The Republican Party is in pure survival mode, lashing out at everything like a cornered animal, and showing obvious signs of desperation as the party heads towards electoral disaster in 2022 and 2024. January 6th planner Ali Alexander sat for a lengthy deposition with the January 6th Committee this week, and has reportedly pledged to cooperate with Congress. Liz Cheney recently announced that there will be “several weeks” of public hearings regarding the January 6th riot, and the GOP is riven by in-fighting as “Reagan Republicans” like Mitch McConnell try to avert a debt default, while a parade of kidnappers, wife-beaters and domestic terrorists are bouncing in and out of races competing for an endorsement from former guy Donald Trump.

Although there’s a great deal of concern about how the media appears to be tougher on President Biden than it was on the former guy, the reality appears to be that, just like Facebook, US media outlets have developed a lazy and self-serving business model that relies on conflict-driven engagement. If Democrats are able to leverage that tendency with the January 6th public hearings, and give the media the kind of conflict-driven stories that they crave, then they could easily end up drawing doom and gloom election coverage away from President Biden and putting the focus of negative media coverage squarely on the GOP.

The clown show of GOP House and Senate races is proving to be another huge source of stress for Republicans. Along with the usual crowd of Trump apologists and sycophants, the party has gained attention for news of an actual KKK leader running as a Republican in Georgia. That candidate, Chester Doles, describes himself as “a Trump supporter all the way”. This comes on top of news that six people who were at the January 6th rally have now been elected in heavily Republican districts all across the country. The Republican Party is increasingly looking like a party of racist lunatics.

The combination of fallout from January 6th, the diminishing attention to Republican fear-mongering over inflation as the media turns towards coverage of the January 6th hearings, and the increasingly racist and irate nature of GOP candidates in state and local elections is seriously damaging the Republican Party.