'Typical child of rich parents':  Former GOP staffer lays into Matt Gaetz

Florida GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz has created a persona for himself as one of his party's most divisive figures. According to columnist
Dexter Filkins, Gaetz has come to embody "the new Republican creed of doing whatever it took, and laying waste to whatever it took, to ensure that Donald Trump would survive and succeed."

Filkins writes that Gaetz has helped make Congress even more dysfunctional than it already was. But the more he "tears down," the more his supporters love him. Speaking to Filkins, a friend of Gaetz's and a former Congress staffer who the writer didn't name, said that the congressman doesn't like doing the work of a lawmaker.

“Being a member of Congress is hard. You’re flying from your district to Washington and back all the time, you’re studying policy, you’re raising money. Matt is too lazy for that," the friend said, expressing a sentiment that leaves many wondering what Gaetz actually aims to accomplish.

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“Matt is very smart, even brilliant, and he can be very nice,” a former elected official who knows Gaetz told Filkins. “But when I see someone that intelligent aggravating the toxic divisions in this country, spreading mistrust in the institutions that are our foundations, it makes me wonder — where does it end?”

Mac Stipanovich, a former chief of staff for Republican governor Bob Martinez, told Filkins that Gaetz is "a typical child of rich parents."

“He’s intelligent, entitled, irresponsible. He is accustomed to being the center of attention, and insists on being the center of attention," Stipanovich said.

Gaetz's relative unpopularity in Congress is seen by his supporters as simply a symptom of his principled approach to politics.

“Most of the members of Congress come here to be popular, and they ignore their base back home," his friend Rep. Eli Crane told Filkins. "They don’t do what they were elected to do. Matt is very unpopular here, but it makes him popular back home. And he’s popular because he actually listens to his base.”

Read more at The New Yorker.