The Atlantic

The Dark Heart of the Republican Party

Embracing the politics of sadism, the GOP base hits a new low.
Source: Zach Gibson / Getty

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January 6 was not an outlier. Laughing over a hammer attack on an old man, the GOP has completed its transition from a political party to a brutal mob.

But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.


A Spreading Cancer

It might seem late in the game to point to any one event as a final or conclusive moment in the decline of the Republican Party. And I have no doubt that if the GOP returns to power this winter, its worst members will find new ways to appall decent people while gamboling about in jester’s bells for its colleague Adam Serwer has so well, “The cruelty is the point.”) But the reaction among Republican elected officials and their conservative-media life-support system to the beating of Paul Pelosi—by a man named David DePape, who was charged with attempting to kidnap Speaker Nancy Pelosi and planning to torture her—feels different.

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