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Item one: Little Kevin has just hurt either himself or Donald Trump

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy came out Thursday and denied that he had promised Donald Trump votes on expunging his two impeachments by the House. Politico Playbook broke the story that Trump, angry that McCarthy had said, last month, that Trump might not be the GOP’s strongest presidential candidate for 2024, asked—er, “asked”—McCarthy to endorse him for president. Wanting to stay neutral, McCarthy reportedly put Trump off by promising to hold votes on wiping his impeachments from history’s obelisk.

The notion, of course, is chimerical. There’s no provision in the Constitution or in law for impeachments to be officially erased, so they would remain in the historical record. The votes would be purely for Trump’s ego. Anyway: “There’s no deal,” McCarthy told reporters Thursday, adding, however, that “I support expungement.”

Why the denial? Because the matter puts McCarthy in a horrible bind. We’ll get to that, but the more interesting point here for our purposes is how this shows what a shell the party of Lincoln has become. Everything that’s sick and warped and desiccated about today’s Republican Party is present in this deal (or “deal,” if McCarthy is to be believed).

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What, precisely, is sick and warped and desiccated about today’s Republican Party? At least three things.

Number one: It’s a cult of one man—not a political party anymore in any remote sense of the word. Trump says jump, and they ask how high. In fact, these days, Trump rarely even has to say jump. A certain situation arises, and congressional Republicans anticipate that he’s about to say jump, so they start jumping, trying to guess the height that will please him most.

Elise Stefanik, the upstate New York congresswoman whose tongue must be purple from all the Kool-Aid she’s slurped down, is leading the chorus of jumpers here. And there are plenty of others. It so happens that this resolution is in trouble (more on which in a bit). But the fact that something this extreme is even being considered is proof of the congressional GOP’s servility.

Number two: The party is driven more than ever by its extremes, which is something that has never been the case for any political party in American history. You’ll recall, when Democrats had the majority, Nancy Pelosi was obsessed about what she called her “frontline” members—the vulnerable ones in purple districts. She was loath to make them cast a politically tough vote. This made her more progressive members grumpy at times. McCarthy is exactly the opposite. He has a few moderate-ish members (again, more on which in a bit), but just about everything he’s done so far has been to pander to the hard right.

Number three: There is no normal small-d democratic accountability in the GOP anymore. In theory, American political parties are accountable to the voters. But because of the way Republicans have gerrymandered congressional districts, most Republicans can’t lose—except to a primary challenger who’s even more MAGA than they are.

And that in a nutshell is why the party has become what it has become: an extremist cult that has no incentive to behave otherwise—and in fact has every incentive to keep behaving exactly this way or worse.

Now: What makes this episode delicious is that there is no good outcome for the GOP. Since the story broke, a number of House Republicans have said, on the record or on background, that they’re not so enthusiastic about this. Why? Because they think it might fail on a floor vote. Why? Because there are 18 Republican House members who represent districts Joe Biden won, and they’re terrified of having to vote on this. They’d all, or mostly, want to vote “no.” And they know very well what would happen: Trump would find a primary opponent to run against them, and those candidates would have instant access to big dollars and would be lionized by the right-wing media. So they might vote “yes” to prevent that from happening—in which case they would hand their Democratic opponents instant clubs with which to hammer them. McCarthy’s five-seat majority would be at serious risk.

You get the picture, I trust. There are three possible outcomes here, and all of them are bad for the GOP:

1.	It comes to the floor and passes. A, they look ridiculous to swing voters. B, this will require the votes of at least some of the Bidenland 18, who’ll be instantly vulnerable.
2.	It comes to the floor and fails. A total humiliation for McCarthy and Trump. Especially the latter.
3.	McCarthy somehow doesn’t bring it to the floor at all. Trump is livid. The base is furious at “My Kevin.” Trump still looks weak, because everyone will know that the vote didn’t happen because Republicans feared it wouldn’t pass, endangering McCarthy’s speakership because he failed Dear Leader.

It’s great fun to watch. But it’s really tragic for the country. Step back and mull it over. A sitting president tried to subvert a foreign leader into getting involved in an American presidential campaign, threatening to withhold aid unless the leader did so. A clearly impeachable offense. Then he literally led an insurrection against the government he’s supposed to lead—an offense that was not only clearly impeachable but, as we appear to be about to learn from special counsel Jack Smith, may well have been criminal.

And the response of his party? To try to wipe these crimes from the books. I hope they succeed. It’s clear at this point that some percentage of the American electorate needs to be hit over the head to finally see the Republican Party for what it is. Expungement is the blunt instrument that might just do it.

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Item two: A few things you should know about Tommy Tuberville

Alabama Republican Tommy Tuberville comes to the Senate from the world of college football. Now I grew up a college football fan, and I admit that I still am, although the avaricious cesspool that the game has become tests my interest more and more each year. Twenty years ago, I could sit there on an October Saturday and watch games from noon to midnight. But I watch less and less every fall.

Tuberville was once the coach at Auburn, a fabled program for those of you who don’t know such things (thirteenth-winningest program of all time). Tuberville amassed an impressive record there. He beat hated foe Alabama six straight times. But he was forced out eventually. Why?

The simple answer is that he started losing. But I read with interest this week this contemporaneous report from 2008 by Gerald Ball of BleacherReport.com. The basic thesis is that Tuberville, a defensive mind, meddled too much in the offense and didn’t keep up with how the offensive game had changed. Laced throughout, though, was a pretty clear racial subtext. Tuberville had a Black quarterback named Jason Campbell who led the Tigers to a perfect 13–0 season. But even during and after that run, Ball writes, Tuberville “allowed the story line to develop on talk radio and internet boards that Campbell wasn’t intelligent enough to pick up the offense.” Tuberville even actually said, according to Ball’s article, that Campbell’s replacement, Brandon Cox, “was more intelligent and more of a leader.”

You can click here to see Cox’s skin color, though it shouldn’t be hard to guess.

I bring all this to your attention, of course, because Coach made a little news recently by saying, “My opinion of a white nationalist is an American.” He later bobbed and weaved and said that if white nationalists were racists, well, he was against that, because he was “110 percent” against racism, and after all, he was a football coach; he shaped and molded hundreds of young Black men—how could he possibly be racist?

I suspect that argument is probably persuasive to a lot of people; hence my little story. Proximity and familiarity in life usually help people overcome prejudice. Usually—but not always. Sometimes they confirm in people their already-held views. Google “racist comments by football coaches.” I got 8,660,000 results.

Item three: This just in: Pat Boone, like General Franco, is not dead

Poor Jesse Watters. Since taking over Tucker Carlson’s spot on Fox News, his ratings haven’t equaled Carlson’s, and while maybe no one expected any different, the show has been a little … weird. His Democratic mom called in one night to lecture him not to spin conspiracy theories, which, of course, is what he spends a lot of time doing. Mother knows best, Jesse.

Anyhoo. This week, Watters hit peak weirdness by inviting on Pat Boone, the 89-year-old former singing star. For those of you who are too young to know, Boone broke out in the 1950s and was known for producing white-bread, de-sexified versions of raucous, raunchy, R&B numbers like Little Richard’s “Tutti Frutti.” He then went mostly country and gospel, more in keeping with his hard-right politics, which he had brandished over the years on behalf of various candidates and causes.

The cause that brought him onto Watters’s show was the controversy surrounding the song “Try That in a Small Town,” by country star Jason Aldean. As you’d guess from the title, the song’s lyrics consist of dares to big-city Commies to just try to come to a small town and pull their Commie antics. The song didn’t attract a ton of attention, but its recently released video did. It contained scenes from Black Lives Matter protests and acts of criminal violence. Oh—and the video shows Boone performing the song at a Tennessee county courthouse where a young Black man was lynched in 1927 and where a 1946 race riot resulted in the near-lynching of Thurgood Marshall.

So Boone was hauled out to respond to Aldean’s critics, some of whom were country artists (a country music video channel stopped showing the video). “It’s gotten sick,” he harrumphed. “I can’t believe it’s country music.” Also: “Many of our enemies are in our own house.” Then he joked, twice, about an armed Beverly Hills neighbor who was itching to shoot a trespasser. Then, on air, he brandished two weapons, a Colt .45 and a Sig Sauer:

It’s under five minutes and really worth watching as a sociological artifact of how fascism became mainstream.

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Quiz time!

Last week’s quiz: Riiiise, riiiise… To mark the release of Leslie Van Houten from prison after serving more than 50 years, let’s do a quiz about the Manson murders.

1. Charles Manson was trying to make it as a musician. What famous L.A. musician of the time befriended him and encouraged his career?

A. Jackson Browne

B. Dennis Wilson (brother of Brian)

C. John Phillips

D. Stephen Stills

Answer: Answer: B, Dennis Wilson. Dennis even kinda looked like him. Another reason not to like the Beach Boys (you heard me).

2. Manson had his “family” listen over and over to The Beatles (The White Album), as he claimed to have heard clues in the songs urging him to start a race war. According to lore, three of the following White Album songs were among those Manson singled out as speaking to him. Which was not?

A. “Why Don’t We Do It in the Road?”

B. “Piggies”

C. “Revolution 9”

D. “Helter Skelter”

Answer: Answer: A, “Why Don’t We Do It…” To Manson, the “Piggies” were the white overclass, “Revolution 9” was the soundtrack of the battle of Armageddon, and “Helter Skelter” was a coded message of violence and mayhem (it’s actually a carnival ride in England).

3. Manson also claimed to have found clues about the race war in what book of the Bible?

A. Judges

B. Ecclesiastes

C. Acts

D. Revelation

Answer: Answer: D, Revelation. And The Beatles were the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse—so you see, it all makes sense!

4. On August 8, 1969, Manson ordered his family members to go to the house at 10050, Cielo Drive in Benedict Canyon and kill whoever they found there. That’s how Sharon Tate (then the wife of Roman Polanski), Abigail Folger (coffee heiress), Wojciech Frykowski, Jay Sebring, and Steven Parent died. Manson knew the house, and had visited it, because someone else had lived there shortly before. Who?

A. Joni Mitchell

B. Terry Southern

C. Record producer Terry Melcher (and his girlfriend, Candice Bergen)

D. Sitcom actor Bob Denver

Answer: C, Terry Melcher and Candice Bergen. Just think: Who would have played Murphy Brown? By the way, Melcher is the son of Doris Day. Bob Denver would have made a very ’60s-L.A. kind of sense, though.

5. One of the “Manson girls” turned state’s evidence and became the prosecution’s key witness against him. Who was that?

A. Susan Atkins

B. Linda Kasabian

C. Patricia Krenwinkel

D. Ruth Ann Moorehouse

Answer: Answer: B, Linda Kasabian. She never served a day in prison and died just this past January at 73. Susan Atkins died in prison in 2009. Patricia Krenwinkel is alive, in prison, and will likely never get out. Moorehouse wasn’t involved in the murders but went on to live, as one might guess, a rather complicated life.

6. In a weird, creepy afterburn of Mansonism, family member Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme made headlines in 1975 for what?

A. Getting arrested with Patty Hearst and the Symbionese Liberation Army

B. Participating in the Weather Underground bombing of the State Department

C. Joining the Baader-Meinhof Group in West Germany

D. Trying to assassinate President Ford

Answer: Answer: D, she tried to shoot Gerry Ford. Weirdly, he was the victim of two assassination attempts within a month of each other. What was the other would-be assassin’s name?

This week’s quiz: “Gee, queen of the prom!” It came down to an Oppenheimer or a Barbie quiz. I know, I know. I’m the editor of a big intellectual magazine. But my mind, and heart, are in the pop-culture gutter. Barbie it is.

1. Ruth Handler invented Barbie, based on a doll she saw in Germany in 1956. Barbie debuted in America three years later. What was the unique selling point of Barbie at the time?

A. She had moving joints.
B. She had brushable hair.
C. Her eyes moved.
D. She was an adult at a time when nearly all girls’ dolls were infants.

2. Barbie has had more than 250 careers. In 1965, she did something remarkable that even humankind had not yet done. What was it?

A. She cloned a sheep.
B. She invented the Frisbee.
C. She invented the artificial heart.
D. She went to the moon.

3. What year did the first Black Barbie doll appear? She was called, please forgive me, “Colored Francie.”

A. 1967
B. 1968
C. 1970
D. 1971

4. Ken debuted in 1961. But it took until Valentine’s Day 2004 for Barbie and Ken to do what?

A. Get married
B. Have a baby
C. Break up
D. Have sex (as officially acknowledged by the Mattel Corp.)

5. What artist of the Pop Art school appropriated the Barbie image for a painting?

A. Roy Lichtenstein
B. Andy Warhol
C. David Hockney
D. Peter Max

6. Barbie made the cover of Time magazine in 2016 with what development?

A. Introduction of the first openly gay Barbie
B. Introduction of the first Muslim Barbie
C. Introduction of new body types
D. Introduction of Barbie as candidate for president

Terrific review of the new movie, by the way, at NewRepublic.com by our own Grace Segers. Answers next week. Oh—and the other Ford shooter was Sarah Jane Moore. Feedback to fightingwords@tnr.com.

—Michael Tomasky, editor

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