The Mar-A-Lago zombie fest
Pundits and journalists wring their hands and claim, without evidence, that the Republican Party has ‘lost its way.’ This is, on its face, preposterous. It has become a sort of mantra, meant to explain away the perceived departure by the Republican Party from the tenets of democratic governance.
It would be easy to blame the toxic and corrosive influence of the Former Guy, the Lord of Mar-A-Lago, but that would be too facile and dismissive a response to the emergence and expansion of the GQP.
That Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Devin Nunes, Matt Gaetz, Louie Gohmert, Jim Jordan, Mo Brooks, Steve Scalise, Madison Cawthorn and a woeful plethora of others are the face of the Party of Lincoln is not the result of one unethical Grifter from the Empire State.
No, the inclusion of such a repulsive and undemocratic coterie is not evidence of the GOP losing its way. The GOP is a not a collective babe in the woods led astray by a Big, Bad Orange Wolf. That such a repulsive company of anti-science, anti-intellectual hooligans as those mentioned above are the face of the Republican Party can only mean that the party has chosen aforethought to take the path through the briars of conspiracy, lies, untruths and authoritarianism.
All their palaver about personal rights and liberty notwithstanding, the GQP are intent on enacting a regime of some bizarre and terrifying hybrid of libertarianism, anarchy and fascist authoritarianism wherein the population is left to its own resources, unassisted and unaided by a government which is wholly unresponsive to the needs or wishes of the people.
The Party of Lincoln is dead but it refuses to be buried. It refuses to be interred in sanctified ground. The GQP is a zombie hungering for brains and power.