I interned for both of Kansas’ US senators. This is what I learned about the GOP
This last year, I was an intern for both of Kansas’ U.S. senators, Jerry Moran and Roger Marshall. I had a lot of memorable experiences during my service — and I learned a great deal about politics from these officials, who are on either side of the rift in the GOP.
Washington D.C in September will remind you why it is called the swamp. I showed up on my first day to then-Rep. Marshall’s office an hour early, sweating, and was immediately set loose on our office’s phone lines. My job was to talk to constituents and relay their opinions and needs to our staff and the congressman.
I had spent two weeks answering phone calls and so forth when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died. From the house I was living in, I could see the steps of the Supreme Court through the kitchen window. The next week, I watched as those steps filled up with paintings of Ginsburg, flowers in vases, cards and white lace necklaces.
The city was holding its breath. In Marshall’s office, I rarely saw the congressman because the legislative session was over and he was back in Kansas campaigning for Senate.
After election night the next month, no one knew anything for a few days, except that Donald Trump’s chances were not looking good. I was playing tennis at a public park when the Associated Press called the race for Joe Biden. The city erupted. Buildings emptied of people who flooded the streets to cheer Trump’s loss. Cars stood still as drivers honked their horns over and over and over. Strangers embraced. I could hear fireworks in the distance.
Trump lost, but Marshall won, and on Jan. 6, I walked into the Capitol building to get a COVID-19 test in standard political garb: a suit and tie.
After receiving my test, I figured I would walk down the Capitol steps to enjoy the sunshine. I went out the front doors to see throngs of people with flags and red hats, sporting symbols I didn’t recognize but would later find out are the insignias of racial extremists.
And suddenly, the people in the crowd spied a swamp creature in a suit and tie to focus their anger on. They yelled and screamed at me, telling me they hated me and that they were going to “drain the swamp.” I jog-walked away before two police officers ran over and escorted me off the Capitol grounds.
I stayed home the rest of the day and missed the riot by three hours. Trump’s second impeachment ensued, and I ended my internship in late March.
My experience in Marshall’s and Moran’s offices showed me the rift in the GOP. Moran is associated with the social and fiscal conservatism traditional to the Republican Party, while Marshall has aligned himself with the fiery populist rhetoric of Trumpism.
However, in my few personal experiences with Marshall while I was in his office, he did not act as boisterously as he comes across on social media. I saw him spending nearly every waking moment meeting with Kansans, talking about Kansans or working on behalf of Kansans. The bombastic, Trumpian messaging from his social media always seemed a little ill-fitting for someone clearly very focused on his constituents and crafting potent policy.
Moran is the more socially conservative, establishment senator. He voted to confirm the Electoral College vote, for example, while Marshall voted to challenge it. If you have ever have the chance to meet Jerry Moran, I would highly recommend it. He is intelligent, personally engaging and a genuinely good person. He will often walk from his personal office down to pass by the desks of his staff to say hello, ask how they are, see what’s new in their life and if they had watched season 4 of “Seinfeld” yet. (He is a fan.) Moran is a hard worker. He is not populist or Trumpy in the slightest, having first won his Senate seat in 2010.
Taking my opinion with a grain of salt — I’ve had one year of political experience — it is clear to me that populism is not the way forward. Successful populist politicians have the ability to be unclear or directly wrong in their descriptions of reality by employing their personality, humor or other mechanisms to distract citizens from the truth. And Trump revived populism in the U.S. in a way we haven’t seen before.
About 7% more Americans voted in 2020 than in 2016 according to Pew Research Center. At the same time, according to a study at the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, only 14% of Americans know the rights assured to them in the First Amendment. Populism has increased political engagement without increasing political education. If we continue empowering the most ignorant among us to vote without also increasing civic education, the American electorate is more susceptible to demagoguery.
I do not intend to be elitist or to suppress the vote. I would support 100% of eligible voters voting in our elections if they knew exactly what policies they were voting for. But policy fluency, in a world increasingly informed by the junk food of social media, is impossible. Populism empowers idiots.
Politicians: Please stop making emotional, comedic or otherwise policy-bereft ploys for power because it makes the wrong people feel like they are right. My fellow U.S. citizens: Educate yourselves on how the government works, delete your social media accounts and stop voting in politicians who are personalities instead of scholars.
I don’t mean this as a criticism of the senators I worked for. Both Marshall and Moran are great men who serve Kansans well. They have incredible teams behind them, treated me exceptionally well and provided me with opportunities during a difficult year. I will be forever thankful for that.
But my personal experience is that the political philosophy of populism, which has been embraced to some extent across the political spectrum, elevates the worst in us.
Brett Seaton of Olathe will attend the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in the fall.
