The Insane Clown Party

Without a leader, the conservative base is a directionless mob

“The GOP will never be the party of the working class,” laments the populist pundit Sohrab Ahmari in a recent column. The party rhetoric is phony. Republicans are not serious about helping Starbucks baristas unionize or securing more government entitlements for the underclass. According to the “post-liberal” Ahmari (who has changed his political views more times than America has changed presidents) the GOP is too wedded to its old ways.

In a way, Ahmari is right: neither the party nor the base care about his “economic populism” project. That should have been obvious to anyone who watched Donald Trump’s meteoric rise in 2016. Even then, economic populism played second fiddle to identity issues. Trump became the GOP frontrunner by calling illegal immigrants rapists and promising a Muslim ban. His campaign was an electoral spectacle that kept the country tuned in. (His first GOP presidential debate in 2015 scored a record 24 million viewers.) The median Republican primary voter connected with Trump’s most visceral material. They didn’t care about union bargaining rights or industrial policy. 

This was still apparent during Trump’s presidency. January 6th demonstrators were up in arms about the Great Replacement, not the wages of gig workers.

Ahmari and his allies hoped Trumpism without Trump would mean a social democratic GOP. That delusion should finally be dead. 

But that doesn’t mean Republican officials and conservative media will push “identitarianism.” The American Right may head down a far dumber path, one that has proven as lucrative as it is politically stupid. This is the Insane Clown Party, and it could be the future of Trumpism without Trump. 

Trump’s core message was centered on important identity issues, but there has always been a carnival aspect to the MAGA movement. Many ditched Trumpism as a policy agenda to join the three-ring circus. Early shoots of this outgrowth were found in QAnon. The Plan Trusters were loyal Trump supporters who ignored flagrant problems in America to spread wild conspiracy theories about mole children, secret military executions, and satanic pedophile cabals orchestrating world events. Shunned by conservative media, QAnon gained a large following outside of traditional venues. It influenced a sizable part of Trump’s base. QAnon’s run as a formal movement ground to a halt after Trump’s departure from office and the failure of their prophecy. But it’s animating spirit has a more firm grip on the conservative movement than ever.

Conspiratorial logic, QAnon’s beating pulse, is central to how the contemporary Right thinks. Frivolous and ridiculous theories have migrated from fringe corners of the internet to Fox News Primetime. Notable cases include the suggestion that Damar Hamlin had a body double, a fixation on UFOs, constant talk about the JFK assassination, and space lasers causing wildfires in Hawaii and Canada. It may be entertaining, but it is totally divorced from reality. This is the news and political commentary equivalent of a History Channel special: perhaps a fun way to spend a lazy afternoon, but stupid to the point of agony when some deranged old boomer takes it seriously.  

If the people who get into conspiracy theories remained disciplined on identity issues, that wouldn’t be so bad. But the conspiracy theories often distract from what’s important. Counter-intuitively, conspiracy theories provide a more broadly palatable moral framework than the harsher, less extravagant truths of identitarianism. 

Take the Maui wildfires, for instance. The disaster in Hawaii is a case study in the deep and startling ineptitude of minority-run government. Many of the island’s public officials were selected on the basis of race. M. Kaleo Manuel, a water resource manager on the island, advanced the sort of loopy theories on “water equity” and “indigenous science” that you’d expect to find in a satire. He reportedly refused to release water to fight the fires until he got approval from a Native Hawaiian farm. The delay may have cost lives.

This is America’s dark future when DEI is institutionalized and the low-functioning clients of the anti-white party are put in charge. But that wasn’t the predominant narrative on the Right. Instead, conservative influencers gravitated to tin foil hat speculation that “elites” set the wildfires (possibly using space lasers) to secure real estate deals for Oprah Winfrey. The theory spread like wildfire on social media even though at its base, it reflects an absurd, morally left-wing view of the world. 

Other times, the Insane Clown Party focuses on frivolities rather than what matters. The border invasion is still bringing millions of illegals to this country. Liberal prosecutors have indicted Trump four times on politically-motivated charges. But those two events elicited less outrage than a single case of beer. The Bud Light boycott didn’t convince Republicans to embrace diversity, but another event may push this insidious message to them. 

Oliver Anthony’s hit song “Rich Men North of Richmond” alluded to some of the Right’s favorite conspiracies and many saw it as the anthem of right-wing populism. When asked by Fox News for his opinion on the state of America, Anthony declared that “diversity makes us strong” and wishes for the country to return to this value. The rich men north of Richmond would certainly agree with that. They promote that value to the entire country! Since Anthony agrees with them about diversity, what’s the problem with those rich guys after all? 

Coherence or clarity isn’t important here. It’s the vibe that matters. A protest song that ultimately agrees with the core values of the liberal order, but complains about pedophiles and taxes, is a good example of the Insane Clown Party.

Insane Clown Party isn’t just a random name. The Insane Clown Posse and its fanbase have a strong resemblance to the Right. For one, the Posse is a collective of wigger rappers, much like the increasingly popular MAGA rappers of today. Their fanbase is multiracial and working class, fulfilling the dreams of many a conservative commentator. ICP claim to be devout Christians, but certainly their faith is unorthodox brand and allows for gratuitous vulgarity, drug use, and sexual perversion. They hate science and rail against Satanic pedophiles. Juggalo aesthetics are proudly trash and an insult to WASPdom, much like the “culture” churned out by many conservative influencers.

If you want to divine the worldview of the modern American Right, you’re better off listening ICP’s “Miracles” than reading Edmund Burke or Alexis de Tocqueville.

This could change with good leadership. Trump and Tucker Carlson had the power to keep the base focused on what matters. Trump still demonstrates this capacity with his resistance to following the Right’s latest frivolous obsessions. He hardly noticed Bud Light and he wonders why conservatives say “woke” so much. But Tucker is off Fox News and Trump’s legal woes are keeping him distracted. Trump may end up in jail, which, naturally, would undermine his ability to lead the base.

Without leaders, the base turns into a directionless mob that’s easy prey for grifters and charlatans. They’re a good audience to make money from, which is why even mainstream cons like the Daily Wire play up QAnon talking points. The strange scandal surrounding Vivek Ramaswamy touching on 9/11 Trutherism shows how Republican politicians may do the same in the future. They could stick to the old pre-Trump Republicanism, but simply add pledges to investigate the death of JFK Jr. and whether Bigfoot is a demon to win over the Insane Clown Party. They could ignore the identity issues so long as they entertain random conspiracy theories. And there would be no Tucker Carlson on Fox News to call them out.

Without Trump, Trumpism as a political ideology dies. All that remains is the circus. 

Many opportunities await in the future. The old political consensus will never return. The loneliness epidemic and other social factors ensure radical ideologies are here to stay. The internet offers incredible avenues to introduce new ideas to people that they would never hear from established media. At the same time, this leads to tens of thousands of people retweeting “footage” of weather machines and “proof” that they replaced Joe Biden with a clone. This will always be a feature of the internet. The important thing is to keep these asinine conspiracy theories from dominating your political movement. But if the Insane Clown Party has its way, that will be all the Right cares about.