When the Stupid Futility Is the Point
This week yet another government shutdown appears inevitable, because a sizable chunk of the House Freedom Caucus believes, in the words of Tim Mattheson in Animal House, “this situation absolutely requires a very stupid and futile gesture on somebody’s part.”
What situation?
Before we get to that, it’s important to understand that any situation will do, when you’re determined to deliver a stupid and futile gesture.
In America, the term “counterculture” is so associated with hippies, beatniks, Bohemians and the like, it might seem odd to think of self-described conservatives as counterculture types. But the evidence is all over the place—from the loopy conspiratorialism and secession talk to the bizarre, albeit selective, defenses of lawlessness and even violence—that a lot of right-wingers have shed the pretense of actual conservatism in favor of a permanent pose of performative radicalism from the right.
