“The last I saw of Count Dracula was his kissing his hand to me, with a red light of triumph in his eyes, and with a smile that Judas in hell might be proud of.”
—Bram Stoker, Dracula
Politico has the scoop on the latest gathering of the conservative Undead.
With an eye toward winning back the House and Senate in the 2022 midterm elections, former President Donald Trump has begun crafting a policy agenda outlining a MAGA doctrine for the party. His template is the 1994 "Contract with America," a legislative agenda released ahead of the midterm elections in the middle of President Bill Clinton’s first term. And, as a cherry on top, he’s teaming up with its main architect — Gingrich — to do it.
Gingrich rode high in American politics for a very short time, but the Republican Party never has shaken off the effects of those days, and Gingrich certainly has lost none of his conviction that he is, as he once scribbled, the Definer of Civilisation’s Rules and Leader (possibly) of the civilising forces. That he allied himself with the former president* is no surprise. Despite his complete obsolescence as a national political figure—his presidential campaign in 2012 sank without a trace, and he ended up as the spouse of the ambassador to the Vatican—his self-regard remains ironclad. Among megalomaniacs of the caliber of Gingrich and the former president*, game recognises game.
So much of the prion disease that afflicts the Republican Party has Gingrich as its index patient. It was through him that the Republicans developed their sophisticated taste for institutional vandalism. He also developed in the party an attack reflex by which obvious hypocrisies can be shouted down until they disappear into the Void. He ran out Speaker Jim Wright over a dubious book deal, and then signed one himself with Rupert Murdoch. He denounced Bill Clinton’s adultery while indulging in his own with the future Ambassador to the Vatican. Once you’ve sharpened this skill, it doesn’t take much effort for a Definer of Civilisation’s Rules to ally himself with the only outright heathen ever to occupy the White House.
Detailed policy planks have never been the most notable feature of Trump’s political appeal, nor has he regularly followed through on promised policy initiatives. So it remains to be seen just how comprehensive the updated Contract will be, if one is issued at all. Gingrich, who wrote the "Contract with America" along with former congressman Dick Armey, said it shouldn’t be expected to debut “anytime soon.” But when asked about what should be included in a 2022 Republican agenda, Gingrich outlined a list of potential priorities.
And awaaaaaayyyy we go!
“It should be positive,” Gingrich said. “School choice, teaching American history for real, abolishing the ‘1619 Project,’ eliminating critical race theory and what the Texas legislature is doing. We should say, ‘Bring it on.’”
Gingrich said it shouldn’t be expected until closer to the midterm elections because “the world keeps changing and evolving.”
(“Teaching American history for real” is a rather odd goal for a guy who spent a few years slumming in fictional Civil War revisionism in which the Confederacy won.)
Newt always has fancied himself a historian. In fact, Newt always has fancied himself to be THE historian, the Herodotus of West Georgia College. So the success of—and the manufactured outrage directed at—the "1619 Project" was rube-bait he couldn’t resist. Maybe America is ready, finally, to reward his genius in full. Maybe the civilising forces have finally gathered. OK, at the moment, it’s just Mark Meadows, Lindsey Graham, and the former president*, but every Definer of Civilisation’s Rules has to start somewhere.
Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976. He lives near Boston and has three children.
