2023: A Year of Hope or Horror?

By David Corn  January 4, 2023

Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) rushing from reporters in the Capitol in May. J. Scott Applewhite/AP

On Monday morning, as I made good on my New Year’s resolution to be more diligent about my exercise routine of lower-back stretches and core-strengthening crunches (so far, so good!), I was listening to Joe Scarborough and historian Michael Beschloss on MSNBC. They were discussing the positive developments of 2022 that offer us reasons for optimism in 2023: the defeat of election deniers in important swing-state contests; Ukraine’s inspiring defense of democracy against Vladimir Putin’s genocidal assault; the brave uprising of Iranian women; Donald Trump’s waning (for now) influence within the GOP. In a world poised upon multiple tipping points, we could well imagine many of these scenarios having swung the other way in 2022. (Kari Lake and Doug Mastriano as governors, Herschel Walker and Dr. Oz as senators!) So these are all good signs that may indeed indicate an encouraging trend for democracy. Morning Joe and Beschloss were certainly right to hail these events.

Yet...as they were talking, the crazies were preparing to take over the House of Representatives. As I write, it’s still unclear whether Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) will win the vote for House speaker. Whatever happens on that front, the GOP caucus in charge of one-half of the legislative branch will be dominated by an assortment of extremists: Trump toadies, election liars, and QAnonish conspiracy-mongers bent on perpetuating the politics of grievance, hatred, and chaos. They will demand investigations of Hunter Biden, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the January 6 committee, and the various Deep State plots they and their paranoid allies on the right have feverishly dreamed up during the past few years. They will attempt to hold the government hostage and perhaps even the entire economy by spurring a debt ceiling crisis. They will cause and celebrate chaos—as demonstrated by the fight over the speakership. It’s easy to list all the crucial matters the House GOP will likely not address: climate change, gun violence, student debt, immigration reform, health care affordability and access. These Republicans even intend to block President Joe Biden’s program to bolster the IRS’s tax collection efforts. (Good news for tax cheats like Donald Trump!)

The Trumpists of the GOP do not care about policy. (Remember Trump’s infrastructure week and his cheaper-and-better health care plan?) They care about power—and increasingly GOP legislators have defined their chief task as engaging in partisan warfare via shitposting and trolling the libs. (My colleague Tim Murphy did a deep dive on this.) They will exploit their majority status in the House to continue their fact-free hyperbolic assault on their political foes. There will be few, if any, guardrails.

Political warfare in Washington and nationally is not a both-sides-are-equivalent matter. Only one side has promoted lies to overturn an election and spread bizarre and bogus conspiracy theories to demonize and dehumanize the other. House Republicans, egged on by right-wing media and activists (and Trump!), will leverage their control of that body to further pursue these dangerous and divisive aims.

One episode last month—which you might have missed—illustrates how reckless and irresponsible Republican smear-mongering has been and will probably continue to be in the coming months. During a hearing of the House Oversight Committee on anti-LGBTQ violence, Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.) noted that tweets calling LGBTQ people “groomers,” “predators,” and “pedophiles” often gained much engagement, and she pointed out, “That groomer narrative is an age-old lie to position LGBTQ+ people as a threat to kids, and what it does is deny them access to public spaces and stokes fear and can even stoke violence.” She went on to note that this false narrative “is alleging that a person is criminal somehow and engaging in criminal acts merely because of their identity.”

Pretty straightforward? Porter was presenting an obvious point: Some opponents of gay rights have at times despicably sought to identify gay people with pedophilia. That’s not how the right characterized her comment. A conservative website called Big League Politics, which was created by Breitbart News alums and that has published conspiracy theories and boosted white nationalists, posted an item on Porter’s remarks with a headline exclaiming, “Katie Porter Claims Pedophilia is Not a Crime, It’s an ‘Identity.’” The story cast her as an apologist for pedophiles and her comment as part of a “left-wing push to normalize pedophilia.” Other conservatives blared this false message. The far-right Libs of TikTok account declared on Twitter, “Rep Katie Porter (D) says pedophilia isn’t a crime – it’s an identity.” Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas) tweeted, “Katie Porter just said that pedophilia isn’t a crime, she said it’s an ‘identity.’ THIS IS THE EMBODIMENT OF EVIL! The sad thing is that this woman isn’t the only VILE person pushing for pedophilia normalization. This is what progressives believe!”

Various fact-checkers—including Reuters, CNN, and PolitiFact—quickly rushed in to affirm that Porter had not called pedophilia an identity. But how far do you think those posts reached? They didn’t force all the scoundrels to retract this allegation. As of this week, Jackson’s tweet and the Big League Politics story were still online. Moreover, Jackson’s larger point was the real issue. He was declaring that libs are pedos, or, at the least, pedo-friendly. Jackson is well known as one of the nuttier GOP House members, but his false attack on Porter echoed Sen. Josh Hawley’s deplorable assault last year on Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson when he suggested she had been soft on child porn criminals. Shortly after that, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the QAnon-friendly provocateur, proclaimed, “The Democrats are the party of pedophiles.” Greene added that the Democratic Party was “the most disgusting, horrible, evil thing happening in our country.”

In this new Congress, Greene may well be an influential player. She has been much in the news of late as a prominent supporter of Kevin McCarthy and has reportedly leveraged a spot on the important Oversight Committee for those efforts. Yes, the woman who amplified social media posts calling for the assassination of prominent Democrats, who expressed concern about Jewish space lasers, and who attended a conference organized by white nationalist and Hitler fanboy Nick Fuentes (where the crowd participated in pro-Putin chants) may end up on one of the House’s most significant committees. McCarthy’s embrace of Greene as a key ally says a great deal about the GOP caucus.

It's easy to look at McCarthy’s troubles and the narrow GOP majority and snicker. A top labor official recently told me that she believed the GOP takeover of the House will be good for the Democrats in 2024. She meant that all the Republican craziness that’s about to ensue will likely alienate voters and further damage the party’s already tarnished brand. That’s certainly a strong possibility. Yet in the meantime, I fear, much damage will be done to the US government and the national political culture. Rep. Jim Jordan, who played a key role in Trump’s efforts to mount a coup, is expected to become chair of the House Judiciary Committee. And Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), another key plotter who schemed with Trump to reverse the 2020 election results, will be a weighty political force as chair of the House Freedom Caucus, a.k.a. the Far-Right, Chaos-Loving Extremists. These are terrible counterpoints to the January 6 committee’s work and report: Enemies of American democracy are being rewarded and placed in positions in which they can continue to undermine the republic. Even if they and their fellow Republican extremists shoot themselves in the foot, the bullets will ricochet. There will be collateral damage.

As we recover from our holiday festivities, we can enter 2023 with a positive attitude and hope. I would advise, though, that we also brace ourselves. With or without McCarthy at the helm, Republicans will weaponize the House and turn it into a threat to the nation.

Got anything to say about this item—or anything else? Email me at ourland@motherjones.com.

The Watch, Read, and Listen List

No One Left to Come Looking for You, Sam Lipsyte. I lived in the East Village in the 1980s. The city was grimy, gritty, and exciting—and you didn’t need much money to pursue a boho life. I shared a two-bedroom apartment in a barely maintained building on East 12th Street with novelist-to-be Kate Manning. (The bathtub was in the living room.) I went to shows at CBGB and the Pyramid Club, attended poetry slams where Patti Smith read, and occasionally had dinner at the Polish diner around the corner with Allen Ginsberg, who lived in the barely maintained building next door. I got egg creams at the Gem Spa newspaper stand, supped on pierogis at the Kiev Restaurant, and drank too much at the Great Jones Café, while hovering over its jukebox. I was mugged only once. Good times. Naturally, I was drawn to the latest novel by Sam Lipsyte, No One Left to Come Looking for You. It’s a noirish tale set in this microclimate in 1993, a few years after I said farewell to this chunk of the Big Apple. But in Lipsyte’s book, the downtown scene is still chugging along, as musicians and artists continue to live in crappy apartments, pursuing their visions of punk nirvana and avant-garde conceptualism among junkies and burnouts and opting out of the glamor of uptown New York, which means anything north of 14th Street.

In this demi-world, Jack Shit, né Jonathan Liptak and reared in a Jersey suburb, is a bass-less bass player for a band called The Shits. The group’s charismatic but smack-gripped frontman, who goes by the moniker the Banished Earl, seems to have absconded with the axe—right before a big gig. Well, not that big but the biggest one The Shits have had in a while. Like a punk Sam Spade, Jack chases after the Earl through dive bars, clubs, and far-below-code lofts. With twists and turns, the search for his Fender jazz bass leads him and fellow band members into the criminal world of big-time NYC developers.

Lipsyte has fun blending the real world (there’s Iggy Pop!) with his fictitious village of dreamers and losers. The Shits perform raw discordant songs that include such numbers as “Orange Julius Rosenberg” and “Horst with No Name.” There’s a bit of a Pynchonian cast to the story—though this hard-boiled punk-turned-crime-chaser adventure is served straight up with no convolutions. On the trail of his instrument, Jack witnesses the murder of his mentor (who led a band called the Annihilation of the Soft Left), sidesteps the cops, and hooks up with a street-smart dame (an artist who wants to cover him with menstrual blood for a video piece). Will he find his cherished bass and his much-needed bandmate? And what does this have to do with the predatory world of New York real estate? Jack Shit is no Philip Marlowe. He stumbles more than strides through the tangle of clues. What makes Lipsyte’s entertaining novel special is his deft recreation of a unique New York City community that was displaced by gentrification and snuffed out by the true villain: market forces. It is, as the book jacket promises, a “love letter to a bygone era.” There was once a time when anyone could live in the Village on a shoestring budget and be an angry, young creator. The real crime in this novel is not a stolen bass but the murder of that downtown scene.

Do you remember my Iggy Pop story? And for old time’s sake, here’s Patti Smith at the St. Mark’s Church in 1992:

“On My Way to You,” Brian Ray. I was pleased to see that my pal Brian Ray topped one of my favorite charts: the Coolest Songs of 2022. This is a list compiled by Little Steven’s Underground Garage, one of the best weekly radio shows ever. Created and hosted by Steven Van Zandt, a guitarist in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band and the actor who played Silvio Dante in The Sopranos, the Underground Garage serves up a delectable feast of garage rock and presents the coolest song of the week. (It also exists as a channel on SiriusXM with a host of additional shows.) At the end of each year, listeners vote for the top 10 “coolest” tracks. Ray’s “On My Way to You” nabbed the number-one spot.

Ray has had a helluva musical career. As a teen he was part of Bobby Pickett and the Crypt-Kickers. (Remember “Monster Mash”?) Subsequently, he played with and was musical director for Etta James for 14 years. In 2002, he hooked up with this fellow named Paul McCartney and has been a member of Sir Paul’s band ever since, touring with McCartney around the globe. He also writes, plays, and produces his own fab songs that tend to capture the spirit of garage rock. (And he’s a fiery progressive voice on Twitter.) So check out Ray’s coolest-among-the-coolest song, which edged out Jeff Beck and Johnny Depp’s cover of John Lennon’s “Isolation” and a tune by Michael Des Barres and Prima Donna.

Read Recent Issues of Our Land

December 23, 2022: The connection between Trump’s taxes and the January 6 report; the weirdest congressional scandal in a long time; Dumbass Comment of the Week—and Year; the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.

December 20, 2022: Have a merry (cracked) Christmas—a playlist; and more.

December 17, 2022: The GOP: still crazy after all these midterm elections; Mark Meadows’ lies; Elon Musk and the latest Big Lie of the right; Dumbass Comment of the Week (Shane Vaughn); the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.

December 13, 2022: Rachel Maddow and the rhymes of history; Amazon Prime’s The Peripheral does justice to William Gibson’s novel; twangy Americana from a new duo called Plains; and more.

December 10, 2022: Why the GOP establishment cannot save the GOP from Trump; Michael Pertschuk, thank you and RIP; Dumbass Comment of the Week (Rep. Paul Gosar); the Mailbag, MoxieCam™; and more.

December 6, 2022: How Trump-Russia denialism lead to Elon Musk’s dangerous #TwitterFiles failure; a Twitter exit strategy; Sonic Youth’s “Superstar”; and more.

December 3, 2022: The GOP and Nazis, nothing new; Dumbass Comment of the Week (Madison Cawthorn, for the last time?); the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.

November 30, 2022: What I learned during my Thanksgiving in Italy; why Andor may be the best Star Wars spinoff; and more.

November 17, 2022: Herschel Walker should release his medical records; giving thanks early; The Last Movie Stars reveals Paul Newman’s and Joanne Woodward’s most notable performances—their own lives; MoxieCam™; and more.

November 15, 2022: Is this the end of Donald Trump?; where were you when the Senate was called (I was with Jackson Browne and Tim Robbins); and Neil Young and Crazy Horse keep on riding with a new album; and more.

Got suggestions, comments, complaints, tips related to any of the above, or anything else? Email me at ourland@motherjones.com.