A most-major concern for America today is the insanity of the Republican Party. As Jennifer Rubin at The Washington Post put it yesterday:

The mainstream media insist on treating the Republican Party as a normal party, routinely declining to press them on their party’s embrace of violence, lies and conspiracy theories.
President Biden only gingerly dubs GOP proposals “ultra MAGA,” as if the problem were merely some absurdist policy ideas (e.g., taxing poor people).
Neither Biden nor the media get to the nub of the problem.

Let’s be blunt: A great many Republican candidates are bonkers. Or they are pretending to be.

And without a hint of true reality or shame:

What's the long German word for "irony so profound that you laugh uncontrollably while falling head first into a deep pit of nihilistic despair" https://t.co/4yV8vtWJn9

— Robert Maguire (@RobertMaguire_) July 7, 2022

Retro-grade Republican Tom Nichols at The Atlantic last night is confounded by the crazy-ass version of his Republican Party, its horrible, cranked bunch of bonkers people currently both in office and running for office and has been decades in the making — what’s going to take the GOPers to grasp that, concluding:

Almost every other national Republican is either silent or on board with the dark fantasies and deepening paranoia that now rule the GOP.
For example, Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, the relentlessly ambitious third-ranking House Republican, endorsed the developer Carl Paladino for a newly redistricted House seat in the state; in 2021 Paladino said that Adolf Hitler was “the kind of leader we need.”
Some House Republicans are frustrated that Stefanik went rogue by endorsing Paladino, meaning only that they are embarrassed but not ashamed.

But this internal GOP griping raises a question. When Senator Ron Johnson, of Wisconsin, is paddling about in the anti-vaccine fever swamps, and Senate candidate J.D. Vance is cozying up to people like the congressional conspiracy theorist Marjorie Taylor Greene and the execrable Matt Gaetz, what exactly counts as “going rogue” and how can anyone distinguish it from just another day in the Republican Party?

In the end, despite the efforts of Senator Romney and other reasonable Republicans, the fringe is now the base.
The last rational members of the GOP — both elected and among the rank and file — need to speak even harsher truths to their own people, as Liz Cheney did last week at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. Otherwise, the madness will spread, and our institutions will continue an accelerating slide into a nightmare that will engulf all Americans, regardless of party.

Never was anything to begin with, years ago with the Barry Goldwater generation. In particular, like the real sense of old-time Republicans, Cindy McCain says her late-husband John wouldn’t recognize the Republican Party nowadays (The Hill this afternoon): ‘“I don’t believe my husband would recognize it … I do know one thing: He would be fighting like the dickens to pull it back together and bring it back to what it was during previous Republican administrations and previous administrations as well … I’m still a Republican. I believe in the party, and I believe in what we stand for, but right now, we’ve lost our way. … We’re not being good examples for our children with what this represents right now.”‘

They’ve gotten worse as I type this — from a new Monmouth Poll published today: ‘By comparison, the number of Americans who say it is appropriate to describe the U.S. Capitol incident as a legitimate protest has remained stable over the past year (34 percent now compared with 33 percent in June 2021). However, the number of Republicans who see this incident as a legitimate protest has actually risen by 14 points to 61 percent, at the same time this view has declined among independents (down 6 points to 33 percent) and remained stable among Democrats (14 percent).‘

Just a tourist thingie, no big deal. The GOP is getting worse, and all the talk from ex-GOPers won’t help. Biden and Democrats have to call a shitburger a shitburger and in a loud voice.

And about that nihilistic despair — “No Donnie, these men are cowards“ in the end:

Inside and outside the crazy, here we are once again…

(Illustration out front found here.)