Let’s Talk About the Influence of the Extremists

In recent years, a narrative has emerged on the right that Democratic politicians have been captured by the extreme left. However, a closer look at the two major parties and the power that their most fringe elements wield suggests that it is Republicans who have lost their grip on moderation after having been captured by a fringe element of their party that is wildly out of step with the American public at large.

First, let’s define fringe. Conservative media outlets and social media algorithms (especially Twitter and Rumble) are very good at curating the most absurd TikTokers—especially if they are making imbecilic proclamations regarding transgender issues or the exponential proliferation of gender pronoun options—and presenting them to Republican voters as if they are representative of anyone who identifies as a “liberal” or even a “Democrat.” This is the crazy that has captured the Democratic Party is an oft-used caption.

However, the idea that this minuscule fringe or their movements have any more power in party politics than the Proud Boys or other white nationalist fringe groups have over the RNC platform is ludicrous at face value. The far left, best identified in Democratic politics by the Progressive Caucus and its supporters, has instead spent its time working on issues that are quite popular with American voters across the spectrum.

The executive action agenda the caucus recently issued to the Biden Administration includes four focus areas: 1. Hold corporations accountable; 2. Raise wages and empower workers; 3. Climate action and environmental justice; 4. Advancing equity and justice. Now, you can feel any sort of way about any of those pillars, which this document defines in much greater detail. Still, I would hope that you would acknowledge that it is out of step with the way in which pundits and politicians on the right regularly characterize the progressive left.

What’s more, and this is the important part, it has been patently clear to progressive voters for decades how little influence (power would be too strong of a word) the caucus, its members, or even progressive media pundits wield, despite the fact that progressive policies like a living minimum wage, meager environmental action to combat climate change and closing tax loopholes that allow large corporations and the uber-wealthy to pay far less than the tax code prescribes, remain extremely popular with voters of all stripes.

Name a meaningful federal policy victory progressives have won on any of these fronts. I’ll wait. In fact, one of the largest criticisms that Senator Bernie Sanders—by far the caucus’ most famous and influential member—received while running for President was that he had been completely ineffective as a congressional legislator. That was not an unfair criticism. While Sanders’ policies polled well among voters, they were largely third-rail among the Democratic donor class, and few saw the light of day.

Now, contrast that with the so-called Republican Liberty Caucus, a right-wing congressional caucus whose policies, while popular on the far right, enjoy far less appeal with American voters at large. However, unlike progressives, so-called Liberty Republicans have managed to take control of the levers of power not only within their party but of government institutions themselves.

Pramila Jayapal was elected in 2016. Ilhan Omar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez were elected in 2018. Was there ever a moment in which it would have been less than laughable to imagine any of them having usurped or even succeeded Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House or even House Minority Leader? No, there wasn’t, because the NeoLibs that control the Democratic Party have maintained an iron-clad grip on its institutions in a way that the Lincoln Project and other elements of the NeoCon sphere have openly lusted for since the unlikely confluence of the Koch-co-opted Tea Party movement, the rise of the long courted but politically-ignored religious right, and a charismatic demagogue who decided to run for president took it away from them.

As a result, Republicans have managed to oust a House Speaker (Kevin McCarthy) who had long been in lock-step with those elements and far to the right of even Busch-era NeoCons to elevate a Speaker whose beliefs represent a smaller fringe of citizens than anyone who has ever been third in succession to the presidency in this nation’s history.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) flies three flags outside of his House office: the American flag, the State of Louisianna flag, and an “appeal to heaven” flag that has long been associated with New Apostolic Reformation and the concept of Christian Nationalism, a belief that it is their God’s will that Christians take control of all aspects of U.S. society from education and entertainment to the media and business in order to create a religious state.

Now, one might point out that the flag in question dates back to the Revolutionary War, which sounds a little bit like the argument that the so-called Confederate flag celebrates those who lost their lives instead of the reality that it was actually a militia flag popularized by the Klu Klux Klan during Jim Crowe and again during the Civil Rights movement. But that becomes an even more hollow argument once you get through even just a bit of Johnson’s own statements.

Our recently-elevated and previously unknown Speaker has said that the separation of church and state is a “misnomer” and argued that a creationism museum should receive public funding because its exhibits would help people see the historical truth in biblical events. He worked with a gay conversion therapy center and has fought against gay couples being able to adopt orphaned children. In fact, his obsession with gay sex is so pronounced that you immediately get the impression that there might be, shall we say, more going on there.

For anyone who has ever watched The Handmaid’s Tale, Mike Johnson is a terrifying real-world embodiment of the show’s most frightening characters. To make matters worse, were both President Biden and Vice President Harris to perish, he would be President of the United States, at which point we might as well start calling the U.S. the Republic of Gilead. And it is not as though he would have trouble finding allies.

The concept of Christian Nationalism has picked up mainstream momentum on the Republican side of the House. Majorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has openly advocated for the GOP being a Christian Nationalist party. Her intellectual counterpart Lauren Boebert (R-CO) has said, “The church is supposed to direct the government. The government is not supposed to direct the church (she did not expound on the church’s view of groping in a crowded theater in front of children)."

One might argue that Boebert and Greene themselves are fringe, but if you wish to make a case that they would enjoy the same relegation in a Trump presidency that the squad has suffered under Biden, good luck. Besides, there are far more members of the Liberty Caucus who take Johnson’s genial and soft-spoken approach but are every bit as zealous in their desire to remake America as a Christian theocracy.

And there is definitely an audience in the GOP. A recent survey conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute found that more than half of Republican voters support or are sympathetic to the concept of Christian Nationalism. The rest of the country, myself included, want absolutely nothing to do with it.

If you are a Republican and do not think that the bible is literal or that the Earth is 6,000 years old and God wants us to exercise dominion over it at any environmental cost whatsoever, there is still plenty for which you can criticize the Democratic Party.

You can start with the fact that its foreign policy has become indistinguishable from that of Bush-era NeoCons like Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Wolfowitz. You can complain about its fealty to Wall Street, Big Banks, Big Pharma, and Big Tech. You can criticize it for its tired overreliance on identity politics to give its new wealthy suburbanite base something to occupy themselves with since the party abandoned the working class.

However, if we are talking about which party has been captured by its extreme and has become intent (and very nearly capable of) imposing the will of the minority on the rest of us, I am afraid the GOP has that market cornered.

related:
Ideology has Become a Poison Pill and Self Reliance is the Anecdote

Dennis "Mitch" Maley is an editor and columnist for The Bradenton Times and the host of our weekly podcast. With over two decades of experience as a journalist, he has covered Manatee County government since 2010. He is a graduate of Shippensburg University and later served as a Captain in the U.S. Army. Click here for his bio. His 2016 short story collection, Casting Shadows, was recently reissued and is available here.