The cult of Q has poisoned the GOP
On Wednesday night, House Republicans met to discuss the schism at the heart of the Grand Old Party. In the process, they firmly resolved to do nothing about it.
They chose instead to support Liz Cheney, the House’s third most powerful figure in the minority, who had committed the sin of voting to impeach the former President. Thus they made a principled stand, which was rendered almost meaningless when half of them then stood to applaud Marjorie Taylor Greene, the high profile embodiment of the QAnon wing of the party. The contrast is almost metaphysical in its profundity, like Andrew Marvel’s ‘Dialogue Between the Body and the Soul’ dramatized for cable news:
O who shall, from this dungeon, raise
A soul enslav’d so many ways?
Except the soul of the Republican Party is much more than enslaved. It is shackled to the putrescent corpse of Trumpism, a commodified rot of populist themes and internet memes, bundled with moral relativism which denies authoritative sources in favour of the unattributed shriek of the crowd.
The party is sick, and the pathology of the patient is evident in the voting. The Cheney ballot was done in secret and it is reasonable to assume that it reflected the true opinion of Republicans in the room. They agreed with Cheney – talismanic in both name and deed, and now the soul of the old party – who had determined that Trump and the Q-cult are poison and need to be flushed out of the system. Yet it is also obvious that many of the same Republicans felt they had no option but to swing behind Greene, who has become the ubiquitous embodiment of QAnon, wallowing as it does in the deep body horror of sex rings, political murders, and the violent rhetoric of putting a bullet in Nancy Pelosi’s head.
It is truly as nasty a business as it is hard to believe that adults (let alone elected officials) subscribe to this puerile rot. Or perhaps they actually do, and they are as bad a Democrats paint them to be. One thing they must believe in is the votes of those American citizens who have been taken in by the delusions of conspiracy. These Republicans think they are giving the punters what they want. Who, after all, chooses to discuss reconciliation or Senate housekeeping when you can raise crowds (and campaign funds) by speculating on Joe Biden’s connections to the Chinese government? Given a choice between their principles or their principal source of income, it is quite clear where these Republicans stand or, more accurately, grovel…
It is at once trivial and epic, as is typical of American politics where even the smallest disagreement can be underpinned by huge themes of liberty, individuality, and the role of the government. American culture is also susceptible to powerful narratives, whether it is that of the American Dream or “the more perfect union”. Perhaps that’s why conspiracies tend to exist where other foundational narratives collapse. An ideal America died with Kennedy, replaced by hitmen on grassy knolls. The Apollo moon landing was submerged by the trickiness of Nixonian snooping and became just another fiction constructed on a soundstage. Even Christianity was tarnished by TV evangelicalism, where moral purity was enamel thin and hiding the next Ted Haggard or Jerry Falwell Jr. As for the empirical truth, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment from which America itself grew, it has been replaced by something far more nebulous, ripped straight from the Wachowskis’ Matrix trilogy (the film’s “red pill” scene has been appropriated repeatedly by right-wing groups promoting Trumpism as a political “awakening”).
What the Republican Party now faces is the challenge of moral relativism that was previously the fallacy of liberals who would thank each other for expressing “their truth”. What they mean to say is that we all have subjective opinions, which we hold to be true, whilst the actual “truth” remains unknown. Only that relativism has now leapt the species gap – perhaps some Republican ate left-wing stew at some outdoor market in Massachusetts – and has now infected the American Right in ways that are even more pernicious than they were on the Left. Just last night, the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, tried to dismiss the splits by claiming that the Republican Party is a “very big tent”. He might as well have thanked members for expressing “their truths” since the “big tent” is no more than a rationalisation aimed at keeping this party together.
The most one can say is that they are succeeding… for the moment. Many House Republicans (and quite a few in the Senate) believe they can exploit the Q-cult without compromising their standing. They condescend to voters, claim to believe in anything that might ensure that they will retain power. Originalists (whether original intent or strictly textualist) are suddenly open to alternate interpretations of the Constitution. Cold War warriors make peace with Russia. Family value moralists excuse adultery with porn stars. They certainly wouldn’t wish to be reminded of those supporters of their president who beat up a Capitol Hill policeman with the flag. Fox News was wrongly condemned on Tuesday for not covering the ceremony honouring Brian Sicknick, the policeman who died defending the Capitol, but they were the channel that most notably gave it minimal coverage. It is all mix and match, you see. Choose what you believe today and stick with it, perhaps even for as long as until tomorrow.
House Republicans will rationalise their doublethink as a pragmatic response to a difficult situation, a way to protect their seats from QAnon zealots who genuinely believe that Hillary Clinton is controlled by a tiny alien sitting two inches behind her nostrils. But what price do they pay for this compromise? When will they decide it’s time to say what they believe rather than what is convenient? How does the party avoid becoming the very thing its members claim it only pretends to be?