168 is a newsletter emailed weekly on an unscheduled basis in which I share my thoughts on various topics for the purpose of discussion. Your comments are welcome so please feel free to post them. To view archived newsletters, please visit www.1hundredsixty8.substack.com.
President Biden’s State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress last week was an opportunity for members of the GOP’s Clown Caucus to display their performative boorishness. Their discourteous antics were led by Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican from Deliverance, GA, who at one point shouted “liar” at Biden. Greene’s lack of civility was not an emotional, spur-of-the-moment outburst, but a carefully-calculated piece of performance art, the type emblematic of today’s politics. And more than any other cadre in either party, the extremists in the House of Representatives who style themselves as the “Freedom Caucus” engage in this behavior on a regular basis.
This was again on display last week as various Republican-led House committees began investigations into… Well, precisely what they’re investigating is uncertain. During the hearing by the House Oversight and Accountability Committee looking into federal government interference in social media, former Twitter employees were questioned about the platform's decision to block a New York Post story about Hunter Biden prior to the 2020 Election. Despite the ostensible purpose to delve into possible government censorship, members took advantage of the hearing to air personal grievances. Lauren Boebert, the Republican from a Colorado dive bar, demanded to know why her Twitter account had been “shadow-banned” for a “joke”. Marjorie Taylor Greene “thanked God that Elon Musk had purchased Twitter”. I am guessing that Musk’s acquisition of The Bird and his release of internal company documents- the “Twitter files”- proves the government prevented the curious among us to view the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop. So I guess we won’t be seeing the purported photos of Hunter’s man parts. We did learn, however, that the Trump White House requested that a tweet in which model Chrissy Teigen called Trump a “pussy-assed bitch” be taken down.
None of this, of course, has much to do with public policy, but it riles up that segment of the population the MAGAs call their base.
Meanwhile, in the Free State of Florida…
Or, DeSantistan, if you prefer, Governor Ron is hard at work protecting citizens from woke culture, books, college professors, Disney, and asylum seekers who entered the country in Texas. The dour DeSantis reportedly intends to run for President in 2024 and is busy making his bones as a culture warrior. No issue is too small to avoid the vengeance of the man who wants the Sunshine State to be the place “where woke comes to die”. Accordingly, his administration and the Republican legislature have taken dead aim at public education in the state.
In 2022, DeSantis and the Republican-controlled legislature gave Floridians the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill (The Parental Rights in Education Act) that limits classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity. It also permits parents to sue if they believe the law has been violated. It has incited a wave of book bannings in public schools across the state. Teachers who have non-sanctioned books in their classrooms face felony charges. As a result, teachers are removing all books not required by the curriculum from their classrooms. It is not far-fetched to think Florida is creeping closer to mass book burnings.
Last year, DeSantis also signed the S.T.O.P. Woke Act, a law that…
…prohibits workplace training or school instruction that teaches that individuals are “inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously”; that people are privileged or oppressed based on race, gender, or national origin; or that a person “bears personal responsibility for and must feel guilt, anguish, or other forms of psychological distress” over actions committed in the past by members of the same race, gender, or national origin.
It was these laws that brought the Disney Corporation into conflict with DeSantis. (I wrote about this last April.) As punishment for the company’s public stance against the legislation, DeSantis pushed for removing Disney’s special district status that had been put in place in the 1960s. The special district allowed Disney to assume some of the responsibilities of a local government over a specified area in exchange for free reign over its development. This concession ended last week when the legislature passed control of the district to a board appointed by the governor. Apparently, even private enterprise, whose freedom from government interference is a traditional conservative principle, is not safe from the rampaging culture warrior.
On another front, since transgender identity is such a hot-button issue, the Governor requested that the state’s athletic association overseeing high school sports obtain detailed information on the menstrual cycle records of female athletes. Evidently, DeSantis is hell-bent on putting an end to the scourge of boys masquerading as female athletes. Does anyone believe there are more than a handful of such cases in the state?
Higher education is not exempt from the warrior’s battleaxe. In January, DeSantis announced changes to the state’s public universities that included adding a core curriculum at Florida universities and reviewing tenured professors. In addition, he stated in a news conference in Bradenton, Florida that…
…We will eliminate all DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion] and CRT [critical race theory] bureaucracies in the state of Florida. The core curriculum must be grounded in actual history, the actual philosophy that has shaped Western civilization.
The New College of Florida, the most progressive of the state universities, is a particular target for DeSantis. In January, he appointed 6 new members to the New College’s Board of Trustees, including Christopher Rufo, a conservative who gained recognition for making CRT an issue. DeSantis then fired the school’s president, replacing her with former education commissioner Richard Corcoran, a close ally, at a $699,000 annual salary, more than double his predecessor’s compensation. The goal is to replace the progressive bent of the school with a conservative bias, changing the curriculum and hiring new faculty.
Then there is the matter of the College Board’s AP (Advanced Placement) course on African-American studies. At DeSantis’ urging, the Department of Education rejected implementing the course in Florida high schools, claiming it lacked “educational value and is contrary to Florida law’”. The course is still in the midst of a 5-year developmental phase and is being tested at 60 high schools around the nation. The test is being expanded to 500 schools. Florida will not be one of them.
Is resentment the driving force behind culture war politics?
It is accepted cant among those who study political behavior that the members of the American public most susceptible to culture war arguments are those who feel displaced by the changes and complexities in modern society. It is also obvious that our rickety, 18th Century constitutional system permits cynical politicians to gain power through the very institutions designed to function as a democratic republic. The cynics find it easy to prey upon the displaced, to activate their sense of loss that the society is not what they believed it would be. Bobert, Greene, DeSantis, and others like them gained office in democratic elections. They employed the ancient strategy of divide and conquer to sow division, calling on the resentment of the displaced towards liberals, elites, Jews, immigrants, gays, people of color, or any other group they perceive as threatening.
This has happened before in our history. What is different now is that modern technology demands performance. The great orators of the 19th Century were heard once; their words may have been written down, but there were no videos or audio recordings to reach mass audiences. Today’s media gives everyone the possibility of attracting attention. Social media “influencers” count their followers in hundreds of thousands and even millions. Outlandish behavior pays off not only in those numbers, but in clicks and views, and retweets.
It is an environment that suits clowns. As for serious public servants, not so much.