The Modern Republican Party and the March of Folly

Barbara Tuchman's March of Folly was published in the mid-1980s. She wrote about how Renaissance popes lost northern Europe to the Protestant Revolution and British royalty lost the American colonies.

One thing she never really addressed was how Renaissance popes lived better than any popes before or since. Did that hurt the church? Yes. Did it hurt them? No. Popes Alexander and Julius had - well Renaissance artists decorating their living quarters, mistresses, ate better than royalty and had enormous power. If Raphael has painted your personal living quarters, can things really be so bad? A similar thing was going on with British royalty. The real issue was that personal possibilities and goals were at odds with the institutions they had control over.

What's going on now in the Republican Party shows a similar kind of divide. Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene have no interest in becoming powerful legislators. Members of congress make only $174,000 a year and need to have homes in their district and in DC. That's hardly conducive to building wealth.
Rush Limbaugh died with $600 million and was making $85 million a year. Alex Jones is demonstrably nuts and yet even he is worth millions from his broadcasting.

Will new Republicans who spout conspiracy theories be to the Republican Party what Renaissance Popes were to the Catholic Church or British Royalty was to American colonies? That is, will they cost the institution enormously? Yes.

Will they make enormous sums if they pull off the transition from serious legislator to media personality? Definitely yes.

Perhaps the biggest problem Trump's Republican Party has right now is that the money to be made by promoting conspiracies and odd beliefs is so lucrative that there is little incentive for GOP politicians to play it straight and do the hard - but hardly lucrative - work of crafting policy that could add 0.5% GDP growth each year for the next generation - the stuff of steady progress. Instead they are incented to create controversy that can make them rich now.