The GOP is an ethical freak present, and freak exhibits entice freaks. Which is why Mark Robinson matches in so nicely in at present’s Republican Celebration.
Robinson, the Republican candidate for governor in North Carolina, has described himself as a “religious Christian.” However a latest CNN story reported that a number of years in the past, he was a porn-site consumer who loved watching transgender pornography (regardless of a historical past of an anti-transgender rhetoric), referred to himself as a “Black Nazi,” and supported the return of slavery. In response to CNN, commenters on the web site mentioned whether or not to imagine the story of a girl who mentioned she was raped by her taxi driver whereas intoxicated. Robinson wrote in response, “And the ethical of this story….. Don’t f**ok a white b*tch!” Politico studies that Robinson’s electronic mail tackle was additionally registered on Ashley Madison, an internet site for married folks in search of affairs. (Robinson, the present lieutenant governor of North Carolina, has denied all the claims.)
These allegations aren’t solely surprising, as a result of Robinson—a self-described “MAGA Republican”—has proven indicators up to now of being a deeply troubled particular person. (My Atlantic colleague David Graham wrote an excellent profile of Robinson in Could.)
Relating to the dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, in 2011, Robinson wrote, “Get that fucking commie bastard off the Nationwide Mall!” Robinson additionally has referred to the slain civil-rights champion as “worse than a maggot,” a “ho fucking, phony,” and a “huckster.” Throughout the Obama presidency, Robinson wrote, “I’d take Hitler over any of the shit that’s in Washington proper now!” He promoted the conspiracy principle claiming that Obama was born in Kenya. He referred to Michelle Obama as a person and Hillary Clinton as a “heifer.” He in contrast Nancy Pelosi to Hitler, Mao, Stalin, and Castro and mocked the near-fatal assault on her husband, Paul Pelosi. He’s additionally an election denier, claiming that Joe Biden “stole the election.”
In 2017, Robinson wrote, “There’s a REASON the liberal media fills the airwaves with applications in regards to the NAZI and the ‘6 million Jews’ they murdered.” He has used demeaning language in opposition to Jews and homosexual folks. He has cruelly mocked school-shooting survivors (“media prosti-tots”). And he supported a complete ban on abortion, with out exceptions for rape or incest, although he admitted that he’d paid for an abortion up to now.
A lot of this was identified earlier than he ran for governor. Irrespective of. Republicans in North Carolina nominated him anyway, and Donald Trump has lavished reward on the person he calls his “good friend,” providing Robinson his “full and whole endorsement” and dubbing him “one of many hottest politicians” within the nation.
SOME REPUBLICANS ARE distancing themselves from Robinson partly as a result of they’re apprehensive he’ll be defeated, but additionally as a result of they’re much more involved that he’ll drag down different Republicans, together with Trump. However the reality is that Robinson is an ideal addition to the Republican ensemble.
The GOP vice-presidential candidate, J. D. Vance, has been relentlessly selling the lie that Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, had been abducting and consuming pets. In 2021, he mentioned that the US was being run by Democrats, company oligarchs, and “a bunch of childless cat women who’re depressing at their very own lives and the alternatives that they’ve made and they also need to make the remainder of the nation depressing, too.”
Consultant Marjorie Taylor Greene has blamed wildfires on a Jewish area laser, promoted a conspiracy alleging that some Democratic Celebration leaders had been operating a human-trafficking and pedophilia ring, and agreed with commenters who recommended that the 2018 taking pictures at Marjory Stoneman Douglas Excessive College, in Florida, was a “large false flag.” One other Home Republican, Paul Gosar, has promoted fluoride conspiracy theories and posted an animated video depicting him slashing the throat of a Democratic congresswoman and attacking President Biden. One more Republican member of Congress, Lauren Boebert, was ejected from a family-friendly musical for vaping, being disruptive, and groping her date (and vice versa). She additionally falsely claimed that faculty authorities “are placing litter packing containers in colleges for individuals who determine as cats.”
The Atlantic’s Elaine Godfrey reported that Republican Consultant Matt Gaetz, who’s below Home investigation for having intercourse with an underage lady, “used to stroll across the cloakroom displaying folks porno of him and his newest girlfriend,” in line with a supply Godfrey spoke with.
This isn’t regular.
The GOP is residence to a Republican governor, Kristi Noem, who describes in her e-book taking pictures her 14-month-old canine, Cricket, in a gravel pit, in addition to killing an unnamed goat. A Republican senator, Ron Johnson, claimed that COVID was “pre-planned” by a secret group of “elites” even whereas he promoted disinformation claiming that Ivermectin, which is often used to deworm livestock, was an efficient remedy for COVID. (As a result of folks had been hospitalized for taking the drug, the FDA tweeted, “You aren’t a horse. You aren’t a cow.”)
Earlier this month, Trump attended a 9/11 memorial occasion in New York Metropolis. He took as his visitor a right-wing conspiracy theorist, Laura Loomer, who has claimed that 9/11 was an inside job, referred to Kamala Harris as a “drug utilizing prostitute,” and mentioned that Democrats ought to be tried for treason and executed. (Trump has known as Loomer a “lady with braveness” and a “free spirit.”)
Trump’s first nationwide safety adviser, Michael Flynn, floated the concept of getting Trump declare martial regulation in order that he might “rerun” the 2020 election. He recommended that the president ought to seize voting machines. He predicted {that a} governor will quickly declare struggle. He has additionally warned in regards to the risks of a “new world order” by which folks similar to Invoice Gates, George Soros, and World Financial Discussion board Govt Chairman Klaus Schwab “have an intent to trace each single one among us, they usually use it below the pores and skin. They use a way by which it’s below the pores and skin.”
Tucker Carlson, a keynote speaker on the Republican Nationwide Conference and an unofficial Trump adviser, not too long ago hosted a Holocaust revisionist on his podcast. He praised the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones as having been “vindicated on every thing” and described Jones as “essentially the most extraordinary particular person” he has ever met. (Two years in the past, Sandy Hook households received practically $1.5 billion in defamation and emotional-distress lawsuits in opposition to Jones for his repeatedly calling the 2012 faculty taking pictures, by which 20 first graders and 6 educators had been killed, a hoax staged by “disaster actors” to get extra gun-control laws handed. As The New York Instances studies, “The households suffered on-line abuse, private confrontations and demise threats from individuals who believed the conspiracy principle.”)
Carlson, some of the influential figures on the American proper, has additionally peddled the declare that the violence on January 6, 2021, was a “false flag” operation involving the FBI and used to discredit Trump supporters; alleged that former Legal professional Normal Invoice Barr lined up the homicide of Jeffrey Epstein; and promoted testicle tanning.
Then there’s Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a former Democrat who not too long ago endorsed Trump. The previous president has requested Kennedy to be on his transition crew ought to Trump win the election and “assist decide the individuals who will probably be operating the federal government and I’m trying ahead to that.” Trump instructed CNN’s Kristen Holmes, “I like him, and I respect him. He’s a superb man. He’s a really good man.”
Sara Dorn of Forbes listed among the conspiracy theories that Kennedy has promoted—vaccines may cause autism; COVID was genetically engineered and is focused to assault Caucasian and Black folks (and Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese language persons are largely immune); mass shootings are linked to Prozac; the 2004 presidential election was stolen from John Kerry; the CIA was concerned within the demise of his uncle John F. Kennedy; and Sirhan Sirhan was wrongly convicted of murdering his father.
As well as, Kennedy, who has revealed that he had a parasitic mind worm, instructed the podcaster Joe Rogan that Wi-Fi causes most cancers and “leaky mind.” He believes that chemical compounds within the water provide might flip youngsters transgender. He claims that 5G networks are getting used for mass surveillance. He’s mentioned that Katherine Maher, the president and CEO of NPR, is a CIA agent. “Even journals like Smithsonian and Nationwide Geographic … seem like compromised by the CIA,” in line with Kennedy.
In response to Kennedy’s daughter Kick Kennedy, her father chain-sawed the pinnacle off a useless whale on a seaside in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, bungee-corded it to the roof of their automobile, and drove it 5 hours to the household residence in Mount Kisco, New York. (The severed head streamed “whale juice” down the aspect of the household minivan on the journey residence. “It was the rankest factor on the planet,” Kick instructed City & Nation journal in 2012. “All of us had plastic luggage over our heads with mouth holes reduce out, and other people on the freeway had been giving us the finger, however that was simply regular day-to-day stuff for us.”) Kennedy has additionally not too long ago admitted to leaving the carcass of a bear cub in Central Park a decade in the past, as a joke.
Donald Trump Jr. has mentioned that he might see Kennedy being given some form of oversight function in any variety of authorities companies if his father is reelected, together with the FDA and the Division of Well being and Human Providers. “I can see a dozen roles I’d like to see him in.”
Like Mark Robinson, RFK Jr. matches proper in.
THE REPUBLICAN PARTY at present isn’t by the way grotesque; like the person who leads it, Donald Trump, it’s grotesque at its core. It’s the Island of Misfit Toys, although on this case there’s a maliciousness to the misfits, beginning with Trump, that makes them uniquely harmful to the republic. Since 2016, they’ve been at struggle with actuality, delighting of their dime-store nihilism, creating “different information” and tortured explanations to justify the lawlessness and ethical depravity and derangement of their chief.
None of that is hidden; it’s on show in neon lights, virtually each hour of day-after-day. Nobody who helps the Republican Celebration, who casts a vote for Trump and for his MAGA acolytes, can say they don’t know.
They know.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, in an essay titled “As Respiration and Consciousness Return,” warned that nobody who “voluntarily runs with the hounds of falsehood” will be capable to justify himself to the residing, or to posterity, or to his associates, or to his youngsters. Don’t give up to corruption, the good Russian author and dissident mentioned; attempt for the liberation of our souls by not collaborating within the lie. Don’t consent to the lies. The challenges going through Solzhenitsyn had been fairly totally different, and positively far harder, than something we face, however his basic level nonetheless holds.
The Trump motion is constructed on layers of lies. It’s late, nevertheless it’s by no means too late to liberate your self from them. One phrase of reality outweighs the world.