I can’t claim what it’s like to be an American amidst rapid democratic backsliding in the United States, but it has been exasperating seeing accounts over the past few weeks of how key GOP politicians like Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy have turned a blind eye to the crisis at the heart of American democracy. These officials have aided the ascendancy of Trump and his brand of cult-of-personality-centric, nativist right-wing populism that is hostile to liberal democracy. Now that Trump is out of office, at least for the time being, GOP leadership has had an opportunity to rid the party of its anti-democratic elements and reverse this decline. This opportunity has thus far gone untaken.
Describing North Carolina Republican congressman Madison Cawthorn as “embattled” is an understatement. He’s faced a litany of bad headlines; as summarized by New York Magazine’s Jonathan Chait, Cawthorn “has generated so many horrible news stories, ranging from the personal to the ideological, that observers have grown obsessed with locating the unifying thread that explains it all.” When Chait’s article was published, the scandals includes him allegedly breaking rules on congressional stock trading, to sexual misconduct accusations, to bringing a loaded gun to an airport, to crossdressing. Since then, a picture of a male staffer touching his crotch, and a video of him naked, humping a man’s face have been released. These stories are surfacing because he said in an interview with Warrior-Poet Society that congresspeople regularly have cocaine-fueled orgies. His fellow Republicans, including Kevin McCarthy, took great offence, and are now salting the earth of his political career.
These scandals, many of which are taking an intrinsically sexual nature, coming at the same time as the GOP, including Cawthorn, are promulgating a destructive moral panic against transgender people. It’s clearly hypocritical to participate in this moral crusade while crossdressing. Nevertheless, I am not going to speculate on Cawthorn’s sexuality or expression of his gender or sexuality – it’s for this reason I’m not linking to the relevant photographs and video – and anyone doing so is abetting the Republican Party’s hostility to LGBTQ people. Democrats, liberals, progressives, whoever, would be wise to remember that these stories are emerging because Kevin McCarthy’s feelings were hurt and wanted to embarrass Madison Cawthorn into losing his primary election on May 17th.
Election handicappers, like Sabato’s Crystal Ball, currently indicate that the district should be safe for the GOP come the midterm elections in the US. If Cawthorn survives his primary challenge – internal GOP polling has shown him ahead of his challengers but in a tightening race as of April 26th – he’s probably favoured to win reelection amidst a likely good election cycle for Republicans. Of course, the recent leak on Roe v. Wade may throw a wrench into the GOP’s electoral strength this November, and the slew of bad headlines may irreparably damage Cawthorn’s reputation among voters, but sheer partisanship will likely be enough to carry him through, should he win his primary.
None of this is to say that Madison Cawthorn is a good congressman; far from it. Ideally, Cawthorn would face electoral annihilation. Cawthorn’s political instincts are well in-line with Trump, displaying knee-jerk opposition to Ukraine, as his commentary on Russia’s war against Ukraine to supporters was one of condemning Zelenskyy as “a thug,” the Ukrainian government as “incredibly evil” and pushing “woke ideologies,” and equating the corruption of Ukraine to Russia. On what basis he’s basing his comments on, other than sheer contrarianism, is unknown, but that his political instincts led him to that commentary is damning enough. He’s not alone in his contrarian opposition to Ukraine within the GOP House caucus; Georgian representative Marjorie Taylor Greene also called Zelenskyy corrupt, blamed Ukraine for its invasion, and suggested that Obama was responsible for Zelenskyy coming to power (Zelenskyy was elected in 2019, over two years after Obama left office.) This has been respected in their congressional voting record, such as their opposition to a bill designed to seize the assets of Russian oligarchs to pay for rebuilding Ukraine after the war, for example. Greene also consorts with fascists, and is sympathetic to insurrectionists.
If Kevin McCarthy really was so concerned with democracy that he assisted the failed effort to overturn the presidential election, then he naturally would have taken action against the anti-democratic members of his own caucus, right? Nope. He issued condemnations of Cawthorn and Greene’s terrible political positions, but did nothing else to establish that their views are unacceptable. McCarthy and GOP leadership continue to back Greene for reelection and will give her committee assignments if the GOP win control of the House of Representatives in November, and he backed Cawthorn’s reelection until he commented on the proclivities of Congress. Complete inaction, complete cowardice until he and other members of the GOP felt threatened by Cawthorn’s comments. Cawthorn’s comments likely would have blown over anyways had McCarthy and others not made such a big deal out of them. Now? Some are going to be convinced that those cocaine orgies aren’t just fiction.
Is there any greater threat to democracy than complacency? Getting too comfortable in one’s boots, thinking that fascism; that communism; that the totalitarian menace can never happen to us, whoever “us” may be, is the attitude that can destroy American democracy. If there are any lessons to be taken from the Trump years, it is that the institutions we take for granted are easily bent and twisted. Indeed, through sheer force of personality, Trump and his followers almost overruled the democratic will of the American people based on a fabrication created out of ether. Now imagine what will happen when Trump runs again in 2024 and the GOP will have had four years to prepare to contest the results of the election if Trump loses again. To save American democracy, Kevin McCarthy, Mitch McConnell, and the rest of GOP leadership ought to have started purging the party of its anti-democratic elements as soon as Biden cinched the White House. Instead, they remain cowed to Trump, afraid to take decisive action lest their short-term political agenda of appeasing corporations and oppressing trans people be interrupted. Ignoring their scandals, people like Madison Cawthorn and Marjorie Taylor Greene should be politically sidelined and left outside a nominally liberal democratic party. Instead, they’re punished for commenting on Washington’s culture, rather than something far more important, showing just how little the GOP actually cares about the preservation of democracy.