It usually takes about three seconds after a major Republican disaster for some Republican to pipe up with a conspiracy theory blaming it on liberals or “the Jews,” but Republican Rep. Nick Langworthy got a headstart on it the day before the House voted to remove Rep. Kevin McCarthy as speaker.
"You’ve got to start to wonder out loud if George Soros or some other liberal dark money is behind the idiotic move to derail the House Republican Majority and this pathetic Motion to Vacate effort," Langworthy tweeted Monday evening. Langworthy also happens to be the vice chair of the National Republicans Congressional Committee.
So, sure, there we go. The "party of personal responsibility" doesn't think its own political hacks have responsibility for anything, whether it be following classified documents laws, not staging coups, or having even the bare competence necessary to not "derail" their own supposed House coalition.
It only stands to reason, then, that Matt Gaetz is an enormous, caucus-sabotaging asshole because George Soros made him do it. No doubt liberal dark money was behind every far-right Republican extremist's vote to oust the party's leader.
And that probably means that Soros funds not only Gaetz but also fascist provocateur Steve Bannon. After all, consider that the first place Gaetz and fellow saboteur Rep. Nancy Mace ran to after successfully throwing the House into disarray was Bannon's podcast.
You are free to consider Langworthy a whining charlatan focused only on making excuses for his party's disarray; if nothing else, he certainly is that. But it's just as accurate to note that the omnipresent Republican obsession with finding out-group scapegoats for every news event—everything from natural disasters to pathetic intraparty slap-fights—is yet another hallmark of authoritarianism in general and fascism specifically.
The party can never fail. It can never have corrupt elements and can never be wrong when it declares that an ideological policy prescription will solve a particular problem. If an indictment comes down, it is because the party's enemies have engineered it. If the party's enacted policies only worsen what they were intended to solve, it is because the party's enemies secretly sabotaged the country to make the party look bad.
And of course, if the party is plagued with rabid extremists and flat-out incompetents who themselves keep the party from accomplishing any of the things it promises, or who even flub things so badly that the party can do nothing at all, it is the party's secret enemies who are behind that, too, working with unknown "elites" to trick the party into its own self-destruction.
Fascism's typical enemies are liberals, communists, socialists, LGBTQ citizens, atheists and non-Christians, immigrants and minority groups, academics, and "elites." Sure enough, the Republican Party has focused their messaging on attacking every one those groups, to the point where it's difficult to discern any platform position aside from those demonizations.
So sure, NRCC vice chair. If the scandal-riddled and coup-supporting extremists of the party dive into new scandals and demand new extremism, it must be the fault of "George Soros or some other liberal dark money." You heard it from Langworthy first: Matt Gaetz is secretly in league with the liberal elites.
Sign if you agree: No more MAGA circus. Hakeem Jeffries for speaker!
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