The best way I can think of to describe the current status of the GOP is “malevolent inanity.”

The elevation of nonsensical, yet still hateful, rhetoric whose sole intention is to rile up the aggrieved, while not new, is now the primary (only?) strategy of the GOP’s desperate attempt to maintain relevance and cling to power.

You can see a good example of the result by watching the New Yorker video of the invasion of the senate chamber at the U.S. Capitol. President Trump, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, et al. managed to animate a cadre of pathetic golems taking the form of giant toddlers. Overgrown preschool escapees whose power resides in falling on the floor and shitting themselves.

Remember when your kids first discovered that pushing a plate of food off the high-chair tray resulted in all kinds of excitement and chaos? That’s these guys.

The bar for becoming a freedom fighter is now low enough to step over. You just have to be willing to zip-tie the constitution to a chair.

pre•science | \ ˈpre-sh(ē-)ən(t)s

gen•til•i•ty jĕn-tĭl′ĭ-tē

Given my current circumstances, I’ve begun to feel a bit like Count Rostov in A Gentleman in Moscow. That is to say, like “a former person.” I’m sure many people feel this way even when there isn’t a world-wide virus threatening.

Since I finished the novel last week I’ve been reflecting on how Rostov followed the behavioral rules of the gentry to maintain his sanity and steer his course through a social scene designed to trap him for any political missteps.

Rostov had the connections he made with guests of the Hotel Metropole. I have the internet.

I have had much less success at maintaining a gentlemanly standard than Rostov did.

mal•fea•sance [măl-fē′zəns]

1. n. Misconduct or wrongdoing, especially by a public official.
2. n. Evil-doing; the doing of that which ought not to be done; wrongful conduct, especially official misconduct; violation of a public trust or obligation; specifically, the doing of an act which is positively unlawful or wrongful, in contradistinction to misfeasance, or the doing of a lawful act in a wrongful manner. The term is often inappropriately used instead of misfeasance.
3. n. The doing of an act which a person ought not to do; evil conduct; an illegal deed.

noun, plural ex·i·gen·cies.