In case you’re a total fucking idiot, allow me to verify something for you- there is a “political industrial complex.” I mean, c’mon, did you need Marjorie Taylor Greene to tell you that? Look, I’m still not a fan of her’s, but even a broke clock is right twice a day. Like, you thought all of those emails asking you for money with the headline “This is the most important election of our lifetime!” and texts asking you “just give us $5!” were something genuine? You never wondered why after you gave one candidate $10 because you believed in them, then you suddenly ended up on other email lists? List sales and swaps are a big business, man. Really though, you needed her to tell you this?

Washington politics is not any different any other industry, it needs it’s customers to survive. Candidates are taught, if they don’t instinctively know, to cater to the audience that keeps the lights on. Small dollar donors. Volunteers. Interest group leaders. Mega donors. Government affairs directors. Basically, the hyper engaged. A lot of people make the mistake of thinking this only means the rich or corporate interests, but it’s really true of anyone that is an active participant in our political dialogue in America full time. Why are we running candidates who mostly appeal to base voters and turn off most of the rest of the public? It’s an industry. That keeps the lights on.

Is there any reason the #1 metric of the DCCC in a swing seat needs to be money? Not really. Let’s be honest, they’re going to spend money in PA-7 or 8, or NJ-7, or NY-17, and so on. The nominee will be funded, so why worry about if they’re good at it? We all know why- the DCCC exists to make sure people get paid. They want candidates who can sustain expensive consultants and pay staff. Is it always necessary? At a certain point, yes. For months on end? No, not at all.

Let’s be honest, shitty people sustain candidates like Graham Platner because they make them money. Does any one think the guy with the Nazi tattoo should walk into a Senate seat for their first political gig? Only if they’re a weirdo. Did anyone think Marjorie Taylor Greene was an ideal Congresswoman? Only if they were so strange that they thought making the other side angry was a positive attribute. It takes a grift to make someone think the guy robbing his mother in law should go to Congress. This is where we are though.

Conflict sells. Anger sells. Telling people they want the most divisive person possible because the other side’s voters, not just candidates and donors, are horrible people who want to kill children, old people, and puppies, it sells. Lining up AOC’s resume next to say Jimmy Carter’s or Barack Obama’s, let alone Dwight Eisenhower or LBJ, and trying to claim she should be a viable Presidential candidate should immediately tell you by common sense that this is silly. It doesn’t for a lot of hyper partisan people. The industry has rewired your brain to believe things that a rational person would not. If you stay in a constant state of conflict against everyone, even your friends, neighbors, and family members that you disagree with, you’re ready to roll with anyone. Suddenly you have no standards. You’re good with whatever slop is put in front of you. J.D. Vance couldn’t even find the private gym in the Senate, and suddenly he’s up to being Vice-President, because he can speak to the hyper engaged.

I do not think for a second that this all bothered Marjorie Taylor Greene even a little bit. I mean, remember “Jewish space lasers?” This woman pushed every crackpot conspiracy theory, hell she even claimed to believe in Q Anon. She’s not mad that you’re being played. She’s mad that she fell out of favor with the cabal in her party and they turned on her. I do think there was some genuine concern over the Epstein Files on her part, there’s something real there, and she couldn’t let it go. She took it too far and they turned on her. She’s mad the grift was over for her. I don’t think for a second that she’s had some genuine, over-arching epiphany.

If you’re just a normal person that votes twice a year and goes about your daily life, you are not the audience of our politicians. They’re not aiming their message at you. They have figured out that you will make a choice within the binary, even if you’re not really thrilled about it. You don’t sustain the business, like any casual consumer is not the main target of any industry. They’d love to hook you too, so that you spend your time on social media raging about a “second Civil War,” but until you get there, they don’t worry much about you. You knew that though. You knew this was an industry and that people made money off of it. You didn’t need Marjorie Taylor Greene to tell you that. The fact that an animal of the system like MTG is the messenger here may seem not right to you, but consider this- Dwight Eisenhower told you about the military industrial complex, and he rose to prominence by being one of the greatest generals in history.

Now I’m going to tell you something though that runs almost entirely counterintuitive. The vast majority of the people in that industry actually aren’t trying to set a trap for you. There are some, and they benefit a lot. Most are people who hold strongly held convictions and beliefs, and think you’ll live in a better world if they can just win. So they take part in this, to win. I’m not sure if this makes me feel better or worse, but I guess it does make things make sense to me.