So much so that their name literally changed (to GQP).

Thank you for sharing that.

He is not entirely wrong - the weaponization of such measures (e.g. gaslighting to name just one) is, if not quite "smart", then at least "tactical". i.e. even if your intelligence is about average but your emotional intelligence is roughly that of a 5-year-old, then yes indeed you can get your way using those measures. That is the largest part of the problem there: it works.

One quote calls out to me:

“It’s not viciousness,” ... “It’s natural.”

But it is entirely a whoosh moment when he understands the idea that for a lion to eat when it is hungry is not viciousness - that much of what he said is (somewhat?) true - yet entirely misses the point that when a human DELIBERATELY CHOOSES to engage in similar behaviors, especially when no hunger is involved, THAT is indeed "viciousness", essentially defined as:

deliberate cruelty or violence

Like, I get it - a homeless person might trespass to sleep somewhere that they should not be b/c they are cold. They might even steal a sandwich b/c they are hungry. That does not make it right but it is understandable. But how does Bezos or Musk not paying their workers measure up when compared to that? Why is the former called "theft" while the latter is called "just doing business"?

I struggle a LOT with the ethics of various matters in life. e.g. should I cease purchasing cheap chocolates, knowing full well that near (occasionally even actual) slave labor conditions are involved (even for those that claim to be "fair trade" or whatever - nope, it's nearly all a lie, according to that video anyway), or would that actually lead to an even WORSE outcome, to deprive those workers of that source of income, when they clearly have nothing else to turn to besides that which can offer anything close to that quality of life?

And I think I know the answer, given by another quote in the article you link to:

There’s something about Newt Gingrich that seems to capture the spirit of America circa 2018. With his immense head and white mop of hair; his cold, boyish grin; and his high, raspy voice, he has the air of a late-empire Roman senator—a walking bundle of appetites and excesses and hubris and wit. In conversation, he toggles unnervingly between grandiose pronouncements about “Western civilization” and partisan cheap shots that seem tailored for cable news. It’s a combination of self-righteousness and smallness, of pomposity and pettiness, that personifies the decadence of this era.

In other words, like Trump, people often give him too much credit. He may symbolize the turning of the tide, and he may even have fallen victim to their swings before most anyone else (at least, at a roughly similar level of power & notoriety), but he is no "driving force" of a man himself, and rather seems more like a child to me. Which notably excuses him from precisely none of his actions btw. It's just that the problem isn't so much him, as all of our society that will continue to elect people exactly like him long after he is gone.

Cancer is also "natural" I note, but it would take a severely twisted person to act like a cancer on purpose. Moreover, why would we, The People, CHOOSE to elect a Cancer to lead us?

You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.