The GOP’s authoritarian MAGA insanity isn’t getting better — and it won’t: conservative

In an April 28 column for the conservative website The Bulwark, Never Trump pundit Tim Miller reviews the new Jonathan Martin/Alexander Burns book “This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden and the Battle for America’s Future.” Miller’s disturbing takeaway: the far-right MAGA extremism that has overtaken the Republican Party — which Miller was once a member of — isn’t going away. And it won’t.

“So, I’ve been paging through ‘This Will Not Pass’, the book by my pal Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns,” explains Miller, a one-time aide to former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. “And for all the SHOCKING REVEALS — with audio! — about Kevin’s cowardice, Mitch’s cravenness, and Kamala’s ennui, the thing that keeps striking me throughout is that none of the ostensible political professionals being profiled seems to understand the reality of the political situation they find themselves in.”

Miller continues, “By January 6th, (2021), Trump had been the number one story in politics for five years, upending all the conventional wisdom that came before. He was in the middle of an extended, multi-pronged effort to undermine our democracy. It may have been boobish, but it captured the imaginations of tens of millions of Americans. Yet most of the characters in ‘This Will Not Pass’ act as if they are caught up in some 24-hour fever that will subside with liquids and a good night’s rest.”

The Kevin, Mitch and Kamala that Miller is referring to are, of course, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Vice President Kamala Harris.

A “good night’s rest,” Miller emphasizes, isn’t going to cure the political sickness that ails the United States in 2022. Liberal democracy, according to Miller, continues to face a dire threat in the U.S. from the MAGA far right — and pundits and politicians who believe the GOP will return to traditional old-school conservatism are being hopelessly naïve.

“You fucking idiots. You maroons,” Miller writes with obvious frustration. “You really thought all this — waves hands — was over? That you were going to be let off that easy? That bipartisanship was coming back to Washington? That the radicals who stormed the Capitol wouldn’t get their dander up over Joe Biden? That the Republicans were going to bring back some old-timey comity?”

To illustrate his point, Miller points to a video from the Republican Accountability Project — an anti-Trump conservative group — that shows Dr. Mehmet Oz, who is running for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, and other GOP candidates expressing their unwavering devotion to Trump:

Miller laments that Republicans who have the courage to stand up and publicly call for Trump to be excised from the Republican Party — for example, Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming — are few and far between.

“Here is a reality check,” Miller warns. “This will not pass because people in power refuse to take on the risk required to force change. Some days, it seems like the only one who gets this is Liz Cheney. And that’s why, in the book, Kevin McCarthy’s bestie Jeff Miller is quoted as saying ‘Fuck that bitch.’ Because anyone who shows actual courage and bursts the comfortable bubble where these Republicans tell themselves that things might magically get better if they just keep on doing the same shit they’ve been doing for seven years must be debased, degraded, and expelled from the club.”