What the Chinese balloon *really* revealed

An unserious reaction by many Republicans.

(A white balloon floating over the United States (Image created by Dall-E 2)

A suspected Chinese surveillance balloon spent the past week traversing a large part of the continental United States — before it was shot down by an American fighter jet off the coast of South Carolina on Saturday.

Here’s how some Republican politicians reacted to the news of the balloon.

J.D. Vance @JDVance1

Kari Lake @KariLake

I’m told there’s a balloon that needs to be taken care of?

Rep. Paul Gosar, DDS @RepGosar

Count me in.

Kari Lake @KariLake

I’m told there’s a balloon that needs to be taken care of? https://t.co/k33onkFL3a

The balloon was flying at 60,000 feet. Which, last time I checked, is out of the reach of a handgun. So, yeah.

Then there was this from Kentucky Rep. James Comer, who, not for nothing, chairs the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, during a weekend interview on Fox News: “My concern is that the federal government doesn't know what's in that balloon. Is that bioweapons in that balloon? Did that balloon take off from Wuhan?”

Comer provided no evidence for his wild (and wildly irresponsible) claim. And given that the Biden administration did shoot the balloon down soon after Comer’s interview, it would appear his concern about the balloon as biohazard was unwarranted.

Taken as a whole, the response among Republicans — particularly the Trumpier wing of the GOP that the likes of Lake, Gosar and Vance represent — is fundamentally unserious.

But, it’s also revealing — speaking to the performative nature of politics that Trump ushered in and which has taken over many corners of the GOP.

The goal is not to offer a serious critique of Democratic (or Republican) policies but rather to play to a base of voters within the party who respond — with support and with campaign cash — to just this sort of vapid symbolism.

Take Lake’s tweet. It has been viewed more than 4.1 million times since she posted it on Friday. It has more than 50,000 likes.

That, like it or not, is a BIG win for Lake. It further cements her as an ass-kicking, name-taking rebel within the Republican party who doesn’t take any bull from China — or anyone else.

Of course, posting a picture of you with a gun — and suggesting that you could shoot down a balloon that is, I repeat, 60,000 feet off the ground — isn’t tough at all. Not really. It’s — and I keep saying this — unserious. It suggests that the answer to complex problems can be solved solely with individual force. It is, in a word, dumb.

But, again, the reaction to the balloon also reveals. It reveals that the incentive structure for Republicans is all screwed up. If the goal is more TV hits and more fundraising dollars — and it is — then saying and doing the most extreme things is the best way to achieve that goal.

I give you Matt Gaetz walking onto the House floor in a gas mask. Or Marjorie Taylor Greene hanging a sign outside her congressional office to troll a Democratic member of Congress with a transgender child.

Far from hurting them, these moves have only raised their respective profiles. In fact, Gaetz and Greene are, by almost anyone’s ranking 2 of the 5 most recognizable Republican members of the House at this point.

Which is a problem for Republicans. Because having the likes of Lake, Greene and Gaetz and Gosar be the face that the party shows to the public is not a winning strategy. They may be popular within a wing of the GOP but, to the extent they are known nationally, they are not well liked.

Politics aside, these unserious, performative reactions to a genuinely complex problem — the United States’ relationship with China in the 21st century — make it harder for there to be any sort of real policy debate in the country.

Shoot-the-bioweapon-down-with-my-own-gun isn’t, after all a strategy. Or a policy. Or much of anything.

But it does drown out legitimate criticism that Congress can and should address — some of which came in the form of a statement from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

“This was a reminder of the PRC’s brazenness and President Biden missed the opportunity to defend our sovereignty, send a message of strength, and bolster deterrence,” said McConnell.

You can agree or disagree with that idea and critique of the Biden administration. But at least it’s an attempt to put the balloon in a broader, geopolitical context rather than score cheap applause for, um, shooting at it with a gun.

Unfortunately, lots more people saw how Lake and her ilk reacted than read McConnell’s statement. Which is a very bad thing for a Republican party looking to convince the country it is a) serious and b) ready to lead.