Anarchism? Nihilism? Absurdism?

 This week saw a spectacle in the House of Representatives not seen for over 100 years – multiple votes to select a Speaker. After 15 ballots and multiple concessions to the extreme fringe of the GOP Trumpist cult, Kevin McCarthy was elected at 0100 (that’s 1 AM for those of you not used to military time) on 7 January, just after the two-year anniversary of the attempted coup led by some members who voted to install him. What do we have to look forward to?

As has been noted multiple times, McCarthy had to give away the farm to the far-right denizens of the House to be elected Speaker. He has already agreed to install many of them to important committee assignments, such as Margerie Taylor Greene and Jim Jordan. He has agreed to rules changes that include more committees with higher numbers of these fire-eaters as well as the ability of a single member of the majority being able to call for a snap vote to oust him from the Speakership. He is fully onboard with an agenda that looks like all hearings all the time, on (of course) Hunter Biden’s laptop, the origins of Covid, the perfidy of the FBI and Intelligence agencies of government, the workings of the January 6 Select Committee, the DOJ investigation into criminal activities of Donald Trump, and (wait for it) the persecution and humiliation of Dr. Anthony Fauci. 

All of this should be alarming to any rational person. It sounds as though the House is determined to convince all of us that the MAGA hat wearers were right and the rest of us were wrong. They have assembled the biggest circus ever to bring sound bites and video clips and disinformation to the world. What is worse, however, is that these lunatics are intent on wrecking the government by any means, since January 6 did not go the way they thought it would. They have made it clear that they will hold the United States hostage to the self-imposed debt ceiling and are willing to bring the entire country down if they do not get their way. That would include the possibility of default which would likely crash financial markets around the globe.

What is the name for this type of behavior? Anarchy certainly comes to mind – a state of disorder due to the absence or nonrecognition of authority or other controlling systems. The so-called Freedom Caucus of Republicans in the House at least partially fits that definition. At least until they are in control. Nihilism also comes to mind – in philosophy, the rejection of all moral principles in the belief that life is meaningless but more pertinently in historical terms the doctrine of extreme Russian militants around 1900 who found nothing to approve of in the established social order. But absurdism also is a possibility – intentionally ridiculous or bizarre behavior or character, or the belief that humans exist in a chaotic, purposeless universe. I think what we see today in the Trumpist movement has elements of all of these in it. Not only Trumpism, but the “illiberal democracy” of Orban’s Hungary, Erdogan’s Turkey, and other examples of a rightist approach to life that seems vectored in the end to devolve into fascism, another of history’s lousy ways to organize itself. 

It is of interest that as I type these words, the supporters of Jair Bolsonaro, a Trump acolyte in Brazil who was voted out of office in December but refused to concede and went to Florida (!) have today stormed the Brazilian Congress in imitation of their election denying MAGAts in the United States just 2 years ago. The fight for democracy continues and we must never back away from that fight. Justice, dignity, and human rights only flourish on the soil of functioning democracies. Whether anarchism, nihilism, absurdism, or fascism, the forces that favor a strongman government or lead to it must be called out and opposed. The next two years in the U.S. promise to be roller-coaster years for democracy. The elections of 2024 will again test the will of the people to have a representative government or a mob. Let’s get to work.