The Party that Forgot How to Blink
Republicans are exhausted — not from governing, but from pretending to.
For nearly a decade, MAGA has sold performance anxiety as authenticity: rage as a lifestyle brand, cruelty as patriotism, and daily humiliation as community service. But the November 4, 2025 results were less “wave” and more “intervention.” Voters pried open the circus tent and walked out. Democrats didn’t just hold ground — they flipped Georgia, shoved Pennsylvania, and even cracked Mississippi’s supermajority. The country collectively said, “Nah — we’re done with the clown auditions.”
If you want to understand why, skip the pundits and start with a simpler truth: the MAGA brand ran out of monsters. Republicans have always needed something under the bed to sell you a flashlight. The problem is, they’ve been running the same horror franchise since Reagan. In the 1980s, Reagan peddled “welfare queens” and “strapping young bucks” like he was auditioning for Birth of a Nation 2: Trickledown Boogaloo — racist caricature disguised as economic policy. Then came George W. Bush, who turned homophobia into a campaign plank and called it “family values.” It was basically Queer Eye for the Straight Fear. For half a century, GOP politics has been an infomercial for panic, selling fear in exchange for votes and occasionally a tote bag. They’ve recycled so many boogeymen that Freddy Krueger should’ve filed a cease-and-desist.
The original recipe was called the Southern Strategy — the political equivalent of laundering hate through a focus group. Lee Atwater didn’t invent racism in politics; he just gave it a PowerPoint. Say less “segregation,” more “states’ rights.” Replace the slur with a spreadsheet. Atwater admitted the point was to let racists feel respectable while staying racist — to swap their white hoods for Brooks Brothers suits and call it “heritage.” It was the strategy part of the Southern Strategy — the camouflage that made bigotry sound like economics. But somewhere along the way, Republicans forgot the “strategy” and just kept the “Southern.” When Trump logged on, he didn’t even bother with the code words. He was the first politician to look at the dog whistle and say, “Why not just bark?”
https://www.lincolnsquare.media/p/the-party-that-forgot-how-to-blink
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