Republicans Have Become the Party of Attention-Seeking Trolls

Early in Trump's presidency, Josh Marshall captured his appeal.

People continue to marvel how a city-bred, godless libertine who was born to great wealth could become and remain the political avatar of small town and rural voters of middling means. The answer is simple. Despite all their differences, Trump meets his voters in a common perception (real or not) of being shunned, ignored and disrespected by ‘elites’. In short, his politics and his connection with his core voters is based on grievance. This is a profound and enduring connection.

As one Trump supporter told Jeffrey Goldberg in 2018: “There’s the Obama Doctrine, and the ‘Fuck Obama’ Doctrine. We’re the ‘Fuck Obama’ Doctrine.” That sentiment had been fueled by the fact that in 2009, Republicans abandoned the idea of an agenda and, instead, rallied around a strategy of total obstruction. The party was no longer FOR anything, they were merely against whatever Democrats attempted to do. 

After eight years of "fuck Obama" politics, along came Trump with his so-called "populist" appeal to grievance, telling voters that Democrats were fueling an invasion of immigrants, wanted to take away their guns, and were mounting attacks on their religious freedom. Lance Mannion identified the appeal:

They like feeling persecuted. They need to feel persecuted...it feeds their self-pity and sense of entitlement, and it gives them their excuse.

It’s how they turn offense into defense, how repression and oppression become liberty.

If they are under attack, then they’re free to fight back.

I say all of that as a way to explain why people like Representatives Majorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz, and Madison Cawthorn have risen to become the most popular leaders with the MAGA crowd. 

Think about this: MTG has been stripped of her committee assignments and of the 17 bills she's signed on to as a sponsor, four are to impeach Biden, two would punish Rep. Maxine Waters, and one is titled "Fire Fauci Act." Several others are merely commemorative - like a bill to give Kyle Rittenhouse the Congressional Gold Medal. In other words, she hasn't proposed anything that would actually improve the lives of her constituents...it's all grievance politics. 

So if she's not on any committees or working on any actually legislation, what does MTG do all day? She's a performance artist who spends most of her time attacking the people she has identified as enemies - be they Democrats or Republicans. In other words, she's a troll - which the Urban Dictionary defines as "someone who deliberately pisses people off to get a reaction." 

Writing at the Bulwark, Jonathan Last nailed it.

Does it matter to his future political prospects that Matt Gaetz doesn’t advance legislation? Does it matter that Madison Cawthorn staffed up his office with comms people? Does it matter that Marjorie Taylor Greene doesn’t have committee assignments?

Well, these quirks would matter in a system where legislative accomplishments influenced voter behavior. But the preponderance of evidence suggests that Republican voters don’t care about tangible government outcomes...

Republican voters—a group distinct from Conservatism Inc.—no longer have any concrete outcomes that they want from government.

What they have, instead, is a lifestyle brand.

And if you want to move up the ladder within a brand network, you don’t do it by governing or making policy.

You do it by getting attention.

In a world where legislative accomplishments don't influence voter behavior, getting attention is the name of the game. The more outlandish the accusations - the better. 

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is clearing the field for this kind of attention grabbing by admitting that Republicans have no actual policy agenda heading into the 2022 midterms. He believes that voters will reward the party that eschews governance in favor of performance. 

That sets up this dynamic:

Democrats continue to comport themselves as if they exist in a real political economy—a real world where they will be judged by voters on the outcomes of their actual policy choices. Meanwhile Republicans operate according to the rules of the attention economy.

With their focus on actual policy, can Democrats win back voters who gravitated to the Republican Party because it spoke to their grievances? I'm not optimistic, but perhaps there's always hope at the margins. If so, it will probably require them to change the conversation by repeating the question Biden asked a few weeks ago: "What are Republicans FOR?"