Rex Huppke, USA TODAY
Sun, January 22, 2023
In the short months since Republicans suffered midterm electoral dysfunction, sitting slack-jawed as the “Red Wave” they envisioned failed to rise, the party and its lawmakers surveyed the clear message voters sent and responded with a thunderous: “Meh.”
Midterm election exit polls showed a populace uninterested in GOP election denialism and the culture-war grievances that animate Fox News viewers. Hot-button right-wing issues like drag shows or critical race theory or the bottomless conspiracy pit into which Hunter Biden’s laptop has fallen didn’t register a blip. If anything, it turned voters off – particularly younger ones better at separating fact from fiction – leading them to buck historical trends and vote for the party of an unpopular president during a time of high inflation.
To make matters worse for the GOP, it was the third straight national election that didn't quite go the way they'd hoped, following the 2018 midterms and the 2020 presidential election.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., takes a selfie with the newly elected House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Jan. 6, 2023.
It was a historic stumble and a strong signal that the cruelty-first, MAGA-era version of the Republican Party may be galloping toward political irrelevancy. But the party’s response since November has been to gallop faster, in the same direction, like a slice of lemmings eager to reach the cliff.
Gen Z voted and it was a W for democracy: We can no longer be a political afterthought.
You're angry about abortion restrictions? OK, we'll try to restrict more abortions
Voters were angry about the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade and restrictions on women’s access to reproductive health care. In the five states that had abortion-related initiatives on the ballot, voters resoundingly supported abortion rights.
Swiftly after being sworn in this month, Republicans who narrowly won control of the U.S. House of Representatives passed abortion-related bills that put restrictions on federal funding for abortions (something that wasn’t happening anyway because of the Hyde Amendment) and imposing new regulations on how abortion providers handle infants born alive after abortions, something exceedingly rare and already covered by federal law.
Abortion-rights advocates in Philadelphia protest the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe V. Wade on Friday, June 24, 2022.
Republican Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina responded to that early legislative push by saying: “We learned nothing from the midterms if this is how we're going to operate in the first week. Millions of women across the board were angry over overturning Roe v. Wade.”
Voters supported abortion rights. Here's what anti-abortion leaders should learn from it.
GOP attacking inflation by making life easier for the rich
But that has been the tip of the not-reading-the-room iceberg.
Inflation was a top concern for voters, and Republicans campaigned heavily on saving hard-working Americans from the tyranny of President Joe Biden’s economic policies, or some such thing.
U.S. Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) hits the gavel after being elected Speaker in the House Chamber at the U.S. Capitol Building on January 07, 2023 in Washington, DC.
So naturally, one of the first moves GOP House lawmakers made was voting to cut tens of billions of dollars in IRS funding intended to help the agency go after wealthy tax cheats. That move by the always-deficit-conscious Republicans would add $114 billion to the deficit over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
The bill will go nowhere, of course, but it shows voters how little the party respects their concerns.
How about a 'fair tax' that's really fairer to the wealthy?
In order to get enough votes to become House Speaker, Rep. Kevin McCarthy agreed to bring a whack-a-doodle thing called the “Fair Tax” up for a vote on the House floor. This legislation would do away with the IRS and effectively wipe out the U.S. tax code and replace it with a monstrous 30% national sales tax on everything. It’s a great way to make sure the average American voter worried about inflation gets to shoulder more of the tax burden than the wealthy donors who line the pockets of Republicans willing to pretend this is a good idea.
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War on Woke wasn't wanted, GOP fights on
Along with ignoring the financial concerns of non-millionaires, Republicans are aggressively going after the “woke” culture-war issues that younger voters – the ones who will determine elections to come and lean heavily toward diversity and inclusion – made clear they find repellent.
A demonstrator holds up a sign during a march to mark International Transgender Day of Visibility in Lisbon, March 31, 2022. At least 32 transgender and gender-nonconforming people have been killed in the United States in 2022, the Human Rights Campaign announced Wednesday, Nov. 16, in its annual report ahead of Transgender Day of Remembrance on Sunday, Nov. 20. (AP Photo/Armando Franca, File)More
GOP legislators across the country have continued attempts to ban drag queen shows, take away access to gender-affirming care and target transgender people. The American Civil Liberties Union found that since the start of the year, more than 120 bills restricting LBGTQ rights have been introduced in statehouses across the country.
African American studies? That sounds woke, better ban it
Nowhere is the culture-war drum being beaten louder than in Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis, widely considered a frontrunner for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, is transforming the state into a beacon of intolerance.
This past week, he sent a survey to all state universities requesting numbers and demographic data on students who sought or received treatment for gender dysphoria, an obvious attempt to intimidate transgender students and those who provide them support and care.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis reacts after publicly signing HB7, "individual freedom," also dubbed the "stop woke" bill during a news conference in April.
Florida’s State Board of Education released a statement in conjunction with the the Florida College System presidents that “rejects the progressivist higher education indoctrination agenda, and commits to removing all woke positions and ideologies by February 1, 2023.” For most normal people in this country, that quote is a bunch of loony-sounding mumbo-jumbo.
My daughter found her perfect campus: Now Gov. Ron DeSantis wants to destroy it.
DeSantis’ administration even blocked a new high school Advanced Placement course on African American studies, because apparently learning non-white stuff is just too darn woke.
Republicans tell voters to pound sand
If you look at all of this, it’s a stunning rebuke of the broader American public.
I’ll leave the cogent political analysis to others and just say this to elected Republican leaders: Have you lost your damn minds? (Don’t respond, I know the answer.) Because you’re well on your way to losing future elections.
There are, without question, conservative ideas that are more broadly palatable, and America, despite what right-wing hysteria spouters might say, is not on the verge of becoming a radical leftist nation. There’s a big ol’ middle out there that will gladly tilt toward whichever side happens to be making more sense.
That’s the problem, really. Far-right Republicans have stopped making sense to anyone who doesn’t inhabit their tight, weirdly conspiratorial, constantly agitated bubble.
To paraphrase the great cartoonist Walt Kelly, “They have seen the enemy, and it is them.”
And apparently they like what they see.
Follow USA TODAY columnist Rex Huppke on Twitter @RexHuppke and Facebook facebook.com/RexIsAJerk, or contact him at rhuppke@usatoday.com
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