David Remnick writes:

“Unhappy is the land that needs a hero.” The famous line is from Brecht’s “Life of Galileo,” and it’s often trotted out in reference to repressive regimes and their dissident truthtellers: Václav Havel, in Czechoslovakia; Nelson Mandela, in South Africa; and now Alexei Navalny, in Russia. Just how unhappy political life has been in the United States was demonstrated recently in Lansing, Michigan, when Lana Theis, a Republican state senator, delivered an invocation in the legislature that melded the cadences of prayer with the lexicon of QAnon paranoia: “Dear Lord, across the country we’re seeing in the news that our children are under attack. That there are forces that desire things for them other than what their parents would have them see and hear and know.”

State Senator Mallory McMorrow, a Democrat who represents Mitt Romney’s home town, understood that Theis was exploiting the occasion to call for a crackdown on teachers making any mention in the classroom of slavery, racism, or homosexuality. Michigan Republicans, like so many Republican lawmakers across the country, have been trying to foment moral panic in their constituents; in Lansing, they are eager to draft their own version of Florida’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law. McMorrow and two other Democrats walked out of the chamber in protest and expressed their dismay on social media. Not long afterward, Theis sent out a fund-raising e-mail that attacked her by name: “These are the people we are up against. Progressive social media trolls like Senator Mallory McMorrow (D-Snowflake) who are outraged they can’t teach can’t groom and sexualize kindergarteners or that 8-year-olds are responsible for slavery.”

It was hard to know if Theis was speaking out of genuine conviction, careerist desperation, or both. She is facing a primary challenge from a Trump-endorsed candidate named Mike Detmer, who has said that voters should “be prepared to lock and load” at the polls. McMorrow, responding to Theis, gave a fierce and eloquent speech in the Senate chamber that made the case for decency and integrity in politics better than anything heard of late from a lectern in the District of Columbia. [Continue reading…]