There was reason for worry about a rightward political takeover this year, concern that we at Jacobin shared. People were angry about inflation and crime, issues that the Right talks more about than the Left. Historically, public distress over those problems has often been good for the Right. But 2022’s midterm elections pointed to a vibe shift: the Right has gotten too weird and scary even for America, a place where, as a point of reference, we’ve grown accustomed to young men walking into public schools and shooting people for absolutely no reason.

Even in this context, Republicans have gone way off the freak end. It’s not just that many have continued to insist, without evidence, that Trump won the 2020 election. Even weirder than that, for example, is that they ran a guy for Senate, venture capitalist Blake Masters, who made a series of utterly bonkers Nazi fetish videos about guns. In one of them, standing in the middle of the desert looking like a serial killer, he lovingly fondles a deadly assault weapon, murmuring several times, with reverence, “Made in Germany.”

Congressional and gubernatorial candidates, along with many loons at the local level, have also been trying hard to fuel a moral panic over trans youth and Drag Queen Story Hour (what decade is it?), claiming that tolerance for trans children was leading to litter boxes in public school bathrooms for kids who identify as cats. Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake claimed, “They kicked God out of school and welcomed the drag queens. They took down our flag and replaced it with a rainbow.” The level of hate and vitriol behind these absurd claims is disturbing enough, but they’re also aimed at discrediting and defunding libraries and public schools, public institutions that most people rely on.