The GOPyramid: A Hierarchy of Republican Priorities
What does MAGA treasure the most?
By now, we know what Republicans don’t value: women, minorities, immigrants, the LGBTQ community, the environment, medical science, math, the arts, public education, voting rights, police reform, functional power grids, quality healthcare, sound infrastructure, hurricane preparedness, pandemic preparedness, gun safety, socialized anything, NATO, judicial ethics, common decency, democracy, or the possibility that the U.S. defaults on its debt and sends the global economy into an apocalyptic death spiral.
But what does the GOP hold dear? And which of those values are paramount? PREVAIL is pleased to present a hierarchy of Republican priorities, ranked in ascending order of importance:
16/ Employers of Children
To Republicans, the obvious solution to the current labor crisis is to let young children enter the workforce. If ten-year-olds can play Mario Kart, they can put baskets of frozen fries into sizzling hot vegetable oil. Their sacred right to do so should not be infringed. Look at how happy these Arkansas kids look, knowing that Governor Huckabee Sanders liberated them from the shackles of not being able to offer their services on the open market.
15/ Hard-Ons*
As GOP men well know, nothing kills an erection like a Republican woman. They are the anti-aphrodisiac, Shrinky-Dinking the male member. Therefore, the straight white boner must be safeguarded, along with any and all medicines that keep it up, as well as access to and coverage for said medicines. (Not porn, though. Or sex workers. Or gay thirst traps on Insta.) As the neo-Nazis who pass as Republican thought leaders will be the first to tell you, the very survival of the Caucasian race depends on the popping of straight white woodies. You can’t shoot pool with rope.
* Straight, White Penises Only
14/ Abusive Husbands
Republicans believe that once married, women must remain with their husbands until death, because the Bible says so. If the husband is violent, if the husband rapes, if the husband gives her the herpes he got while cheating on her, if the husband is verbally and physically abusive, if the husband molests the kids. . . and if the wife wants to leave for any reason, well, too bad. No divorce without his consent—ever! And if she winds up dead because she can’t escape her abuser, so be it. That’s what Jesus would do. Seriously, check out Matthew 5:32. And who better to give marital advice in 2023 than a never-married virgin who died twenty centuries ago?
13/ Immigrants*
Most foreigners come to this country to steal our jobs and suck at the teat of the nanny state, Republicans will tell you. That’s why the border is always in crisis. That’s why the wall had to be built. The exceptions? Rupert Murdoch, who is from Australia, and the South African-born Elon Musk (aka “Apartheid Clyde”). They are rich, white, rightwing, and want to watch the world burn while their wealth increases—which is the rosy future all Republicans dream of.
*Billionaire Propaganda Peddlers Only
12/ High School Athletes Competing Against Trans Kids
Sure, there are mass school shootings in this country every other week at this point, but have you heard about the trans girls beating out cis girls in high school track-and-field-events? That’s the real scourge on our society, according to GOP leaders like Ron DeSantis.
11/ Fossil Fuel
Öl über alles.
10/ Insurrectionists
If a horde of Trump-flag-waving tourists can’t, with complete impunity, descend on Washington, break through the barricades, kill a few cops, and besiege the Capitol while trying to assassinate the sitting vice president, the terrorists have won. Tucker Carlson knows: Ashli Babbitt came in peace.
9/ School Prayer*
Public schools need more God, not less, and the way to do that is allow kids to pray on school grounds, preferably under the guidance of a God-fearing teacher. How are these kids expected to survive a mass shooting if they cannot exercise their First Amendment right to freedom of religion in the middle school cafeteria? God forbid if a student unrolls a prayer mat, though, and asks which way is Mecca. That’s un-American.
*Christian Only
8/ Pedophiles
To Republicans, age is just a number, man. Ask Missouri State Senator Mike Moon. Or Matt Gaetz. Or Joel Greenberg. Or Tony Lazzaro. Or Jim Jordan. Or George Nader. Or Mark Foley. Or Roy Moore. Or Donald Trump. Or Dennis Hastert.
7/ Rapists
“Goal number one in the state of Texas is to eliminate rape so that no woman—no person—will be a victim of rape,” said Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, last September. The easiest way to eliminate rape, obviously, is to decriminalize it.1 It is fitting that the frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination, Donald Trump, has been credibly accused of rape in a defamation trial still happening as I type this. The multiple allegations against Trump were well known prior to the 2016 election—who can forget “grab ‘em by the pussy?”—but Republican voters did not give a shit, preferring a male rapist to a woman.
6/ Putin
He picked, influenced, and helped elect their last president. He infiltrated their gun rights lobbyist group. He broadcasts clips of their politicians and talking heads on his state media. His religious leaders are tight with their religious leaders. He wants nothing more than the GOP to take the White House, so he can go on committing genocide in Ukraine without as much blowback from the U.S.
5/ (tie) White Supremacists; Tools of the Patriarchy
Because Republicans totally aren’t racist, this applies even to white supremacists who are Black. Because Republicans totally aren’t sexist, this applies even to tools of the patriarchy who are women.
4/ Jesus (American Interpretation)
He’s white, He’s bearded, He’s packing heat, He’s making His triumphant return any day now, and He fucking hates anyone who doesn’t hold the exact same religious beliefs as the pastor in your little church who thinks fossils were put on earth by Satan to test our faith in the Almighty and that he was able to successfully pray away his gay.
3/ (tie) Blastocysts, Embryos, Fetuses
A blastocyst is the hollow cluster of cells that imbeds in the uterus a few days after fertilization of the egg. Ten days later, the amniotic sac is formed around the cell cluster, and the blastocyst becomes an embryo. Two months after fertilization—after the embryo forms the familiar lima-bean shape seen in ultrasounds and the internal organs develop (excepting the spinal cord and the brain)—the embryo graduates to fetus-hood. In Republican-controlled states, blastocysts, embryos, and fetuses all enjoy more legal protection than pregnant women and their doctors.
2/ Assault Weapons
Republicans are gun fetishists. Nothing—not the predictable spike in mass shootings after the lifting of the assault weapon ban, not Sandy Hook or Uvalde, not the images from the Allen, Texas shooting over the weekend of the little girl with her face blown off, not even current House Majority Leader Steve Scalise almost dying of gun violence—will compel Republicans to allow any sort of restraint on their weapons of war. In both Texas and Florida, it is now legal to buy a gun of any kind, without training, without a permit, and carry it around tucked in your pants. It’s like the Wild West, except plenty of towns in the Old West made you surrender your revolver when you pulled up. Americans need to arm themselves for personal protection, you see, because the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. (Please ignore the many dozens of examples where that didn’t happen.)
Implicit in this priority is the belief that any and all disputes are best settled by gunfight-at-the-O.K.-Corral-style showdown. Door Dasher pulls in your driveway by mistake? Shoot him dead. Teenager rings wrong doorbell when picking up his siblings? Shoot him dead. Girlfriend mouths off? Shoot her dead. Neighbor politely asks you to stop shooting your AR-15 because his baby is trying to sleep? Shoot him dead—and take out the whole family for good measure. Frontier justice, baby. Thoughts and prayers, baby. That is the Republican way.
1/ Old Money
Money trumps everything—especially if the money was bequeathed by Daddy. Harlan Crow, benefactor to Clarence Thomas, inherited his wealth. So did the Kochs. So did Donald Trump. There is nothing Republicans won’t do, no class of horrible person Republicans won’t protect, no vulnerable population they won’t dick over, for a pile of cash. New money leads to old money, and all Republicans want out of life is generational wealth. Nothing else matters.
This is a point LB has made many times on The Five 8.
I love it when you go on a tear...
Chilling. This is the shit that saw me move from texas to Italy a month ago. It still doesn't feel far enough away. People over here just shake their heads, like Americans are a different species. I tell them it's only republican Americans. They still shake their heads.