GOP Base Needs Right Wing Rehab, But Who will Tell Them?

The Frankenstein MAGA monster is ready to break free from the lab

In the daily tsunami of Trump stories, it’s easy to forget the time the former president was booed for admitting that he had received a Covid-19 vaccine. The acknowledgment came at an event in Dallas, where former FOX News host Bill O’Reilly said that “both the President and I are vaxxed”. He followed up by asking Trump, “Did you get the booster?”  

Trump replied, “Yes,” to which the anti-vax segment of his base vehemently expressed their disapproval. In retrospect, this act of Republican disobedience was illuminating. It showed that the Frankenstein MAGA monster that Trump and the GOP had built was alive, restive and ready to break free from the lab.

We saw a similar scenario play out in Brazil, where radicalized right wing Jair Bolsonaro supporters blocked roads with trucks and begged the military to stage a coup after their candidate lost. When Bolsonaro told them to go home, they ignored him – showing that once the inmates take over the asylum, they don’t always listen to the warden.

No matter which party controls Washington, it’s clear that no one controls the unruly zealots that have been spawned at the Republican Fanatic Factory. A recent poll found that 1 in 3 Republicans believe that violence may be necessary to save the United States. Republican leaders seem to lack the courage to take on their base. The few that have, such as Rep. Liz Cheney, have been unceremoniously ejected from the Republican Party.  

The lunacy spreads all the way up the ladder to the highest reaches of government. Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz and Lauren Boebert are last year’s maniacal models. We can only imagine what the newest batch of batshit crazy lawmakers will bring to Washington and various state capitals after the midterms.

But we should be most concerned about the gun toting MAGA rank and file, who are pulling rank on their leaders and are no longer willing to line up single file to take orders. America is going to have to come to grips with the alarming fact that one-third of our population has become radicalized and lost its grip on reality. This is not a problem that will disappear overnight, and our nation will endure severe consequences – including violence -- until the insidious spell is broken.  

Not even their savior, Donald Trump, can rein in these renegades. While the cult drank his magic orange Kool Aid in 2016 and 2020, they have gone rogue, stealing his recipe and concocting their own toxic brew. These true believers are a menace to America and proving detrimental to democracy. The question is, how do we get these zombies into right wing rehab?

Marc Polymeropoulos is a former Senior Intelligence Service officer at the CIA. He warns us that right wing propaganda in the United States must be dealt with, just as Al Qaeda’s propaganda had to be countered in the Middle East.  He wrote on NBC’s website that, “The Rand Corporation has been one important organization investigating more specific strategies that might work to deradicalize U.S. extremists.” Unfortunately, one obstacle to neutralizing our homegrown nuts is our legal system:

The Constitution confers certain free-speech protections for extremist propaganda in the U.S. that prevent authorities from exactly replicating our foreign counterterrorism strategy here at home.

Without the force of law, Polymeropoulos argues that we must rely on moral suasion.

For one thing, we can exercise free speech to proclaim that the normalization of violence against politicians is dangerous and unacceptable.  

Politicians’ clear denunciation of violence is also important for another lesson that came from my time running counterterrorism operations in the Middle East: One of the more effective counterradicalization efforts in Arab countries was led by Muslims themselves articulating that extremism was wrong.       

In Saudi Arabia, for example, government officials took the lead in identifying at-risk individuals at all stages, including those in prison who had already perpetrated terror attacks. Rehabilitation programs provided counseling, religious re-education and help reintegrating into society…Though a minority of those who have gone through the process have returned to terrorism, there have also been clear cases of success.

What Polymeropoulos suggests makes perfect sense in a normal, civilized society. However, we are talking about Republican leaders so debased and devoid of decency that they laughed when Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul, was attacked by a hammer wielding MAGA madman.

Who in the Republican Party has the guts to tell the MAGA base that they’ve been snookered? Who has the courage to suggest they desperately need deprogramming at right-wing rehab facilities? Which Republican leader will stand up to denounce radical evangelical churches that preach militancy and sedition? I think you know the answer to these rhetorical questions.

In his NBC essay, Polymeropoulos stumbles upon what might finally wake up Republican leaders:  

As a matter of self-preservation alone, it seems like it [condemning violence and hate] should be happening without any prompting. Which political figure has the hubris to think the violence won’t reach them? 

Arrogant GOP leaders released the furies in their own party and lost control. But they aren’t superheroes immune from the culture of political violence they foolishly created. If misogynistic Republicans hate Hillary and Nancy, wait until they meet Ms. Karma.