Crazy people don’t know they’re crazy. See, that’s what makes them crazy. It’s an all-consuming lack of awareness; a belief that everything you do is righteous, and everyone someone else does is off. If you’re never wrong, you’re crazy. If everyone who disagrees with you is the enemy, you’re crazy. If your plant speaks to you in French, you’re crazy. Mes têtes sent comme une olive ! Maintenant me prendre un peu de crème glacée et de trois prostituées , Robert !
I digress.
If you are an active member of the Tea Party movement, you are almost certainly crazy. I know that sounds mean, and I know it’s generally wrong to cover all people with a singular cloth. But, by now, the evidence is pretty strong. One can be an arch-conservative Republican and be sane, just as one can be a hard-left liberal and be sane. One can love Barack Obama and—perhaps—be crazy, just as one can love Jeb Bush and—perhaps—be crazy. There are wide ranges of qualification, and it’s often an ambiguous process, assigning people to classifications.
But with Tea Party members, it’s simple. If you’re in, you’re crazy.
There are no less than 500,000 examples on Twitter, and I invite you to search for yourself. But, just for entertainment, I’ll throw one out here. A few days ago I wrote a blog post about a woman from Texas, Sandra, who thinks Barack Obama is evil. She posted some weird stuff on Twitter, and we proceeded to follow one another and have a civil DM exchange. Slowly, however, things began to unravel and grow uncomfortable. We were discussing Bush and Obama, and I noted how there were never any WMDs found in Iraq that related to 9.11 or any sort of attack against America. This, of course, is fact, and even George W. has admitted such.
Sandra responded thusly …
She added on a link, from a New York Times piece dated Feb. 15, 2015, which she said proved there were, in fact, WMDs and that Iraq was dangerous. I was intrigued and surprised, because—quite literally—the men and women behind the Iraqi invasion have admitted there were no WMDs. So I read the story, and then I did a little research. It turns out tons of Tea Party folks latched on to that piece as “proof” without realizing the article only referenced pre-1991 weapons. Everything Republican officeholders said in the lead up to the 2003 invasion was totally wrong.
So I told Sandra this. Even provided the details. Explained to her that there were tons of links on this one. Pick a legitimate media source—liberal or conservative—and it will tell you the article was being completely misread. She replied …
I’m not trying to pick on Sandra here. She seemed lovely. Truly. But when you believe one thing, and then it’s shown (without question) to be false, and even the people who led you to believe that thing concede it wasn’t true … but you still believe it, well, what are you?
Answer: Crazy.
I’m writing all this not simply to pick on the Tea Partiers, but to try and explain what happened today in Washington, when Representative Kevin McCarthy dropped out of the race to be the new Speaker of the House. There were statements made and explanations offered, but the real reason—clearly—is that McCarthy (arch-conservative, but not crazy) didn’t want to deal with the 40 or so Tea Party House loonies. And who can blame him? Collectively, they have decided negotiating with Democrats has no place; that giving in on any issue is an impossibility; that Barack Obama is evil and must be marginalized at all costs. They’re right, you’re wrong—and if you don’t like it, we’ll shut down the government! And if you’re McCarthy—highly regarded, outgoing, seemingly content in life—why would you want to deal with this nightmare? It’s akin to herding cats. Crazy cats. Crazy cats who shit in their own food to spite their grumbling stomachs.
Sadly, the cats have power. And we’re left chasing our own tails.
