Jackson Lahmeyer (R-OK) is going to challenge Senator James Lankford (R-OK) in the Republican primary because Lankford, who was about to vote to challenge certain Electoral votes on January 6th, was interrupted by the January 6th insurrection, and upon return to the Senate chambers, chose not to continue his challenge, instead voting to accept.
Lahmeyer, as one might expect in today’s GOP, has vowed to chase delusions:
“Lahmeyer has made attacking the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election a centerpiece of his campaign, repeatedly vowing that if he is elected to Congress, he will make it his mission to hold those who supposedly stole the election from former President Donald Trump accountable for treason,” Right Wing Watch reports.
The conspiracy theory that Trump won the election is not the only delusion Lahmeyer has embraced.
“Lahmeyer has focused heavily on winning support from right-wing QAnon conspiracy theorists like Lin Wood and Michael Flynn, both of whom have endorsed his campaign. Lahmeyer has also been a regular participant at the ‘Restore America’ rallies organized by right-wing conspiracy theorist Clay Clark, where he has been proudly posting photos of himself hanging out with the various election, COVID-19, and QAnon conspiracy theorist speakers at such events. [Raw Story]
This should make him popular with the GOP base and the QAnon crowd … right?
Republican Jackson Lahmeyer is denying some QAnon believers’ claims that he’s involved in “Child Sex Trafficking, pedophilia or devil worship” as he runs for U.S. Senate in Oklahoma. …
“Interestingly, Lahmeyer’s flirtations with QAnon have not prevented him from becoming the target of smears from QAnon conspiracy theorists who have reportedly accused him of pedophilia and child sex trafficking after he posted a photo of his young daughter wearing red shoes,” Right Wing Watch explained. “As QAnon conspiracy theorist Liz Crokin once explained, many QAnon believers are convinced that ‘there is symbolism for red shoes in the occult and it’s also tied to satanic ritualistic abuse and the trafficking of children.'”
While it’s amusing that a fantasist is becoming the victim of other fantasists, the important point is that this sort of attack pushes to the fore the real problem with postmodernists such as, well, the far-right in this example.
First, a moment to get a sense of the definition of postmodernity:
Postmodern philosophy is a philosophical movement that arose in the second half of the 20th century as a critical response to assumptions allegedly present in modernist philosophical ideas regarding culture, identity, history, or language that were developed during the 18th-century Enlightenment. Postmodernist thinkers developed concepts like difference, repetition, trace, and hyperreality to subvert “grand narratives“, univocity of being, and epistemic certainty. Postmodern philosophy questions the importance of power relationships, personalization, and discourse in the “construction” of truth and world views. Many postmodernists appear to deny that an objective reality exists, and appear to deny that there are objective moral values. [Wikipedia]
The key? The denial that an objective reality exists, or, more loosely, the denial that there is a truth to a matter that exists independent of the collective desires of some group. The frantic chanting of Stop the Steal! and related group slogans qualifies, even in the face of the difficulties of group epistemology, as postmodernism, the belief that if they yell it loud enough, it becomes true. This has ties to former President Trump’s prosperity church beginnings, as well as some descriptions I’ve seen of the woke political culture, and, well, the culture of five year olds.
Yes, five year olds.
The consequences? In previous decades, before postmodernism had taken over the GOP, Lahmeyer could have used some logic to turn back the baseless accusations, or required that proof be forthcoming, and pointed at lack of same as proof that he’s not a pedophiliac and trafficker. The accuser would have suffered reputational loss. But now, Lahmeyer’s as much the victim of baseless accusations as those he accuses of stealing the election from Trump, despite the utter lack of evidence and the best efforts of former President Trump and his band of desperate lawyers.
Thus the GOP will continue its descent into chaos. Even prominent elected officials, such as Senators Cruz, McConnell, Hawley, and Representatives McCarthy, Gaetz, and many more may find themselves smeared and then facing primary challenges, because at some point, some power-hungry extremist will consider them to be compromisers, weak, or even apostates for failing to join in some ridiculous stunt.
The question will then become: how much more will the independents, the holders of real political power, tolerate before they stop helping to elect Republicans to office? The only real brakes will come from failing to be elected. As an example, right-wing extremist Kris Kobach’s loss to Democrat Laura Kelly for the position of Governor of Kansas in 2018 marked him as an extremist failure; he did not make it out of the primary for the 2020 Senate race in Kansas, and in fact faced opposition from the Kansas Republican Party chairman. Kobach may be finished in politics.
The moral future of the GOP continues to look bleak, doesn’t it?
