I know that the Republicans are seeking my advice on the question, “How can we stop being half-crazed rabid dogs chewing democracy into a pulp?” It took a lot of small steps for this to happen, so let’s take them one at a time. The first step is, or should be, an easy one: We can’t ask you to stop electing Bible-banging hypocritical dumbasses all at once. But how about you start by deciding that you will not elect Bible-banging hypocritical dumbasses who also are insufferable dickheads?
I mean, is it that hard to find Bible-banging hypocritical dumbasses who are otherwise at least marginally likable human beings? This simple step would have immeasurably improved the climate in the committee meetings held in the Senate on Tuesday. For example, it would eliminate the presence of Senator Rand Paul. At a hearing of the HELP committee called to discuss the ongoing national response to the pandemic, Senator Aqua Buddha once again seemed determined to prove that Dr. Anthony Fauci is a Chinese sleeper agent from Mars. It is Paul’s contention that Fauci is concealing evidence that the virus escaped from a Chinese lab, and that it was created through what is called “gain-of-function” research through cooperation between the virology institute in Wuhan and scientists at the National Institutes of Health.
PAUL: For years one doctor in the U.S. has been collaborating with a Doctor Xi from that virology institute. This research has been funded by the NIH. The collaboration between the U.S. and the Wuhan Institute continues. You can use this manmade super virus to infect human airway cells. Think about that. The SARS virus had a 15% mortality and we are fighting a pandemic that has about a 1% mortality. Can you imagine if the SARS virus that has been juiced up and had proteins added to it, if that were released accidentally? Do still support funding of the NIH funding of the lab in Wuhan?
FAUCI: With all due respect, you are entirely incorrect that the NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain of function research in that institute. We do not fund—Dr. Barrett does not do this research and if it is, it is according to the guidelines and is being conducted in North Carolina.
There’s more than a little evidence that Aqua Buddha picked this theory up on the sole of his shoe while walking through the Newsmax studios, because that particular outlet has been banging this drum so loudly that it’s starting to leach into the (relatively) more respectable precincts of the conservative media ecosystem. It is a useful trope for those who, for whatever reason, find Dr. Fauci to be an enemy of their tribe. (China! Scientists! Unclean!) But there’s a way even to that without alienating every human on the planet. Senator Paul never has found it, however.
Meanwhile, over at the Senate Rules Committee, they were debating the For The People Act. This was a real test-case for my proposal, because Ted Cruz took the lead in much of the debate, and Mitch McConnell personally showed up to bleat about the absence of bipartisanship and did not immediately burst into flames, proving again that life is random and that there is no god. But we also got our first look at Senator Bill Hagerty, the rookie from Tennessee who replaced ol’ Lamar Alexander.
The committee was debating an amendment to the bill that would eliminate a provision therein that would help the Federal Election Commission actually do its job. Basically, the adjustment to the FEC would end the nearly automatic deadlock on all issues caused by the current law by which each party gets three commissioners. This has led to repeated 3-3 deadlocks. The FTP Act would change the size of the commission from six to five, with no more than two commissioners from a single party. This was interpreted by Cruz and McConnell as a “Democratic power grab.” But Hagerty came prepared.
If the Democrats want to see their ideas in action, Hagerty said, “they should look past our southern border to Venezuela, where Maduro weaponized” the election officials. “Venezuela” is another one of those conjuring words that elude most of us, but for the initiates, it opens a vast world of fanciful monsters and black-hearted conspirators. It is a spell that reveals the vast unreality in which the Republican Party now exists. I didn’t agree with ol’ Lamar on anything, but he at least was somebody you could be around and not feel as though you were locked in the reptile house.
Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976. He lives near Boston and has three children.
