We have seen lately that politicians are simply empty bottles, waiting to be filled by whatever potion they think is palatable to the public.
We have seen lately that politicians are simply empty bottles, waiting to be filled by whatever potion they think is palatable to the public.
T here was a time when the ridiculous presentation at the Paris Olympics opening ceremony would have elicited from Americans no more than an eye roll, a shrug, and an exasperated muttering of “Europeans, man.”
But this is 2024, and unspoken federal regulations dictate that anything newsworthy must be reconstituted as a political issue. So the sight of creepy clowns ducking into an apartment for a threesome and drag queens re-creating The Last Supper sent America’s political-headline hunters into outrage mode.
When asked about the opening ceremony, former president and current Republican nominee Donald Trump called it “a disgrace” and said that, under his presidency, it wouldn’t happen again. “We won’t be having a Last Supper, as portrayed the way they portrayed it the other night,” Trump told Laura Ingraham.
The scene especially rankled Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, who rushed to X (Twitter) to declare that the “war on our faith and traditional values knows no bounds today. But we know that truth and virtue will always prevail.” Johnson followed up with John 1:5: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
Perhaps Johnson should save the Bible verses for the man to whom he has pledged his unending fealty, the former president. Evidently he sees nothing in Trump’s history — a record of hedonism that might make Caligula cringe — that would trouble him.
A merciful God would spare us from having to listen to culture criticisms from the speaker of the House. There was once a time when elected officials would at least maintain a façade of being focused public servants. Less worry about Euro drag shows, more about spurring job creation.
But because pretending to be outraged is the new coin of the realm, others joined in. Florida senator Marco Rubio called the Last Supper scene a “freak show,” responding with his own Bible verse condemning people with “godless desires.” This is the same Marco Rubio who once actually participated in popular culture, listing NWA’s “Straight Outta Compton” as his favorite song. (From scripture, it is difficult to discern Jesus’s position on the “smoking” of “p**** ass n*****.”)
As music lovers of Rubio’s age know, that song directly precedes the song “F*** the Police” on NWA’s classic 1988 debut album. So for Rubio, who has also genuflected to Trump’s Dionysian aura, the equation is easy: Drag queens are the end of civilization, while songs about gunning down police are just good, clean, juvenile fun.
(Naturally, serial attention-seeker Marjorie Taylor Greene chimed in, indicating her “outright outrage over the anti-Christian Olympic opening ceremonies.” To Greene, good Christian values are a sacred bond forged between a married woman and her multiple CrossFit instructors.)
Of course, no one should question anyone’s true religious beliefs, as the faith of an elected official is no doubt deeply personal. But it is clear that this specific brand of Christianity requires setting aside Jesus and instead worshipping a man running for president (with the extra incentive of staying out of prison).
This hypocritical bonanza of buffoonery is only made possible by the bedrock principle of politics in 2024 — nobody actually believes anything.
Take former GOP hopeful Nikki Haley, who once said that whichever party swapped out its leading candidate would win the 2024 election, but who has since disavowed that statement after the Democrats went right ahead and did it. Oops.
Just months ago, when it benefited her presidential prospects, Haley referred to Trump as “toxic,” “unhinged,” and “diminished.” Nonetheless, she performed an Olympics-level flip to heartily endorse Trump in a speech given to the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
“I said a lot of tough things about him in the campaign, he said a lot of tough things about me in the campaign,” Haley told CNN’s Jake Tapper this week. “That’s what happens in campaigns. I don’t think we need to apologize or take anything back.”
Perhaps it is a Kinsley gaffe for a politician to admit to voters that they shouldn’t believe anything that comes out of her mouth. But it is clear Haley believes in nothing other than that Nikki Haley should one day be in charge of stuff. And in order to make that happen, she is willing to make fools of every one of her followers whose own misgivings about Trump she voiced.
(In being pro-Trump, then anti-Trump, then going back to pro-Trump, Haley can take solace in the words attributed to Winston Churchill upon his switching back to the Conservative Party: “Anyone can rat. But it takes a certain amount of ingenuity to re-rat.”)
Obviously, Republicans aren’t alone in exhibiting this type of political nihilism. For years, Vice President Kamala Harris and her ilk covered up the fact that President Joe Biden had been deteriorating at a rapid rate, before suddenly throwing him overboard. Since Harris took the reins of the party, she has undergone a rebranding that would embarrass JoJo Siwa, declaring that she no longer wants to ban fracking, she no longer supports Medicare for All, and she now supports enhanced enforcement at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Biden himself spent his final years in public office shedding his lifelong positions like a stripper at the Bada Bing. A lifelong Catholic who claimed to oppose abortion, Biden bitterly criticized the Supreme Court for overturning Roe v. Wade and promised to codify Roe’s promise of unlimited abortion into federal law. Biden frequently argued he didn’t have the authority to unilaterally “forgive” college loans, but then continued to defy Supreme Court rulings in order to accomplish just that. After spending his career opposing efforts to increase the number of Supreme Court seats, Biden just released his own Court-packing plan to sate the most recent progressive tantrum over the Court.
And, of course, back on the Republican side, let’s not forget Trump himself, whose positions often depend on what cable-news show he watched that morning. And in order to make inroads with Trump, people like his running mate, J. D. Vance, are willing to undergo complete conviction makeovers to stand next to power. If there was a Caucasian equivalent to Samuel L. Jackson’s cringe-inducingly obeisant character in Django Unchained, Vance would have the role locked up.
Obviously, politicians learn from and adjust to the desires of their constituents. But it works the other way around, too — when elected officials feed their voters nothing but errant nonsense, it leaves them confused and without core convictions of their own. This is why the Republican Party’s voters now seemingly support candidates looking to raise tariffs, who want to deny aid to Ukraine, and who believe that more government rather than less is the answer to economic problems — not to mention who are just fine with an election-denier as their nominee. The modern parade of grievance politics has taught voters that capitulation is strength and that being on your knees is a position of power.
And if issues are eternally malleable, only vibes reign. This is how a party can fall in love with a president who cosplays as a European-style strongman and who promises to better every part of citizens’ lives — including making sure they never have to see a drag queen at an Olympics opening ceremony. (As P. J. O’Rourke once bluntly put it, it is the “Vote for me, folks, and you’ll be farting through silk” formulation.)
The lesson for voters is, if no one actually believes anything, why base your vote on actual issues? You’re most likely to be exposed as a sucker — at some point, when another big personality shows up, your party is going to change and leave you behind.
We have seen in the past few years that politicians are simply empty bottles, waiting to be filled by whatever potion they think is palatable to the public.
Finding someone in politics with bedrock beliefs is like finding Snoop Dogg at the Olympics — individually he stands out, but in a crowd, he could be anybody.