Yes, we’re talking about Republicans
Michael Tomasky’s leadership of the New Republic has been a breath of fresh air. If you haven’t given it a look in years you need to go back to it and check it out. I don’t think it’s ever been this good.And Tomasky himself is writing a lot and it’s all characteristically sharp. Take this insight which I think is right on, made in the wake of the monumentally embarrassing week for congressional Republicans:
Republicans today are consumed by this primal need for immediate gratification. They’re the party of the dopamine rush. Go read an article about the brain, and you’ll learn in five minutes that dopamine helps regulate pleasure, and pleasure is great, but too much dopamine leads to delusions, hallucinations, schizophrenia, psychosis. The entire party has a massive and collective mental disorder, a severe chemical imbalance in what remains of its collective brain, which explains why it kneels so slavishly before a psychotic man with the emotional regulation of a 5-year-old.
Like rutting ungulates, they are incapable of anything remotely resembling thought and respond only to the stimuli right in front of their noses. Deliberation, caution, calm reflection … these are the qualities that most of us have in more or less equal measure to the desire for gratification. These are the qualities that are most in harmony with the habits of democracy. To be small-d democratic is to deliberate; to think things through a little. This country’s Founders believed profoundly in this, which is why they built so many choke points into our democratic processes (too many, as it turns out). They wanted future generations to think stuff through.
But these people are stuck in the land of anti-thought. And because that’s where they live, it means that in many respects it’s where we all have to live, because that’s where a lot of our national debate plays out.
The border debate is a perfect example. There are a lot of problems with U.S. border policy. Undoubtedly some of them are the fault of Democrats. It’s reasonable that people should want more control over the border. But at the same time, it’s a complex problem, and any real solutions are complex too. Oklahoma Republican Senator James Lankford, to his credit, tried to acknowledge that reality. And what happened? He was brutally shut down. It was chiefly Donald Trump, but it wasn’t only Trump. One right-wing talk radio host threatened to “destroy” him.
But it’s not just the border. It’s everything. The Mayorkas impeachment. I suppose there are many grounds from a conservative point of view on which to think he’s doing a lousy job. That’s fine. But a high crime or a misdemeanor? Ridiculous. That doesn’t matter, though. The mere word impeachment makes the mules rut, and there ends the discussion.
James Comer and Jim Jordan are another primo example. They just go on Fox and Newsmax and say shit. It’s not about facts or methodically building a case. It’s all about the dopamine rush of being on national television and saying titillating things that rile people up and get the checks rolling in. When they have to walk it back two days later, nobody cares. In fact, they’ve accomplished what they wanted to accomplish, which is to add to the general picture of murkiness surrounding Hunter Biden or whatever. And they walk out of that studio feeling eight miles high.
And that’s where our political debate takes place now. It used to be that dopamine-rush politics was occasional. Both sides did it on issues that clearly worked to their advantage, as Democrats still do. But with the GOP today, that’s all politics is. The immediate gratification of having scored a point, trolled a lib, won a little wedge of Fox airtime—and most of all pleased Donald Trump.
All they care about is that sweet hit of dopamine they get in front of the cameras. This isn’t politics at all. It’s more like a sad little talent show.