Adam Kinzinger: Republicans Are ‘Frigging Crazy’

As noted many times, I grew up in a Republican family and even was a city committee member for the Virginia Beach GOP  - coincidentally, so were several LGBT activists I know who, like me fled the party years ago.   Of the sane Republicans I knew back in what seems a lifetime ago, a number have likewise left the GOP.  Others, sadly, have either (i) closed their eyes to what the party has become in a shortsighted effort to conform and retain their circle of political friends (this seems especially true of those involved in Republican womens groups), or (ii) shown their true selves to be racists and morally deficient.  All of this brings me to a piece in The Atlantic that looks at GOP Congressman Adam Kinzinger and his analysis of what motivates far too many Republicans, especially those in political office: power.  And by that he means holding power at any cost with no moral redline they will not cross in their quest for power. Today, the GOP is made up of the power mad, Christofascists and white supremacists, and the conformists who remain complicit in all the evils of Trumpism and what the GOP represents today.  Here are article highlights:

Political courage is a fascinating phenomenon, particularly at moments when it is largely absent. Which is why I’m so interested in the imperiled career of Representative Adam Kinzinger, the Illinois Republican who has described Donald Trump’s demagogy for what it is—a danger to the republic—and who possesses spine enough to excoriate members of his own party for succumbing to Trump’s imbecilic authoritarianism.

As Anne Applebaum described so well in her Atlantic cover story last year, “We all feel the urge to conform; it is the most normal of human desires.” Her essay, “History Will Judge the Complicit,” made the argument that collaboration, and not dissent, is the default posture of frightened humans, including and especially careerist politicians. Dissent can often lead to social and political death (and sometimes, physical death), and, as we’ve learned in the months following the insurrection of January 6, most Republicans would sooner cast people like Kinzinger into the wilderness than risk ostracism.

“I don’t have a tribe,” Kinzinger told me when we spoke earlier this month. “The good thing is, I don’t really care. The only reason this hurts me is that it reminds me of how frigging crazy the Republican Party has become. It’s not my tribe anymore.”

I first met Kinzinger in early 2014, when he was still very much part of his tribe; he was a protégé of Senator John McCain in that long-ago period when McCain himself was the country’s leading Republican. . . . . Kinzinger was in complete alignment with Graham and Pompeo back then—“I just assumed that we would be the core of people holding the torch for American leadership”—and I asked him why he thought they subsequently turned Trumpist.

“Power,” he said. “I think it’s just power. Pompeo convinced himself that he would help temper some of the more isolationist tendencies of Trump, and then he bought into the idea that he could one day be president. And Lindsey—well, Lindsey just needs somebody to tell him where to go, a strongman. McCain was that guy. Now it’s Trump. It’s sad.”

I asked Kinzinger if he thought he had been naive about the people who now lead the party. “You know, you always think that everyone has a red line. No matter how much politics a person can play, there’s a red line that people can’t cross. I was naive. There are some people who only care about access to power. I’m still coming to terms with this.”

Kinzinger, along with another apostate, Liz Cheney, serves on the House committee investigating the events of January 6. His decision to join this Democratic-led committee caused some of his Republican colleagues to worry (or to publicly perform worry) that he had become a spy in their midst.

“Madison Cawthorn can invoke coming bloodshed, and Paul Gosar can flirt with white nationalism,” he said, naming two of his more extremist colleagues, “and they’re signing a letter asking to have me kicked out of the caucus. This is how far the Republican Party has fallen. They call me a RINO”—a Republican in Name Only—“but I haven’t changed. The Republican Party has changed into an authoritarian Trump organization. They’re the RINOs. Trump is a RINO.”

Kinzinger says he’s at peace with the idea that he may be voted out of Congress by his fellow Republicans. “I believe in God. He knows what’s good or bad for me. If I lose my seat by doing the right thing, I’ll be fine.”

The piece then continues to describle the Atlantic's agenda in covering the decline of the GOP: 

The story of the Republican Party’s descent into Trumpist authoritarianism is one The Atlantic is compelled to tell, and our writers have been telling it well, with moral urgency and a commitment to the notion that reality is describable and provable, for more than five years. This is a delicate assignment for The Atlantic. We were founded with the promise that we would be of “no party or clique,” and we try to make good on that promise. It is difficult, though, when one of the country’s two major parties is violating the norms of democratic behavior. We will continue to hold the Democratic Party accountable as well, when accountability is needed, and we will continue to publish writers—conservatives, Republicans, ex-Republicans—who are thinking in interesting ways about the future of their party and country.

One other piece to recommend: James Mattis’s “The Enemy Within,” in which the former secretary of defense writes, “Our politics are paralyzing the country. We practice suspicion or contempt where trust is needed, imposing a sentence of anger and loneliness on others and ourselves. We scorch our opponents with language that precludes compromise. We brush aside the possibility that a person with whom we disagree might be right. We talk about what divides us and seldom acknowledge what unites us. Meanwhile, the docket of urgent national issues continues to grow—unaddressed and, under present circumstances, impossible to address.”

More on this point in a coming post.