The party that Newt built has no leadership. It is captive to the whims of whichever mob is loudest — an energy cultivated and stoked by right wing media and ideologue billionaires. No one has been in charge for years.

This is why they almost all play along with this madness.

Perhaps the defining moment of the end of the Republican caucus was when Boehner was like “screw this, I’m outta here, y’all have fun with these Freedom caucus yay-hoos, I’m gonna go swill wine and invest in cannabis” and no one — literally no one — wanted his job. No one.

It’s like being the bus driver of a school bus with no steering wheel or brakes: you’re responsible for the safety of the people in the bus, but you’re not in control of it at all, you can just beg them to sit down and tell them to stop throwing boogers at you & each other

Oh — and you aren’t actually going to a school where someone might learn something from actual books, but to some traveling carnival of oddities, where they look at the two-headed calves and other mutations and think SEE I KNEW ALL ALONG THIS TOTALLY IMPROBABLE THING IS REAL HA

And then they look back to the mob that believes the crazy conspiracy that Rush Limbaugh, still wearing the bloody medal that no one has ever deserved less, made up in between selling them MREs and selling them questionable Chinese-made potions, and they say YES IS ALL TRUE

And no one knows what is true, or who believed this nutso quackery first, or why they have become obsessed, barking out catchphrases and talking points until 50-year-old men in Oklahoma are reflexively telling you that the two-headed calf is 100% proof that democrats are monsters

They don’t know who started the game of telephone, or what the original message was.

They just think that Rush deserves his medal because they believe the power to unleash anger & fear is the most important manifestation of their chaos god view of “democracy” & how to keep power

How to keep power while everything burns

Oh well, they say. I’m fine. 401k is great. We all have to look out for #1. Let’s watch the chaos god drumline march thru the nation from this balcony here. Let’s post a selfie at the parade so the unruly mob thinks we don’t disdain them

This is where this madness was heading all along.

They’re all still playing along, not understanding or caring about what the stakes are, because they will be fine no matter what, and who cares about the rest of us.

Pretty much this: https://twitter.com/adamblickstein/status/1326146866149515264

“What’s the downside of letting the republic burn just a bit? Fires are part of nature’s cycle, right?” https://twitter.com/ashleyrparker/status/1326024025777246208

This thinking is so unspeakably dangerous, and so devoid of any acceptance of the last 4 years https://twitter.com/brianstelter/status/1326279694208151552