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If you want to understand both political parties’ unmooring at this moment, you might look at perhaps the most unlikely of proxies: none other than Matt Gaetz, the bomb-throwing former House member and failed nominee to become Donald Trump’s newest Attorney General.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]Multiple media outlets reported Wednesday that the House Ethics Committee had secretly voted to release its report into Gaetz in the coming days. Recall that Gaetz resigned from the House in November just hours before the chamber’s ethics panel was set to release a reportedly damning investigation of his conduct related to sex, minors, cash, drugs, and lewd conversations. The questions around Gaetz’s conduct played a key role in Gaetz withdrawing his bid to be the nation’s top law enforcement official.
Gaetz quickly responded with a lengthy statement declaring his innocence against baseless allegations, and, as he often does, deflecting by attacking members of his own party. “My 30’s were an era of working very hard—and playing hard too,” he wrote on X. “It’s embarrassing, though not criminal, that I probably partied, womanized, drank and smoked more than I should have earlier in life. I live a different life now. But at least I didn’t vote for CR’s that f–k over the country!” Even from afar, he’s still gumming up an imperiled continuing resolution to keep the government’s lights on.
And yet it’s hard to know whether the report’s release will change the swaggering Florida Republican’s unique standing in the political firmament. Last week, One America News Network announced Gaetz would host a nightly gabfest on its unflinchingly pro-Trump platform, one that is dwarfed in viewership by Fox News and Newsmax but nonetheless punches well above its weight in the MAGAverse of loyalists to the past and future President—including Trump himself, who has amplified its conspiracy theory-laden broadcasts.
Then, a day later, Politico reported that Gaetz was in talks to join the nation’s biggest personal-injury law firm that is led by a major donor to Democrats, one who loudly complained about President Joe Biden’s chase of a second term and ultimately stopped giving to the party’s ticket.
The fact that two organizations with such diametrically opposed views of the U.S. political landscape can both find possible utility in someone like Gaetz speaks volumes—particularly as the broad strokes of the allegations against him have been public knowledge for years.
Like Trump, Gaetz thought he could simply wave away allegations against him and there would be no consequences. His exit from his government job meant the government no longer could use its watchdog to test him, right? For a minute, that worked. The House ethics panel initially decided that they were not ready to release the report on the allegations against Gaetz. But at least some of the committee decided otherwise in a secret bipartisan vote, perhaps seeing it as an attempt at ending this coddling of Gaetz-style nihilism.
Despite all this, Gaetz may still be the Republican Party’s next act in a post-Trump era.
Furthermore, some believe Gaetz packs a political skillset that Democrats should exploit for their own advantage.
Both could be true. Both could be trumped up. But that both ideas are being taken seriously speak to the deep uncertainty confronting the two big parties in this country. It’s why the cabal on K Street’s lobbying corridor are widening their guest lists this holiday season on the off-chance their collective assumption is dead wrong. It’s why the consulting firms who are hiring are hedging their bets between GOP stalwarts and MAGA loyalists. And it’s why some of those same firms are not shedding their Democratic heavies—just yet.
Republicans barreled back to power last month in large measure thanks to Trump and his deep-pocketed friends like Elon Musk. The GOP will have the White House, the Senate, and the narrowest of margins in the House—one that could shrink even more if Trump prevails in moving incumbents into the roles of national security adviser and U.S. representative at the United Nations. “Enough already,” joked House Speaker Mike Johnson of Trump’s raiding of his fragile caucus majority.
Democrats are pushing back on any suggestion of a GOP mandate over Washington come next year. But unlike eight years ago when the rank-and-file activists on that side joined The Resistance, that mobilization is not coming together this time. In fact, the Democrats are pretty beaten down, and it only makes sense that someone like Democratic superdonor John Morgan, who claims his Morgan & Morgan is the biggest personal-injury law practice in the land, would try to land someone like Gaetz.
The political footing is so uncertain right now that anything is really fair game. Trump is in his final march and it’s not clear if the movement he sparked survives past him. The Reagan Revolution petered out once he flew home to Simi Valley. Similarly, there was never much clamour within the GOP for a post-presidency role for either Bush 41 or 43. Trump clawed his way back to power, but it’s not evident that anyone—Vice President-elect J.D. Vance, son Don Jr., anyone in the MAGA orbit, really—can replicate his fervor. For a sect of the traditional GOP, releasing the Gaetz findings could potentially purge one possible heir.
It’s just as dusty on the Democratic side. Biden’s exit from stage left and Kamala Harris’ subsequent loss yielded a big unknown for where that party goes. Biden has all but vanished from the conversation in Washington as he and his team count down their final days in power. Harris has started to lay the groundwork for a next act, telling campaign allies gathered two weeks ago at her D.C. residence “we do not let anything defeat us.” “We are not having a pity party” she added. A passionate debate about the future of the Democratic National Committee and its nominally independent partners is only heating up. No one is exactly banging down the doors of Barack Obama, whose braintrust joined the Harris effort and have since joined the pile-on, let alone Bill or Hillary Clinton. Heck, a former Democratic House member with a reputation as a Russia-sympathetizing Syria apologist is poised to become the spy mistress in the Trump Administration. And Morgan, that big-law litigator who wants to hire Gaetz after tossing $1 million toward Biden? He says Harris’ days in politics are done.
See the mess afoot yet?
So the realization that Gaetz—a troll of the first order and a foil for Establishment-minded stalwarts in both parties—is seen as a possible anchor for the current moment is telling. Republicans see him as a sycophant who came within striking distance of becoming the general in a courts-based campaign of retribution against Trump’s political foes. Democrats have good reason to see Gaetz as an altogether disgraced public servant. Again, two truths can hold steady. The nation may soon mostly see him as an unindicted crook, if the rumblings about the contents inside the ethics panel are to be heeded.
On Dec. 12, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska sent up her own distress flare from inside the Republican Party’s remaining wing of MAGA holdouts: “I don’t think I’ve made any secret of the fact that I’m more of a Ronald Reagan Republican than I am a Trump Republican.” No champion of Gaetz, she nonetheless is still entertaining some of Trump’s many, many other dubious noms, such as “compromised” former Rep. Tusi Gabbard and accused sexual assaulter Pete Hegseth. Understanding she is to expect arrows from her own right flank, Murkowski merely leaned into her identity as a political survivor and a steady voice against mob mentality. “You can call me whatever you want to call me,” she said.
What else might they call her? A reliable weathervane, even a preemptive one. She may be prescient when discussing how Trump’s nominees—Gaetz at the fore, more to come—could expect to be treated. “I think we’re getting a little bit of a preview now of what it is going to mean to be allegiant to [the] party, and I don’t think that is going to help us as a Republican Party,” Murkowski said. “I think it’s going to energize and charge up the Democrats.” Which is why Democrats are at least curious how someone like Gaetz straddles so many factions all at once.
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