I had an unsatisfying conversation with a Young Republican today, but it made me notice something about right-wing politics and how it’s talked about in “mixed company.” Dedicated and ambitious conservatives are very aware of how bad their politics look to most people when laid out to them, so they simply pretend they aren’t there unless they’re confident they outnumber both the opposition and neutral or undecided people in the room.
There was a pleasant street fair in my neighborhood, running down Fifth Avenue in Bay Ridge. Fried foods, vendors selling cheap junk, local musicians, that sort of thing. My (unfortunately) Congressperson, Nicole Malliotakis, had a booth there and was actually present glad-handing people while her staff handed out fliers that said very little. I’ve protested outside of her Bay Ridge office a few times because of particularly horrible things like her supporting ICE crackdowns or voting against any sort of oversight on the Iran war, registered complaints about those sorts of things, but she almost never has town hall meetings. So that’s where we’re starting from. I walked by the booth, aware of and resisting the natural knee-jerk urge to just be an angry dick at everyone there. After successfully making those willpower and charisma saving throws I still wanted to give her a piece of my mind as diplomatically as I can possibly muster, so I turned back. Sadly, she walked away just as I returned to the booth, and I wasn’t going to chase after her just to be argumentative.
I stayed for a minute to read the literature at the booth. It was pretty low-key, talking about her vague claimed accomplishments for families in Bay Ridge and Staten Island and not a lot of more openly right-wing policy or support for Trump. A man behind the table noticed I was lingering and complimented my Spider-Man shirt.
Hey, I was already primed for diplomacy, why not see what I could learn about the mindset of the kind of people who support Malliotakis or continue to identify with the Republican party?
He was mid-20s to early 30s, with a Howard Stark mustache. He wore a thoroughly Trump-like ensemble of mid-tone blue suit, white shirt, and red tie that looked just slightly too large for his build, but not as ridiculously so the president’s usual suits. In full fairness, I was wearing a Spider-Man shirt, and cargo shorts, so any fashion criticism I make should be seen as theoretical.
He asked me if I liked comics, and I do, so we talked a bit about it. He likes Spider-Man and The Boys, I agreed about both even if the comic beefed the ending and while I love Ennis he is pretty hit or miss depending on how much his editor pulls him back. I asked if he liked the show. He thought it was pretty good, but not as good as the comic. So I asked what he thought about the ending. He didn’t seem too enthusiastic about it. The show differs a bit from the comic, which wrapped up in 2012, and Homelander’s Trump-like characterization and antics in the last season weren’t in the source material. I’m not saying he didn’t like what happened with Homelander because of Trump parallels, and he didn’t say it either. I asked if he thought it was too on the nose without immediately putting myself in an antagonistic position (revealing my left-wingedness). I didn’t get a very concrete answer from him.
He asked if I wanted a Malliotakis yard sign, and I said oh, definitely not. Diplomatically, but in a way that made it very clear that even if I had a lawn I wouldn’t want any Republican signage on it, and that I’m very, very much not someone who would or has voted for her. Look, I don’t have a great poker face and I’m not good at bullshitting.
This is where the conversation got interesting, at least subtextually. He was completely affable about my political opinion, saying that was completely my right and he supported that. In fact, he wasn’t even one of Malliotakis’ staffers. He was a Young Republican, who apparently was just hanging out around her booth. He lived in the neighborhood, as I did, but he wasn’t really on Malliotakis’ team. He was just a Young Republican. Who was standing on the other side of the table at Malliotakis’ booth.
I told him I was looking forward to voting Malliotakis out of office. I said that Trump was the most corrupt president in decades, that he started Iran as a war of aggression and Malliotakis’ refusal to assert that Congress has the Constitutional right and obligation to provide oversight for the war was a moral failing. Again, he said he totally supported my opinion. In fact, he didn’t even really like Trump, and thought Massie was right. He was just a Young Republican. In a Trumpish blue suit with a red tie, standing on the other side of the table at Malliotakis’ booth.
At this point I really wanted to know what exactly he did believe in, then. Why was he a Young Republican and why was he there if he didn’t think Trump was acceptable? I told him that I can accept policy disagreements and even 10 or 15 years ago I could have seen Republicans as simply people I disagreed with, and not outright morally objectionable.
Look, I said I was trying to be diplomatic, and this nightmare we’re in has been one hell of a political sliding scale. My point to him was that Trump specifically was the head of the party, and he was corrupt and horrible in completely new ways. I outright mentioned the $1.8 billion slush fund for J6 rioters.
He didn’t disagree with me. He didn’t rebut anything I said. In fact, he at least tried to seem that he was uncomfortable with Trump. He said he was a very live-and-let-live kind of guy, giving the impression of a typical libertarian-esque Republican attitude. You know, implied conservative economic policies, let people do their own thing, let’s not make politics personal, that kind of thing. He didn’t actually say anything specific.
He did mention that he had a podcast, though, and he was interviewing a far-right politician from Portugal later. And really, even Europe’s “far right” was really only as right-wing as Democrats when you get down to it.
So, wait, you’re a live-and-let-live sort and you don’t like Trump, but you’re interviewing someone from the Chega party for your podcast and you think they’re centrist like Democrats? So I asked him that. He said the interview was to better understand their position, not that he supported them.
I tapped out at that point, with a polite smile, a shrug, and a reminder that Trump was the head of his party and that would be a stain on the party for a long time. He seemed to wince at that, just slightly, but met my best-mustered smile with his and I walked away. And on the way home I chewed on what he said.
Which was… nothing. I talked to this man for several minutes at a Republican Congresswoman’s booth, surrounded by Republican campaign literature, and I left with no real sense of his actual political beliefs. At least, with no acknowledged confirmation of his political beliefs. He wasn’t really a Malliotakis supporter. He didn’t really like Trump. He was just a Young Republican in a midtone blue suit with a red tie who was interviewing a member of Portugal’s far-right-wing party for his podcast later.
This was a man who knew his politics were toxic, who acknowledged that elements of his party were toxic, but wanted to brush it off and seem like he was a simple, affable conservative. A friendly neighbor, a resident of Bay Ridge just like me. Someone who likes comics, just like me. Someone who doesn’t even like Trump, just like me.
He looked me in the eye, a Young Republican in a Trumpish suit at Nicole Malliotakis’ booth, and told me he didn’t really like Trump, and that he thought Massie was right, and really our politics aren’t that different and we’re all just people who can get along, you know?
To be completely fair, I wasn’t putting all of my politics out there, myself. I didn’t bring up ICE or anti-trans legislation, because those are two topics I realized I could easily get heated about, and that wouldn’t help anything. But I was totally open about being a left-winger who hated Trump and thought the Republican party’s support of him meant I couldn’t really respect anyone who still was a member of that party. I wasn’t afraid of putting my position out there.
He was. He was self-aware enough to not openly admit the absolutely toxic garbage Trump and the current Republican party represent. He wanted to affably sweep all of that bullshit under the rug and act like where he was, what he said he was, and what he was doing didn’t inextricably connect him to all of the corruption, the oppression, and the total legal and moral abogration his party was engaged with. He knew how bad it looked. He knew how unacceptable it was to most Americans, like the crowds of families at a street fair in a quiet neighborhood in Brooklyn. He knew how radioactive what he was supporting is.
Friendly guy. Seemed nice. Shat on my shoes and told me it was raining.
This is what the modern Republican party is. They know how awful what they’re doing and who they’re supporting is. They know how toxic it is when laid out in the open to anyone who isn’t actively in their club. They’re aware of it. They just hope you’re not aware and engaged enough to notice it, and that you’re gullible enough to believe them when they lie to your face and say we’re all friendly neighbors and our political differences aren’t that big a deal and really they agree with you in most things anyway.
They think you, me, everyone who doesn’t gleefully support the carefully crafted nightmare that is the Trump administration and every person and policy connecting it to the most corrupt and hateful lunatics in the right wing, are idiots.
