A Dark Mood For Republicans In Washington
Surreal and dour
The state and mood of Washington, D.C. this week is a combination of dire and surreal. The surreal came in the form of the funeral for Lindsey Graham, a rare politician of actual note in this day and age of politicos who are good at winning elections, toeing the line, and remaining consistently unrecognizable as having any effect on national policy. (Did you know that Jack Reed has been a Senator since Princess Diana was still alive? Wild.)
The event was, as is typical for the Capitol City, reduced to a pathetic networking session of smiles and handshakes between journos and politicians, lawyers and lobbyists, with the additional Kremlinology of who got to sit where and why. Everyone was on their phones between songs of generic holiness, stuck to the uncomfortable confines of worn brown National Cathedral chairs in the purportedly religious house that has the acoustics of a Wawa and whose respect for holiness is embodied by the head of Darth Vader perched atop its Northwest Tower, as predicted by the Gospel of Luke. For this, John Fetterman wore a suit?
What was remarkable about the Graham funeral is how little resemblance it bore to the man it claimed to honor. Instead it was a tribute isolated to a single relationship confined to the last seven years of Graham’s thirty-four year career in Washington: his political friendship with President Donald Trump. It was a connection built on Graham’s belief that, in the absence of his longtime foreign policy allies John McCain and Joe Lieberman, he had to make the best of things – becoming a quarterback whisperer in an offensive scheme he never thought he’d have to run. The decision reaped benefits, for Graham and for Trump – the former an old hand at driving policy in the Republican conference, the latter a political neophyte who didn’t know who to trust or how to move legislation beyond a Truth Social post.
The tributes from the front of the Cathedral focused on an appeal to the Commander in the Chief in the front row, and left his longtime friends unmentioned. The program wasn’t marked by any of his longtime political allies from his home in South Carolina. Take the world leaders out of the equation in the attending crowd, and it could’ve been a funeral for any Republican Senator. The oddity of it all is that unlike so many others, Graham’s absence is likely to be immediately felt, and felt the most by Trump’s White House, whose relationship with Capitol Hill, already strained with contention and resentment, is only going to get worse.
The following day brought another insult to holiness with the circus of the Anthony Fauci hearing. The fish in the barrel claimed the fif the entire time, and Senators expressed their undying love and affection (on the Democratic side) and their utter contempt for his lying, self-dealing, and pompous assumption of the seat of the Pope of Science. Rand Paul’s blonde gum-chewing staffer went viral. Josh Hawley channeled the fury of millions of Americans. Bernie Moreno said a swear. None of this will be of any consequence.
This is where Republicans find themselves: looking back in anger, without delivering anything of substance. They’re still fighting the last war. Democrats are crazy socialists who haven’t stopped being crazy, in fact they’ve gotten even crazier. But that’s not good enough to win, despite the insistence of too-online right wingers that they can run that play back one more time to buck decades of historical midterm trends. Four in ten voters say they want “revolutionary” change from this election. Do you think they care about people movers at Dulles Airport? Do you think they give a shit if James Talarico rents a truck?
That brings us to the dire mood in the Capital City. House Republicans had already been planning their exit strategy and shopping for their next homes and jobs. Senate Republicans have only just noticed that they are headed in the same direction: off a cliff, at rapid speed. President Trump’s approval rating is -33 in the latest AP poll. The Democratic Senate candidate currently has the lead in North Carolina and Georgia respectively – where Majority Leader John Thune has promised to spend an enormous amount of cash – and is within the margin of error in Ohio and Texas, which were supposed to be red states last we checked. Every bout at the White House’s UFC sideshow ended in a knockout. This may not even be that close.
The realization on the eve of August that the blue tidal wave could hit the Senate, too, has come too late to do much of anything about it except bitch about the damn war. And what comes after? We all know what it looks like for D.C.: committee circuses, impeachment of cabinet figures, and lawfare targeting the president’s family and allies to a degree that it will make the Joe Biden years look sleepy and innocuous. For the left? A dramatically emboldened socialist wing, with the force multiplier of eager and willing new entrants from safe seats, each looking to make a national name for themselves. And for the right? Two years of vindictive bloodletting and horror, blame and revisionism, and a level of factional strife that will have the city turning back to all the old Game of Thrones episodes, lacking as we are in newer references in the post-peak TV era.
The Republican Party was emboldened by Donald Trump’s victory in 2024. But from election night on, they made the mistake of thinking that victory for the right was fundamental. It may turn out to be the exception before the left’s new and dangerous rule.
Buckle up.