THE K-K-KRAYZEE IS METASTASIZING

As Charlie Pierce says frequently at the end of a report on stuff like this, “They really are the mole people.”

One of the major changes that has happened in American politics in the years leading up to and then through the presidency of That Fucking Traitor Who I Will Not Name is that a lot of the political change on the right takes place in the subterranean world of what Republicans I used to work with 45 years ago used to call “the Crazy,” “the Kooks.” The people Richard Hofstadter was writing about 68 years ago when he called them “Pseudo-Conservatives.” The ones he described thus: “... its exponents, although they believe themselves to be conservatives and usually employ the rhetoric of conservatism, show signs of a serious and restless dissatisfaction with American life, traditions and institutions... Their political reactions express rather a profound if largely unconscious hatred of our society and its ways... given to a form of political expression that combines a curious mixture of largely conservative with occasional radical notions... The pseudo-conservative shows conventionality and authoritarian submissiveness in his conscious thinking and violence, anarchic impulses, and chaotic destructiveness in the unconscious sphere... The pseudo conservative is a man who, in the name of upholding traditional American values and institutions and defending them against more or less fictitious dangers, consciously or unconsciously aims at their abolition.

Let us posit that these people have been around even longer than 68 years. There were three political movements that became the founding elements of the Republican Party back in 1854: the aboltionists (the now-extinct “progressive wing”), the Whigs (the now on-the-way-out traditional “business wing”) and the Know-Nothing Party, who can be said to be in charge nowadays.

Perhaps at this point it might be good to give a historical analysis of what exactly the “Know-Nothing” Party was. The organization flourished in the 1850s, a political outgrowth of the strong anti-immigrant and especially anti-Roman Catholic sentiment that became strong in the 1840s as a result of the arrival of immigrants, primarily Germans in the Midwest and Irish in the East, whose presence seemed to pose a threat to the economic and political security of native-born Protestant Americans. In 1849 the secret Order of the Star-Spangled Banner was formed in New York City, and soon after lodges formed in nearly every other major American city. Members, when asked about the organizations, were supposed to reply “I know nothing,” which is the source of the popular name.

As membership and local political importance grew in the 1850s, the movement took the official name American Party.It’s national platform called for restrictions on immigration, the exclusion of the foreign-born from voting or holding public office in the United States, and a 21-year residency requirement for citizenship. By 1852 the party was experiencing phenomenal growth, doing very well in that year’s state and local elections; with the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854 it won additional support from conservatives who could not support either the pro-slavery Democrats or the anti-slavery Republicans. When Congress assembled on December 3, 1855, 43 representatives were avowed members of the party.

1855 saw the peak of “Know-Nothing” power. At the American Party’s convention in Philadelphia in 1856, the party split over the pro-slavery platform pushed through by Southern delegates. Party presidential candidate Millard Fillmore (generally considered the worst of the 19th century presidents) who had been dropped by the Whigs after one term, carried only Maryland in the 1856 election, while there were only 12 members in the House of Representatives. The party fell apart after 1856 with antislavery Know-Nothings joining the Republican Party, while Southern members flocked to the pro-slavery banner of the Democratic Party. In 1860, remnants of the Know-Nothings joined old-line Whigs to form the Constitutional Union Party, nominating John Bell of Tennessee for president; he finished fourth in popular votes in the four-man contest won by Abraham Lincoln.

One can see that “Know-Nothingism” has coursed through American history since, popping up in the form of Jim Crow, the Ku Klux Klan and probably its strongest moment in 1924, with the passage of the “whites only” immigration law that remained in force until 1966. It also manifested in the anti-German hysteria during World War I (in which my maternal grandfather’s barn was burned down for having the surname “Weist” and my father’s Dachshund “Kaiser” was renamed “Teddy”after it was found beaten and nearly dead for the crime of being a “German dog.” The anti-Chinese and anti-Japanese sentiment in the western U.S. was also an element, as was the anti-foreign attitudes and activities in the “Palmer Red Raids” of 1919-20 and McCarthyism. The John Birch Society was certainly a manifestation of “Know-Nothingism.”

As I mentioned, 45 years ago Republicans I worked with in California politics would laugh at these “Kooks.” The seat of their power was in Orange County, which was known to us as “Orangatang County.” They showed up in the Goldwater movement in 1964 and many were prominent in the Reagan for Governor campaigns in 1966 and 1970, which became the tide that put him in the White House in 1980.

Throughout all that time, “serious” Republican disowned these people. William Buckley famously drove the Birchers from the “conservative movement” in the 1970s.

In the years before the rise of Trump none of this was was really hidden; it certainly showed up in the 2008 presidential campaign with Sarah Palin’s rallies. It wasn’t subterranean, but it was “off the radar” of most of conventional journalism and the mainstream political discourse because it wasn’t “serious.” It wasn’t “real.” It was just “crazy antics on the margins.”

But as my review above shows, that was never the case. The “K-K-Krayzee” WAS the real GOP politics. It controlled and drove the presentable mainstream leaders: Nixon in the 70s, Reagan in the 80s, in congress it allowed the Boehners, Ryans, McConnells and the rest to hold the power they did. However, the ascension of Donald Trump was an inversion of this dynamic, putting “the K-K-Krayzee” in formal and open leadership of the party - all the “serious” Republican office holders have been forced to acknowledge this fact if they want to remain in office.

With the defeat of the Trump presidency in 2020 and the rise of the “Big Lie,” the craziness among “the Krayzees” began to grow and metastasize, even more than it had in the five years since Trump rode his golden escalator into political history.

Something has been happening as recently as the last four to six weeks; it follows this pattern, but it moves faster, it is more wide-ranging. It is important and dangerous and is still coasting under the radar of “proper” U.S. political discourse and reporting.

Three weeks ago, Ben Collins, a reporter on the far right beat at NBCNews posted a tweet in which he noted how quickly far right Qanon conspiracy theories were gaining traction in “mainstream” Republican politics, noting the speed with which anti-trans, anti-gay and even anti-sports (trans individuals competing in sports for their assigned genre) position were being adopted in the Republican “mainstream.”

The perfect example of this is the speed with which the word “grooming” and “groomer” have become widespread in political discourse. In short, the entire Far Right collection of political conversations about transgenderism, gender identity and homosexuality have been very suddenly repackaged as “grooming” and “pedophilia.” Any positive discussion of gender identity or homosexuality in schools is now claimed to be “grooming” kids for abuse by pedophiles, building on the Qanon conspiracy theory of a pedophilic cabal of left wing cannibals who secretly run things. Same sex marriage, a subject that is by definition for adults, is now lumped into the “grooming” agenda. Disney is now attacked across t he country as a hotbed of “grooming” and pedophilia, the result of the corporation having been forced by employees at Disney World to grudgingly take a position against Florida’s “don’t say gay” law. The word “grooming” has become a boogeyman on the Right for any positive discussion of the LGBTQ+ community, the same way people like Christopher Rufo made “CRT” the boogeyman for race.

Whether same sex couples should be able to marry, whether transgender athletes should be allowed to compete with the gender that matches their gender identity, have now become passionate points of argument in a matter of weeks. In the confirmation hearings for Justice Katanji Brown Jackson, far right shills like Ted Cruz, Marsha Blackburn and Josh Hawley brought up not only “pedophilia” and “grooming,” but access to birth control and the right of interracial marriage as issues that were all interrelated.

One needs to step back to see the real picture. The new equation is that anything that doesn’t amount to a staunch defense of Far Right sexual and gender traditionalism is now some form of pedophilia and “grooming” of children for pedophiles. That is the equation that has exploded across the Right in just over the last two months. Claims about predation on children have been a staple of anti-gay politics for generations, but what we are seeing is genuinely new.

Perhaps you recall well-known Trump degenerate goon Marjorie Taylor Greene calling Democrats “the party of pedophiles … the party of princess predators from Disney … the party of teachers … trying to transition their elementary school age children.”

These are not a few random weeds popping up on your lawn. They’re part of a vast welling up from the dark recesses of the bad parts of the American political tradition that haven’t been fully seen yet. This has now become normalized within the mainstream GOP. That’s what is driving state legislatures and members of Congress all of a sudden to start accusing virtually every political opponent of being a “groomer” through every channel of communication. The most outlandish and genocide-friendly features of Pizzagate and QAnon have suddenly became ubiquitous and mainstream among Republican officeholders from Capitol Hill to the local level.

According to Republican political communications from the RNC, tt turns out the Democratic Party really is run by a conspiracy of pedophiles and child sex traffickers. You don’t have to go to 4Chan or 8chan to hear this. It’s in the emails from your Republican senator or Member of the House of Representatives.

This past week in Michigan we saw Michigan State Senator Mallory McMorrow give a rousing defense after she was accused of this by a fellow office holder who faces a difficult primary election against an even-further Right challenger.

Today, The Michigan Advance reported on having obtained fundraising texts sent by state senator and U.S. House candidate Tom Barrett (R) with a phony “appointment confirmation” for “your child’s gender reassignment surgery.”

“CONFIRMED: [Name of recipient], your child’s gender reassignment surgery has been booked, If you have any issues with this operation, please view the objectives of Biden’s National Transgender Strategy here: [fundraiser link]”

The link leads to a fundraiser page that opens to “STOP BIDEN FROM DOING THIS TO OUR KIDS!” and goes on to claim that President Joe Biden is “forcing 5-year-olds to learn about gender reassignment surgeries, gender identities, and other radical ideas.”

Another campaign e-mail from Barrett’s campaign opens with “APPOINTMENT STATUS: CONFIRMED” in red letters, with details of the fake appointment underneath listing “your child” as the patient receiving “Gender Reassignment Surgery” and the date as “Tomorrow at 9 AM.”

Then, of course, comes the fundraising pitch: “If you would like to CANCEL this appointment because you do not believe in teaching young children about dangerous transgender ideologies, please sign your name NOW.”

This is, of course, absolutely not happening. It’s delusional. Barrett offers no evidence that it is.

He is also one of many Republicans who’ve been manufacturing outrage over gender affirmative care for trans youth and trans female athletes’ participation in student sports.

And he defends his right to send this to voters.

Barrett is running in the Republican primary to challenge incumbent U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), who blasted the messages: “Using scare tactics about our children’s well-being to raise money for a political campaign should be off-limits. This is what people hate about politics: the politicians that only want to use fear to further divide us in a time where we should be coming together.”

This is the big, big thing going on RIGHT NOW in regular, “normal” GOP politics, even if much of conventional media remains blind to it. The “mainstream” GOP it taking the far right’s war on transgender youth to an even greater extreme than one finds in the far right’s communications cesspools.

The K-K-Krayzee is metastasizing in front of us. These are the people who expect to go to Washington and take office on January 3, 2023.

According to most Democrats, these “clowns” have no chance.

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