Those who know me, know I am a great fan of Comics for my whole life. I am well steeped in the culture of Heros and Villains. I was a great fan of both Superman and The Daredevil, mostly because of two Super Villains, Lex Luthor and KingPin. What I liked about them is they could take on super powered hero’s even though they were just normal people. So what does this have to do with today’s politics? Simply their minions.
I would like to lay before you the idea that the GOP has been taken over by a real world equivalent of a comic Super Villain. Are own Lex Luther if you will. One of the problem all comic book villains have is finding good “reliable” minions. Minions usually come in two classes, competent or comic relief (aka incompetent). You can also judge minions by how reliable and unreliable. Think of it this way a two by two matrix
Reliable Unreliable
Competent. A. D
Incompetent B. C
From this array you can see the Villain wants a Competent and Reliable minion, lets call this a type A. What they don’t want is either an incompetent unreliable, type C. Or even worse, from the Villains stand point is the competent Unreliable, type D. Unfortunately getting type A minions is next to impossible because Reliable Competent people tend not to be villainess. Usually villains tend to be generally unreliable, that is dishonest. So what’s wrong with the type D minion? Simply put the Unreliable Competent minion will want to replace the villain with themselves. After all why be a minion when you can be the villain?
Now you are asking just what this has to do the GOP? Simply put the Republican Party is currently in the control of a Super Villain, Donald Trump. An while Donald Trump is no Lex Luthor is is still quite villainess. He also like to be surrounded by lots and lots of minions. I’d say most of Donald’s minions he brought with him were quite quite competent in their original area of operation, that is mostly type B or C in most things D.C. or political. The people in the GOP when Trump won the election who are candidates to be type A or D minions are doing one of several things.
Fist they type A minion material have mostly left the party, like Geo. F Wills, or are going to ground and keeping out of both the public and the Donalds eye. We have also been the steady leaking of the type A people from the Administration. Those brave souls who thought they could actually keep the Super Villain from doing evil things. Just take a look at the list of people who have resigned from this administration. Anywhere from a quarter to a half of them can be called type A minion material. The numbers are even more lopsided when you look at the nonpartisan people who have left government jobs since Trumps election. When we look outside the executive to the congress we see just as large an exodus.
When it comes to the national party leadership, they have shown they are either type B or C minion material. They all saw what Donald Trump is and most wanted to stop him from getting the nomination but they were totally clueless on just how to stop him. Som knew how. But just couldn’t sacrifice for the good of the party or nation. They will have to live with what has happened, and continues to happen to both their party an nation. Not that that is much solas to the rest of us.
So where does that leave us and the GOP? Simply put, by the 2020 election the GOP will be left with a single Villain in control, a few type D minions looking for their chance to take over and everything else type B and C minions doing their best to do as they are told they want to do what their are told to do. All the while trying to get everything they can for themselves, the devil take the hindmost. But all is not lost for both the Republicans or the Conservatives who once made up the GOP. They are still out their in country. They just have to do a few things, some easy, most difficult. The most difficult will be to accept the possibility that they were mistaken. Not easy for any of us.