I grew up around Republicans. My grandfather and father were active in Republican politics. The GOPers that came around our house were staid businessmen types much like Willard Mittbot Romney. It never occurred to me that the boring-n-normal Willards of the world could be deviant in any way. That thought *has* occurred to the QAnon Lady:

Murkowski, Collins, and Romney are pro-pedophile.

They just voted for #KBJ.

— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (@RepMTG) April 5, 2022

It amazes me how casually Republican freaks throw around the most inflammatory accusations. Calling someone pro-pedophile is one of the worst things you can say. It just rolls off MTG’s forked tongue.

The attacks on KBJ have gone from “soft on crime” to “pro-pedophile” in the blink of an eye. It’s just another day in the Republican Freak Show.

Don’t get me wrong: there were nuts-a-plenty on the right when I was young. I arrived home one day to my dad throwing a soon-to-be former friend out of the house because he was a Bircher. Lou took a dim view of people who thought General/President Eisenhower was a commie. I was proud of him at that moment. It’s one of those memories that reassure me that my father wouldn’t have supported the Kaiser of Chaos. He was also known to mock men with combovers. That would have made Trump a two-time loser in his book.

The Republican Freak Show thrives on drama and personal attacks. That’s a page out of Tailgunner Joe McCarthy’s handbook. He was a cynical opportunist who didn’t believe his own rhetoric. He was, however, wittier than the current group as in this attack on Truman’s secretary of state Dean Acheson who he called the “Red Dean of the cowardly college of containment.”

That’s alliteration worthy of James Fucking Ellroy.

Tailgunner Ted Cruz may resemble Joe McCarthy, but lacks his drunken panache:

As I searched for freak show banners with which to illustrate this post, I came upon these two I have joined in unholy matrimony:

A Congress of living freaks is the GOP’s goal in the mid-terms. They want to run the show while putting on a sideshow. The mere thought freaks me out, man.

I found a sideshow banner that works for MTG as well:

That banner appears to have spent too much time in the sun. Perhaps that explains MTG’s fading brain cells. Nah, it’s overexposure to QAnon and this creep:

Michael F called him the Freak Show Caudillo. It works for me too.

I’d like to congratulate Senators Collins, Murkowski, and Romney for supporting KBJ’s nomination. Willard’s tweet sounds like a pre-Freak Show senator:

I intend to vote in support of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation to be an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. My statement: pic.twitter.com/uGaxx8sJn5

— Senator Mitt Romney (@SenatorRomney) April 4, 2022

The good news is that the freak show attacks on KBJ have backfired. The bad news is that they happened at all.

I would be remiss in writing about the Republican Freak Show without referring to Todd Browning’s 1932 masterpiece Freaks. If Sarah Palin is elected to Congress this may be how she’s greeted by some of her nuttier colleagues:

We know how much Palin loves turkeys:

Gooble, gobble.

It’s just another day in the Republican Freak Show.

The last word goes to the Mothers: