The Republican Brand & Congressional Republicans, the Harlem Globetrotters, and Why the GOP is an Insult to Elephants

The Republican Brand is no myth, it just isn’t what they think it is.

Oct 23, 2023

Recently, in a rare display of spine, a handful of Republicans in the House of Representatives struck a blow for populism and forced now former Speaker of the House, Kevin “Beach Boy” McCarthy from office. On various outlets of the propaganda apparatus, many of these Republican representatives, along with “journalists”, pundits, Democrats, and even a handful of senators, have made frequent mention of the “Republican Brand” (whatever the hell that is) – and with a straight face.

Since the time I first heard it mentioned in 2016 by none other than Bill(y) Kristol, erstwhile NeverTrumper, adult toddler, and former publisher of the now-defunct, Weekly Standard, it has remained largely undefined, and seemingly invoked as a secret code among the establishment elites, and those of The Lincoln Project. Truth be told however, its definition is much more akin to that of pornography – no one can describe it, really, but one knows it when one encounters it. I might add that today’s Republican Brand enjoys about the same level of respect, but I digress.

Still, the question remains: Just what is the Republican Brand?

Like stereotypes, the reputations of brands are earned. For example, Sears & Roebuck had a sterling reputation nationally as a top-flight retailer borne largely of its catalog business, and then its big-box style stores that anchored almost every mall built in the US in the 60s and 70s.1 However, as far as my dad was concerned, Sears was the biggest fraud perpetrated on the American public since the New Deal. He would have loved Ron White for this, alone.

Brands are also recognized by trademarks like logos, or other graphic representations, which are not necessarily earned. Nonetheless, for nearly 150 years, the Republican Party’s trademark has been the elephant (or, if you are a reader of

the pachyderm, as part of the Pachyderm and Ass Show).

This is sad for any number of reasons, chief among them is that elephants are among the most intelligent of animals, and are popularly thought of as having an excellent memory.2

It’s time for the GOP to be assigned a new trademark, because it exhibits none of the intelligence, or the memory that characterizes elephants. I have some ideas but am more interested in what others might suggest. However, what is most sad about the GOP being represented by the elephant is that one of Disney’s most beloved animated masterpieces is, Dumbo.

Dumbo, an elephant, is a credit to his species – the GOP is decidedly not a credit to anything.

In the most general of terms, the Republican Brand is characterized by those in Washington, D.C. (whether as Representatives or Senators), who are seemingly resigned to being in the minority, grateful for whatever scraps fall from the Democrats’ table, and accustomed to having the terms of participation in the legislative process dictated to them by their Democrat superiors in the majority.

On those rare occasions when voters, out of desperation entrust Republicans with power, its caucus leadership has no idea how to wield it on behalf of the constituents it purports to serve. When this happens, Republicans in congress are seized by raw, naked fear, like a deer in headlights and they cowardly assume a mantle of magnanimity, sharing their power with their Democrat foes. Democrats then use it to get what they want. The Republican Brand is one in which Democrats get their way as the majority party, and Democrats get their way as the minority party, too.

Think of the Republicans in Washington, D.C. as the Washington Generals and the Democrats as the Harlem Globetrotters. The Harlem Globetrotters are not a particularly good basketball team. Their players are entertaining, they display some interesting “skills” on the court, and they have some signature trick shots. If they ever had to match up against even the NBA’s worst, they’d be routed.

Hence, the Globetrotters need a foil – a team that will lose every game because it isn’t legitimate competitive basketball – it’s exhibition, only. Generals players are paid to lose. Because it’s entertainment, no one really cares. However, when that same dynamic is made manifest in the real world with legislative bodies that bring their influence to bear on the lives of others, it ceases to be entertainment – it becomes an existential concern.

The left has always represented itself as the Cool Kids: rebellious teenagers (albeit without a clue), standing up to “authority” as long as said authority was represented as the “right” (read as, not the left, or normal): those who believe in God; place a high value on the constitution as being the law of the land; being accountable and responsible for one’s own actions, behaviour, decisions, and the consequences of each; that money borrowed be repaid on time; that content of character is more important than the colour of one’s skin and that neither entitles the individual to special rights on that basis; and that one’s own agency is what determines one’s station – in other words, grown-ups.

Sadly, the stewardship of virtually every institution in this nation compromised principle to remain in the good graces of the Cool-Kids clique as defined and constantly re-defined by what social media allowed, and what it didn’t. Subsequently, wokeness gained visibility and credibility because the leftists in control of social media facilitated it.

Everyone whose better judgement compelled them to reject what they sensed was happening between 2008 and 2016 could breathe a sigh of relief with the election of Trump. This, despite their worst fears being confirmed regarding the most unholy alliance of the Political and Corporate Classes, the propaganda apparatus formerly known as the media, and darker international forces because they knew, at last, what was happening even if they had no clue as to its scale and reach.

In one of my last essays, my observation was that the election of Trump in 2016 tore the mask off of that most unholy alliance. This new axis of evil had no reservations about leveraging its apparently inexhaustible wealth to protect its hegemony and to mitigate the existential threat represented by Donald Trump.

In the wake of the election in 2016, everyone could see for themselves that the entire federal government – the three branches, the alphabet agencies, the “intelligence” community, and even small apolitical agencies like the National Archives were exposed in their mission to drive him from office by any means necessary – and as we’ve seen since last year, keep him out.

So, what does all of this have to do with the nonsense of the Republican Brand?

Today, this so-called Republican Brand is representative of all of the aforementioned while exhibiting several defining characteristics, none of which are at all attractive.

One of those is the Bush Doctrine – the apparent need to accommodate one’s political foes in an effort to win their favour, respect, and admiration. Never mind that these are not foes, but enemies, who have made no secret of their desire to see their enemy dead, and everything for which he stands, and values, utterly destroyed. See HW agreeing to break a campaign promise to not raise taxes (ostensibly to have then Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell say nice things about him, which never happened).

See also W seeking to set “a new tone in D.C.” hoping that the Democrats who viewed him as nothing more than an idiot having wandered away from his village might be nicer to him; having Ted “The Swimmer” Kennedy write the administration’s, No Child Left Behind Act. No Democrat supported it despite the fact that it came from Kennedy’s office – an indicator that the name Kennedy no longer commanded the respect it once did. The fact that it was associated with W made it toxic to every other Democrat.

Republicans extending olive branches by being overly courteous and respectful of Democrats does nothing except make them seem weak and obsequious. If you can stand watching the following, you’ll see:

This is particularly true because Democrats in any position of power seek to delegitimize their Republican counterparts at every opportunity. Allow me to demonstrate: this is who she really is – and what the Democrats really are:

Another is that the Republican Party loves to talk a big game, but that’s all it is – talk it can rarely deliver on its own. Whether it’s a cut in the individual tax rates across the board (which only became a reality at the end of Trump’s first year in office after being little more than a fundraising tool since HW’s administration), addressing the porous southern border, or holding the line on the debt ceiling.

The midterm elections of 2014 gave the Republicans control of the Senate that they should have won in 2010. But even before the new members took their oaths of office, then-Senate Majority Leader-elect Mitch McConnell promised never to trigger a government shutdown. That effectively took the sharpest arrow out of the GOP’s congressional quiver, and again relieved the greatest pressure the Republicans could have exercised against Obama.3

or repealing the Affordable Care Act,

…congressional Republicans…made a major error that has…come back to bite them…the failure to pass the repeal of Obamacare in 2017 and the lack of any sweeping plan to replace the ACA even if it were fully repealed.
That failure was made memorable by the late Sen. John McCain’s decision to vote to uphold Obamacare despite his fierce and longtime opposition to the law. But its most powerful effect came in the 2018 midterm elections, when Republicans lost control of the House in an election where health care polled as the number one issue for voters.4

The Republican Party is a circular firing squad.

However, the most damning characteristic of the Republican Brand is its contempt for its own voters. Congressional Republicans were most conspicuous by their absence in coming to the aid of President Trump on virtually every issue for which he was under attack – which was every item on his legislative agenda – even the ones on which he prevailed.

Most of us who are libertarian-leaning conservatives who are also entrepreneurs, small-business owners, in blue-collar and white-collar jobs in fly-over country already suspected that despite the ‘R’ behind their names, they really served only themselves as the red wing of the uniparty bird. Any cognitive dissonance was almost immediately resolved once it became clear that congressional “leaders” like Buffering Mitch “The Turtle” McConnell all but sold him out:

All that’s missing are the daggers.

Recently, it’s the drama of the ouster of Speaker Kevin McCarthy and the office of the Speaker of the House being vacant that is giving the establishment fits, and the Republican Brand its most sharply defined characteristics by its denizens in the chamber.

Establishment RINOs, especially those in the Senate, are clutching their pearls in fear, and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich took to that other menstrual-period-blood-soaked panty shield, The Washington Post, expressing despair over House Republicans’ ability to govern.5

Inability to govern is nothing of which to be ashamed – in fact, that’s when Republicans are most effective. Inability to properly wield power on behalf of the constituents they ought to be serving is, though.

Nonetheless, Congressional Republicans are defining the Republican Brand as the brand of the losers who:

Wasted two years of power by not lifting a finger to Build The Wall, thereby making Biden’s border “policy” possible.
Wasted two months defending Liz Cheney when she gave Nancy Pelosi cover for that January 6 witch hunt. Let’s include Adam “Crocodile Tears” Kinzinger in that shameful group photo.
Sit on the sidelines while Democrats railroad President Trump with frivolous lawsuits and indictments meant to bankrupt him in legal fees.6

It’s the brand of self-serving uniparty mandarins who can demonstrate furious outrage over the Speaker’s removal on a procedure to which he agreed in order to win the office in January, but are unable to do so when the US debt rises to over $33T; or respond with the same when the FBI rounded up Trump supporters and threw them in prison; or the “justice” system tries to take out Biden’s top opponent for 2024.7

What I find particularly tiresome is this lament over the damage that a vacant Speaker’s chair is doing to the institution. The House of Representatives has been all but useless as an “institution” for decades. The representatives in the House ought to change every two years and should reflect the populist sensibilities of the constituents of the districts represented. Unlike the Senate, it wasn’t intended nor is it supposed to be this august deliberative body, a debating society with hallmarks of mutual respect, civility, statesmanship, and a genteel air.

In fact, the Senate has become the House, only with terms three times as long. The Senate officially became a joke when the people of Minnesota elected Al Franken to it. Franken, a former sketch writer for SNL was reportedly hypersensitive to criticism of his work from his peers, thus earning a reputation for having skin the thickness of Gossamer wings. It’s difficult to imagine someone with such a temperament engaging in thoughtful, reasonable debate on the floor of the Senate. Then again, if one is a Democrat, such is not a prerequisite.

When John “Weepy” Boehner saw the writing on the wall, he got out before he was removed:

Boehner, 65, planned to leave Congress at the end of 2014, but returned because of the unexpected electoral defeat of his second-in-command, Eric Cantor. The feeling was that another agonizing round of internal GOP turmoil over his future ‘would do irreparable damage to the institution,’ a Boehner aide said.8

I shouldn’t be surprised – establishment RINOs don’t change.

Here’s this from Rep. David Rouzer, a Republican from Wilmington, North Carolina, droning on about the “institution”:

‘I think the motion to vacate was very unfortunate,’ Rouzer told McClatchy on Wednesday. ‘And the vote to vacate the chair, I think really does harm to the institution, the House itself and the House’s ability to govern. I also think it was a disservice to the country.’9

It’s the House of Representatives, not the Presidency. He’s dead wrong on it being a disservice to the country – on the contrary – forcing the Beach Boy from the office of Speaker was a tremendous service to the country – if nothing else, it broke a destructive and vicious cycle, and now House Republicans have deprived themselves of power without the Democrats coming to the rescue.

As a result, it would appear that a shutdown of the federal government is now all but a certainty. What’s been clear with every previous government shutdown (and is proving to be true without there being a Speaker) is that eighty percent of Washington, D.C. could be consumed by fire and no one would notice. No one’s life is being adversely affected by operationally impaired or even gridlocked government.

My hope, with every fiber of my being, is that the Republican Party as constituted and as it is currently known suffers the same fate as did its predecessor. For the sake of what remains of our nation, I really don’t see any other way forward – the America-first Democrats with which I grew up are all gone, now. The last one was former Vice President Walter Mondale. Whatever were his flaws (and they were legion), he and Hubert Humphrey were credits to the sensibilities of the people of my former home state of Minnesota.

If this nation is going to continue with its outdated two-party system, then the modern-day Republican Party, and its brand, needs to go. The question is: How do we, the people, make that happen?

The party that replaces that of the Republican Brand needs to be so inhospitable to current congressional Republicans that they have nowhere to go, and simply fade from public view, and that those who would seek the new party’s endorsement be in the mold of Rep. Matt Gaetz.

If instead, a third party that is truly a champion of the voters can emerge as the new alternative to the Democrats and demonstrate uncompromising commitment to all that the party of Lincoln once was (before The Wrestler declared war on half the country and ran roughshod over the constitution) and in so doing hold to the fire the feet of both Democrats and Republicans, it will be a new day for representative government in America.

Should the modern-day Republican Party prove to be incapable of rediscovering those principles for which it once stood, it will be relegated to enduring as the self-serving, ethically bankrupt, and servile mediocrity it has become, only serving a purpose if its numbers are needed to form a new coalition government.

Thank you, dear reader, for your indulgence.

Until next time…

Cultural Orphan

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