non-MAGA Republicans is how decades of conditioning by their leaders and other influentials in the right-wing echo chamber propaganda machine have trained Republican and other right-wing voters that Democrats, liberals, and progressives are not just people they can reasonably disagree with, but are instead subhuman vermin, who are evil and "anti-Christian", "communists" and "socialists", and generally "un-American" and therefore need to be eradicated.
This training is so powerful that even if a given Republican voter does not like Trump, they still prefer his policies and view Biden and the Democrats as an existential and directly personal threat. In such a scenario, many so-called "traditional" or "conservative" Republicans will likely still support the criminal ex-president.
A fixation on public opinion polls and granular differences between MAGA and non-MAGA Republicans exemplifies many of the larger institutional failings by the news media and larger political class such as horse race coverage, an obsession with political personalities and beltway gossip, access journalism, bothsidesism, "fairness" and "objectivity", and other habits and norms which are obsolete in the Age of Trump and this moment of ascendant neofascism and democracy crisis.
In order to defeat the neofascist movement, the mainstream news media needs to unapologetically embrace pro-democracy journalism. Part of that commitment involves highlighting the institutions and political machinery that birthed the Age of Trump.
Katherine Stewart, who is the author of the book "The Power Worshippers" and a contributing writer at The New Republic, explained to me via email how:
This is where labels can sometimes get in the way. Most of the labels we have to describe the anti-democratic movement in America are demographic labels that pinpoint people by their religious and/or political affiliation. We talk about "evangelicals" and Christian nationalists, for example, as forming the largest part of the base of the Christian Right.
It would be a mistake, however, to overlook the role of big money in building the movement over five decades, as well as in shaping its agenda and impact. A cohort of conservative evangelicals, for example, may be the single largest demographic bloc within the Christian Right. But the money that has turned them into supporters of Trumpism, in many cases, comes from individuals and groups that don't necessarily have religious goals as their primary purpose.
The funders of the reactionary right often have largely economic and ideological goals distinct from the animating culture war issues of the base. And yet they have been instrumental in driving the movement forward and lining it up with the Republican party.
Much of the money comes from folks who are not remotely fundamentalist or biblical literalist. So I think it is helpful, when analyzing the rise of an antidemocratic movement in America, to distinguish between the leaders and the followers, the funders and those to whom the messaging is directed.
This isn't just a matter of some white working class people getting worked up. The funding, the money behind it, is a huge part of the story and comes from a variety of sources, mainly as an effort to mobilize the rank and file for what is implicitly an authoritarian project. The rank and file may not see themselves as authoritarian, but the impact of their support for MAGA would be authoritarian: a state that combines a demagogue with a cronyistic system that serves to strip many people of their rights and consolidate a new elite.
Stewart continues:
Of course, there are many good people who identify as Republican and/or conservative. But the idea that all we need to rein in extremism on the Right is an ethical, if traditional, conservative leader is a bit of wishful thinking. Today's leaders and funders of the reactionary right have created a base of voters who aren't going to go for traditional conservatism. They have invested huge amounts of money in schooling the base in the belief that liberals are all demonic communists and that Trump was chosen by God to rule over this country, and is fighting for them.
I hate to use a broad brush, but I think some sectors of the media system are also in denial — because they've always thrived on the "both sides," "neutral observer" device. It would certainly make life easier for them if they could report on a political contest and stand above the fray. But if one party in a two-party system is dominated by those who are committed to the destruction of democracy, it is time to stop pretending this is business as usual.
And of course, there is the powerful role that racism, racial resentment, white supremacy, and hostile sexism play in determining Trump's support and the political values and decision-making of white Republican voters more generally. Contrary to the narrative advanced by the mainstream news media, the empirical evidence overwhelmingly shows that Trump's MAGA movement is not based on "white working class" angst and rage but on racism and white supremacy and hostility to black and brown people and rejecting a democratic society where white people may have to share power with other Americans across the color line.
For seven years, the American news media has been trying to save and rehabilitate the Republican Party. It has not worked; the Republican Party and "conservative" movement have instead responded by becoming more fascist, authoritarian, violent, and hostile to democracy and freedom and the humane society.
You don't give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a zombie. It never ends well.
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