Based on media attention and fundraising prowess, many of today’s Republican congressional “stars” are knucklehead neophytes who make up for a lack of public policy chops by mastering the dark arts of outrage and chicanery.
Think Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. She’s the QAnon alum from Georgia who, during her first few months in office, managed to insult more than a quorum of the House and Senate. She was elected in 2020 after endorsing a call for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s execution.
Although MTG, as headline writers call her, is clearly driving the clown car, she is not alone in the vehicle. Riding shotgun is Colorado’s latest gift to Congress, Lauren Boebert who created all sorts of pandemonium when she tried to smuggle a loaded handgun onto the House floor. Then there is North Carolina Rep. Madison Cawthorn, the House’s youngest member at 25. He insists Dr. Anthony Fauci is a “pawn in the Chinese Communist Party,” and that Sen. Cory Booker is working to “ruin white males.”
Although these fumbling fledgling freshmen have yet to perform a substantive legislative act, their ability to monetize the preposterous placed them in the House’s top five percent of campaign fundraisers. In the first quarter of 2021, MTG raised $3.2 million, mostly from small dollar donors. The only House member to outraise her was the person she wanted killed; Speaker Pelosi at $4 million.
In another era, very few of us would have even been aware of someone like Marjorie Taylor Greene. Why is that? Well, once upon a time, members of Congress were ordained to venerate their high offices by working hard, speaking less, and generally earning respect through a persona of thoughtfulness and integrity. All that has gone the way of rotary phones and floppy disks.
Sam Rayburn, the legendary House speaker during the Franklin Roosevelt era, crafted his own orientation session for newly elected members. According to his biographers, Rayburn listened to their plans for changing the world overnight. Then, he offered them a glass of bourbon and this advice: “You know here in Congress there are 435 prima donnas and they all can’t be lead horses. If you want to get along, you have to go along.”
For decades, new senators were given information packets that explained the norms of Congress. Following Rayburn’s equestrian theme, the briefing quoted the advice an unnamed senator offered new members back in the 1950s. He said Congress was composed of two kinds of people, “show horses and work horses. If you want to get your name in the papers, be a show horse. If you want to gain the respect of your colleagues, keep quiet and be a work horse.”
The late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy waited 17 months after he was first elected to speak on the floor of that chamber. And he began his primordial speech by apologizing for not waiting longer. “. . .It is with some hesitation that I rise to speak on the pending legislation before the Senate. A freshman Senator should be seen, not heard; should learn, and not teach.”
Marjorie Taylor Greene is no Ted Kennedy. She filed articles of impeachment against President Biden on his first full day in office, much to the embarrassment of House GOP leaders. She publicly ridiculed the transgender daughter of a congressional colleague. She compared the House’s mandatory mask mandate to the Holocaust. Just last week, she tweeted that COVID-19 won’t hurt you unless you are obese or over 65, provoking Twitter to suspend her account for 12 hours. As discipline for her incorrigible outrageousness, the House voted in February to remove Greene from all committees.
That meant MTG suddenly had more time to convert that outrageousness into campaign donations. Two weeks after the House voted to banish her from all committees, Greene’s popularity among Republicans went up 11 percentage points, and her national recognition gained 14 points. That in turn led to more than 100,000 donors sending her an average of $32.
As Vox’s Gregory Svirnovskiy noted, MTG’s fundraising haul is “a reminder that gaining notoriety on conservative media – rather than making efforts to pass meaningful legislation – is what holds real value in the modern Republican Party.
That’s why Rep. Cawthorn, the 25-year-old from North Carolina, decided to forgo the hiring of legislative analysts in favor of a staff focused only on communication. He, like Greene and Boebert, make no pretense of passing laws. To them, it’s all about marketing themselves by doing crazy stuff. As their mentor, Donald Trump, taught them, there is a rabid, hateful, antivaxxer base out there that won’t hesitate to share their credit card numbers with anyone promising to blow the system up.
Another key player in the Trumpian school of outrage over substance is, of course, Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz. Although under federal investigation involving sex trafficking allegations, he raised $1.8 million in the first quarter, mostly by preaching the Gospel According to Trump and mouthing whatever other silly narratives struck his fancy. In his recently released book, Firebrand, Gaetz spells out his formula for political success: “Why raise money to advertise on the news channels when I can make the news? And if you aren’t making the news, you aren’t governing.”
Take one more look at that last sentence to fully grasp the political philosophy of this young crowd of Republican influencers: “And if you aren’t making the news, you aren’t governing.” Back in the 18th Century, our founders struggled to create a new system of governance. They turned to the philosophies of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. They talked about “natural rights”, about a “social contract”, and “popular sovereignty”. They believed that the best form of governance is when elected leaders represent the interests of the people, a notion known then as republicanism. After intense thought and debate, they put it all together, this new concept of governing. That was the beginning of the United States of America.
Then, 245 years later, comes a clarion call for a totally new concept of government. And what is it? What does the trumpet sound? “If you aren’t making the news, you aren’t governing.”
God help us all if these new Republican firebrands ever take over.