An item in the Thursday edition of Politico’s often circlejerky but sometimes useful Playbook tip sheet detailed a conversation between two Republican House members and a fan that demonstrates the widely understood but rarely directly observed contempt the GOP have for the MAGA base. Last Thursday evening, after nearly all of the House Republicans voted to refer Steve Bannon to the DOJ for contempt, Reps Michael McCaul (R-TX) and Ann Wagner (R-MO) were at an event in a Capitol Hill-area restaurant when an unnamed person in their group said he hoped Wagner would end up with a more Conservative district after Missouri redraws their maps.

“Then you get those wacko birds” Wagner said, to which McCaul added “That’s why we had to vote the way we did today!”, referring to the no on Bannon’s contempt charge they’d both been whipped into, per Playbook, also adding that a House Foreign Affairs GOP staffer (McCaul is the ranking member) told them she would never speak to a Politico reporter again if they published this item.

So this brief exchange says quite a lot: Both of these Republicans apparently don’t seem to really like their voters and just vote for fascist bullshit to appease them, and they actually agree that Steve Bannon should be prosecuted for contempt of Congress, but both are too chickenshit to actually vote the way they feel because they’re terrified of the MAGA cult. Inspiring!