My hair-on-fire thoughts on the midterms—and media.

This is not normal. This is not normal. This is not normal.   [Mother Jones]( MoJo Reader, A political party led by a man who incites and excuses political violence, who threatens democracy, and who advances the loony conspiracy theory that his political opponents are baby-eating, Satanic sex-traffickers is close to seizing control of a portion of the US government, and…this is not regarded as a national crisis. It’s a month out to the congressional midterm elections, and the Republican Party remains the odds-on favorite of winning a majority within the House of Representatives, and it retains a good shot at bagging the Senate. Pundits on television calmly assess the 2022 elections, noting the historical pattern—the party in control of the White House tends to take a shellacking—and many within the political media world, including Democrats, act as if we’re in a normal cycle. Yet the nation is poised on a precipice that warrants apprehension, if not hair-on-fire screaming. It’s a break-glass moment—though it’s not. *** That's how I opened an essay that first appeared in my newsletter, Our Land, earlier this week. And my colleague Brian, who's responsible for hitting the big $325,000 fundraising number we need right now, asked if I would send it out to the entire Mother Jones community this weekend, and [personally ask you to support Mother Jones' fierce and feisty journalism with a few of your bucks during our fall fundraising drive](. Of course, I will—whatever it takes. This is a moment to do all we can to protect American democracy—and to support journalism that gives a damn about that. And Brian thought that you’d care about this and that you’d appreciate a real-world example of something we often talk about when asking for [your donations](: How the independence that comes from being funded by a community of readers allows Mother Jones to call it like we see it, without fear, favor, or false equivalence. I hope Brian is right because we have a lot of important truth-telling journalism to do these days, especially as we approach the crucial midterm elections. So here’s one more reminder: We can only [do our kickass reporting because of support from readers like you](. And now back to my essay about the midterms and the media. Buckle up. *** Are we sleepwalking? For years, Donald Trump has displayed an authoritarian impulse that threatens the republic. He refused to accept the 2020 election results, promoted baseless allegations of a stolen election, and encouraged violence to prevent the peaceful transfer of power. And since January 6, the Republican Party—its officials and, more important, its base—has accepted or ignored Trump’s reality-defying assertions and cheered on his assaults on the constitutional foundations of the country. In recent weeks, Trump’s crazy has become crazier. As I [wrote]( last month, he fully embraced the bonkers QAnon conspiracy theory, transforming the MAGA movement into QMaga and leading millions to believe that Democrats are cannibalistic pedophiles who worship Lucifer. Literally. With this move, Trump is demonizing and dehumanizing a third or so of Americans and exacerbating the nation’s political polarization. (How can Republicans be expected to engage in policy debates—let alone to compromise—with miscreants who feast on dead infants?) And as he is delegitimizing his political foes, Trump has essentially endorsed the use of violence in politics. Five weeks ago he [vowed]( that if he returns to the White House he will pardon the January 6 insurrectionists who assaulted law enforcement officials. Here was the Trump seal of approval for Brownshirt thuggery. After all, if your enemies are indeed Beelzebub’s shock troops, shouldn’t you confront them with fists and weapons? As he continues to travel down the dark path of demagoguery and treacherous nuttiness—days ago Trump posted a social media [message]( that appeared to invite violence against Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell and included a racist reference to McConnell’s wife—Trump is hardly alone. This past weekend, speaking at a Trump rally, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) [proclaimed](, “Democrats want Republicans dead, and they’ve already started the killing.” What message does this send? We better kill them before they kill us. (By the way, why is a past president and current party leader featuring a speaker who once [spoke]( at a white nationalist conference?) And at a different Trump rally, Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) let loose this [rant]( about Democrats: “They’re pro-crime. They want crime. They want crime because they want to take over what you got. They want to control what you have. They want reparations because they think the people that do the crime are owed that.” Wow, so much racism in so short a time. His noxious conspiracy theory: Democrats are encouraging Black people to commit crimes to “take over” what white people have so the whites can be controlled—and they want to pay back the criminals with reparations. This is the GOP that appears to be cruising toward a majority in the House: racists, conspiracy nutters, and democracy deniers who don’t seem to mind the exercise of political violence. Is it time to press the panic button? Developments in the last few months—such as the Dobbs decision that has unleashed a GOP war on women’s freedom and assorted blunders committed by Republican knuckleheads running for office—appeared to slow the expected GOP juggernaut. Still, the Rs are leading in the polls. And it doesn’t matter much whether the Republicans win the House by a mile or a yard. Any victory will yield a thousand Hunter Biden investigations, assorted impeachments (Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Merrick Garland, you-name-it), and probes of the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago, the Trump-Russia investigation, Benghazi, and—I’ll take bets on this—Hillary Clinton’s emails. The House Republicans will mount a ceaseless revenge-athon for Dear Leader. You can also look forward to a debt-ceiling crisis and potential government shutdowns. Plus, a GOP takeover of the House will bolster the right-wing forces that baselessly charge the 2020 election was stolen from Trump and that are scheming to gain control of the voting and vote-counting systems to block future Democratic triumphs. A few weeks ago, Biden moved to call out the danger posed by Trump and the Republicans. He [labeled]( MAGAism “semi-fascism” and [asserted]( that “Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our Republic.” Since then, Biden and the Democrats have not sustained this outcry. Practically every day, Republicans are denouncing Democrats as evil, crime-lovin’ enemies of America who want to replace real Americans (that is, white folks) with immigrants, take everything they have, and kill them. The Dems are not as assiduous in championing the notion that the Party of Trump advances fear and paranoia, winks at (or encourages) violence, and aims to sabotage American democracy. It’s not a fair fight. Why aren’t more people scared of a GOP victory in November? Why aren’t we more focused on the prospect of a demagogue’s minions gaining power and hate-mongers like Greene and Tuberville attaining greater influence? My hunch: Trump Outrage Exhaustion. After more than seven years of Trump’s democracy-endangering conduct and his vile, racist, divisive, and deceptive comments, his latest transgressions—bear-hugging QAnon, signaling he would set free the January 6 rioters, and his autocratic responses to the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago raid—come across as more of the same-old/same-old. Sure, they are a worrisome escalation in his anti-democratic behavior and an intensification of the threat he and his GOP cult present. Yet for many, it’s just more Trump junk thrown on an already enormous pile of Trump junk. Have we become too inured to Trump’s outrages to notice collectively when the threat level moves from Trumpcon Four to Trumpcon Two? Has his steady output of nonsense and crap overwhelmed us? I recall when I was a young man bumming through Europe, a woman who owned a small boarding house in Nice tried to convince me that after a few days I would no longer hear the trains that rattled past the bedroom window. And then there was the landlord in Washington, DC, who told me that I would eventually become unaware of the buses that rumbled by the apartment he was seeking to rent me. Years later came the realtor who said the same about the airliners landing at a nearby airport via a flight path that guided them directly over the house he wanted to sell me. Maybe that works for some people. They become accustomed to the noise and tune it out. I couldn’t in Nice, and I couldn’t in that apartment. By the time I reached that realtor, I had learned my lesson. Trump’s never-ending noise does cover up the threat. But he and his Republican comrades are not hiding the extremism, authoritarianism, and ugliness that will descend upon Congress, should the GOP capture either chamber. It’s all in damn plain sight. This feels like a horror movie when you can see the monster approaching but most everyone else is acting as if it’s business as usual. Biden took a decent, if delayed, shot at warning the electorate. But he and the Democrats needed to do more. A couple of days of messaging in the waning weeks of summer was insufficient. Is all lost now? I’m not saying that. And perhaps a last-minute blast from the president and his party might succeed. But they have not made the most of the opportunity they had to accurately depict the GOP as the party of political violence, extremism, and conspiracy theory lunacy. A catastrophe looms, and the political-media world has not clearly sounded the alarm. *** That's where my original essay ended, and if you made it to this point, let me ask you what for me is an important question: Do you think that the no-nonsense, unwavering reporting and big-picture analysis that Mother Jones and I provide is desperately needed right now? You know how I would answer that. 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And if you like the work I do, please do [sign up]( for a free trial subscription to my Our Land newsletter. [David Corn] David Corn Washington DC, Bureau Chief Mother Jones [Donate](   [Mother Jones]( [Donate]( [Subscribe]( This message was sent to {EMAIL}. To change the messages you receive from us, you can [edit your email preferences]( or [unsubscribe from all mailings.]( For advertising opportunities see our online [media kit.]( Were you forwarded this email? [Sign up for Mother Jones' newsletters today.]( [www.MotherJones.com]( PO Box 8539, Big Sandy, TX 75755