Some of Trump’s most prominent enablers have recently tried to show something resembling a human spine as they try to distance themselves from an ongoing, concentrated, right-effort to overturn the 2020 election. Even though most of these ex-Trumpers will fail up in their careers—as is often the case in Washington, D.C.—it’s important for the rest of us to recognize them as utterly complicit actors who deserve to wear that MAGA hat on their heads until the end of time.
A case in point is Bill Stepien, Trump’s former campaign manager, who told the Jan. 6 committee this week that he was part of "Team Normal" faction surrounding the 45th president, so-named because they believed (correctly) that Trump had lost the 2020 election. Stepian separated himself from “Team Crazy,” led by an allegedly inebriated Rudy Giuliani, who is said to have coaxed Trump into pursuing the “bullshit” claim that he actually won the election.
Did Stepien ever resign or proactively warn the authorities or the press about this utterly brazen, illegal coup? Of course not. Perhaps he should wear a shirt for “Team Complicit.”
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If you believe that there is a “team normal” in the modern GOP, then you’ll also probably believe that fewer doors and arming teachers will reduce mass gun shootings, banning books will save your child from being transgender, and climate change is a hoax created by China.
Either way, you’re not acknowledging that the GOP is now a weaponized cult that no longer produces “rational” Republicans, but instead caters to the festering, fevered paranoid swamp of dangerous conspiracy theories and white supremacist ideologies. This persistent right-wing disinformation has now radicalized its base, in which many members believe violence is necessary to “take back” their country. The reality is that Team Normal and Team Crazy both play for the GOP, wear the same uniforms, and, for now, worship the golden calf known as Trump.
Trump’s former attorney general, Bill Barr, also wants to be seen as part of Team Normal. Barr, in his Jan. 6 committee deposition, said he thought Trump’s efforts to contest the election were “bogus” and “crazy stuff.”
So, how did Barr try to restore democracy? He wrote and hawked a best-selling book, and still says he will vote for Trump if he were to run again in 2024. And this is after serving as Trump’s AG, where he volunteered for the job of deriding the Mueller investigation, going all the way to Italy to pursue Trump’s absurd conspiracy theories, and publicly attacking Antifa and BLM protestors as security threats instead of focusing on white supremacist movements.
With normies like these, who needs crazies?
In fact, a majority of Republican voters now believe in the Big Lie, thanks in part to relentless propaganda and disinformation pumped out by Trump, Fox News, and the right wing internet echo chamber. The Republican National Committee now refers to the violent insurrectionists as “ordinary citizens” who were engaged in “legitimate political discourse.” Rep. Elise Stefanik, the GOP’s third-ranking House leader has openly trafficked in “replacement theory” propaganda (the kind favored the white supremacist mass shooter in Buffalo), but made Rep. Liz Cheney persona non grata in her own party because she made the mistake of placing her country above a cult by joining the “bipartisan” House select committee to investigate the insurrection.
It’s clear that Team Crazy is winning.
During these hearings, it’s worth remembering that a majority of Republican elected officials, 147 to be exact, chose not to certify the election even after they survived a violent attempted insurrection. It was recently reported that the GOP is unleashing a “precinct strategy” by using a tight, connected “army” of conservative activists across the nation to contest future elections. The Washington Post just reported that 108 winners of Republican primaries have all promoted the Big Lie. This includes extremists like Doug Mastriano, a Christian nationalist who is totally committed to the Big Lie, was among the mob at the Capitol on Jan. 6, and is currently the Republican nominee for governor of Pennsylvania.
Even though some of these MAGA extremists were hunting then-Vice President Mike Pence, they still decided to go all in with the “crazy.” GOP officials are also increasingly tied to the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys, far-right extremists groups whose leaders and members were recently indicted for “seditious conspiracy” against the United States.
If this is “normal,” then “crazy” can just retire in Cancun until the Rapture.
Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s former chief of staff and now a well-paid CBS News employee, attempted to place himself above Trump’s gaggle of deranged sycophants by tweeting: “Trump’s inner circle at the end was…Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Lin Wood, Peter Navarro. Garbage in. Garbage out.”
I admire the shameless chutzpah of all these men, and their fellow MAGA comrades, who never mustered the courage to speak out publicly against Trump or Republicans—even though they privately knew their ongoing coup was misguided, dangerous, and wrong—but now portray themselves as brave, patriotic heroes.
The truth is that the “garbage” is still very much inside the GOP. The extremists are the mainstream. Trump’s coup is ongoing in plain sight. The least we can do is not normalize the crazy.
