This is one of those subjects columnists hate, because it’s got the where do you even start problem in spades. Where indeed? Do you start in Michigan, where in 2022, Republicans lost control of both houses in the legislature, lost the governorship (again), and lost statewide races for secretary of state and attorney general? The latest stories out of the state about the Republican Party are about fights breaking out during party meetings, the MAGA wing of the party ousting anyone who doesn’t toe the “Trump won the state” line about the 2020 election (he actually lost by more than 154,000 votes), and the problems the party has with fund raising since major donors from the more moderate wing of the party have dropped out of filling the party’s coffers as they have done in previous years.
They want to be victims. They think they are victims. Poor white folks being victimized by women and people of color. They’re victims… of their own stupid, ignorant laziness. Just my opinion.
And they are victims of ceaseless rhetoric explaining endlessly just how they are victimized. And the tape is on a automatic repeat loop. I mean, of course, Fox News.
If you live in the heartlands, all you hear, day in and day out, is the bombast and blather from the talking clones on Fox--and the the talking heads at Fox will never again make the mistake of telling the truth.
These folk may well be stupid, ignorant and lazy...but they are being fed a diet very, very low in nutritional facts and honesty. The fact-poor diet keeps them ignorant.
"If you live in the heartlands, all you hear, day in and day out, is the bombast and blather from the talking clones on Fox..."
Is Northern Minnesota considered the heartlands? I live here and never hear Fox News. I try to regularly watch NBC Nightly News and PBS News Hour in the evenings and listen to videos from MSNBC in the morning as I work. (all of which drive my Trump supporting husband nuts). I am thankful we do still have some choice in our searches for what matters in life.
I was thinking more along the lines of Wisconsin, Ohio, Illinois, Tennessee, Kentucky Missouri etc.
You are very fortunate not to live in an area of deeply red folk with Trump signs a-waving from their porches and trucks and hear praisetalk of Trump in every cafe and lunch counter. Minnesota must be mostly blue?
Maine is purple...the populous southern part of the state is solid blue; the much less populated areas (north of Augusta) of the state are mixed and there is a LOT of rural redneckery here. Almost every auto service garage, barber shop or professional office that has a tv will have Fox News running. I make sure that the office manager knows that not everyone likes Fox and I ALWAYS request that the channel be changed or they will lose my business...but it's an uphill battle.
DEMOCRATIC-FARMER-LABOR PARTY CONTROLS ALL 3 BRANCHES, GOVERNOR TIM WALZ, THE HOUSE, THE SENATE, ETC. SEE WHAT CAN BE ACCOMPLISHED WHEN GOP REACTIONARIES SIDELINED! AND WITH A 17.5 BILLION DOLLAR BUDGET SURPLUS, TOO!
The 8th District, which traditionally included the Iron Range mining towns had been blue for ages, supporting miners rights, etc. In 2016, it went red, supporting Trump. I was so surprised. Now it is the metro areas that are blue in MN but quite a bit of outstate (away from the Twin cities) is red now, much to my chagrin.
I drove across the country in 1993 and punched the buttons on the car radio as I drove. From Pennsylvania to Utah, Rush Limbaugh was loud and clear on nearly every channel. As one channel became out of range, I punched the buttons and another appeared. Yes, TL Mills. You are right about the heartland and the propaganda that feeds it.
This has been a slow motion suicide starting decades back when someone shoved their hand up Ronald Reagan and had him start dismantling the Great Society. Likely because it threatened to raise up too many people found racially and ideologically unacceptable to the corporate culture they wanted to fully morph the founders dream into. IMO
Eisenhower was the last Republican in leadership with decency and eyes clear enough to realize that balance was what was needed, not dominance. Bush senior was the last one with an iQ higher than a pineapple.
And there’s little doubt McConnell and that warped piece of playdough Newt Gingrich et al. were invested players as were Ayn Rand’s posse who were incapable of understanding she wrote fantasy for cosplayers.
I despised Bush Sr. when he was president. in hindsight, he was far more competent than any of his Republican successors. And yes, Ayn Rand metastasized in the Republican Party, though overshadowed now by MAGA nuttiness.
Whoa...talk about setting a low bar! GHWBush was in on the mess with the Iran/Contra Affair and his Attorney General, Bill Barr--already known as the Cover-Up General, for his help in covering Reagan's treasonous actions in subverting President Carter's attempts to free the hostages--told Bush I to not only pre-emptively pardon Weinberger but also 5 others who could have given damning evidence or eye-witness testimony that Bush was NOT "out of the loop" of knowledge about Reagan's treasonous chicanery and Bush I's own involvement therein.
(excellent article on this matter by Thom Hartmann in The Trial Lawyers magazine under Politics. The name of the article is "Bill Barr is the Master of Covering Up Political Scandals"...I couldn't find the date it was written)
Ready? Can't dispute GHWB's IQ being >a pineapple.
Bush the Elder was a drunk* and skirt chaser**. Started well before he was in politics then continued post-presidency. He had an active role in Iran-Contra. Then when president issued pardons to coverup the affair. In the Gulf War dithered for months (2August to 17Jan) as Ir raped and pillaged Kuwait, after hostilities suggested to the swamp Arabs, the Shia, and the Ir Kurds to overthrow Saddam while implying the US had their backs. US pilots and satts watched the ensuing slaughter. Don't know if Bush the Elder did. Do known no former head of the CIA should ever be President/CinC. For obvious reasons.
*, ** I stand by both.
Ayn Rand: Brings back nightmares from undergrad days. Rather be tortured than forced to read her chit ever again. Surprised the very gay-gay Roy Cohn didn't hook up with her to keep up the pretense of being straight.
Thank you, sir. Whilst in my own undergrad days, I had some friends who tried to talk me into reading the "marvelous" works of MS. Rand--I would be transformed, they said. Yeah, right...I couldn't read her chitty output either. Ugh!
PS: ...as for * and **...well, keep in mind his Daddy Preston was a Conneticut banker (who became a Senator) who made his money by laundering Nazi gold. Alcohol was probably a necessity. Moreover, the poor man was married to that very formidible battle-ax, Barbara Pierce. I always wondered if it was truly GHW's ambition to be Prez---or was it hers? Ask Al Franken about her oh-so-famous "benevolence and good nature".
One of my Phil. professors made his classes read her in order to develop an argument proving her works are not philosophy. Sorta took the sting out of reading it knowing the goal was to destroy her epistemology.
what I remember is that he said that Gerry Ford couldn't "fart and chew gum at the same time." I don't remember him saying much about Bush, who pretty much wasn't worth commenting on when LBJ was alive.
LBJ's story is genuinely tragic, in the classical sense. I remember Michael Gambon talking about how hard this fact hit him when he was playing LBJ for an HBO movie. I wonder if the movie is still available now that HBO is Max and seems to be all about embracing mediocracy.
According to some political writers, GHWBush was the ultimate lickspittle. Despite being born into wealth with many privileges and opportunities, GHW's best moments were as a young Navy pilot in WWII. He had many golden opportunities in his public career to stand out and be strong but the man lost his backbone during the war and never regained it.
He was Chairman of the RNC under Nixon...and the justifications and excuses he made for Tricky Dick were embarrassing--he didn't NEED the job; he could have expressed honest disgust, and quit. His stint as Director of the CIA was marked by some scandal and GHW's efforts to resist a major reformation of the agency that was founded in 1947. He was so ambitious to be President, that he accepted the VP job under Reagan and became embroiled in Iran/Contra...
that was always my take on him...Company Man in an embarrassing company. he was certainly all over the Iran/Contra thing, as was the Boss. and, since they weren't really doing impeachments as such back then, they got away with that completely outrageous crime. and Ollie North ended up a right-wing radio star.
when you know the extent to which Prescott Bush really was getting rich out of his bank's too-close dealings with Hitler, the amoral nature of the whole bloodline becomes more apparent.
the great irony is that, as much as I HATED Bush II, I'd trade him for TFF any day.
or am I wrong about this? it's really hard to tell, since TFF is just so completely unsuitable for any actual JOB.
That version of the quote is even better. Maybe he did say it about Gerald Ford, and I got my Republicans mixed up. Do you recall the title of the movie about LBJ? I think I saw it.
if it is, that makes it three times better, since Michael Gambon is one of the Great Genius Actors. I saw a BBC version of "The Seagull" in which he played Trigorin and, basically, blew away all other Trigorins.
I thought at first the reference was to MacBird, a satirical play implying strongly LBJ was a plotter in the JFK assassination, but a Vietnam War film makes even more sense.
Yes, but: They are still taking over the country, slowly, stealthily. Every day, another school board, another library board, another town council is being taken over by right-wing fanatics. They immediately begin imposing their will. State legislators are passing more and more extreme, vindictive anti-abortion laws and are working actively toward banning birth control. This doesn’t look like suicide to me! It looks like ruthless, relentless fanatics who are finally over the fence that kept them out on what used to be called the lunatic fringe, and they are now infiltrating all our institutions.
Maybe, here and there, they’re stabbing themselves with weapons intended to kill liberals. But — So many more places they are successfully taking over —a fait-accompli before liberals even know what happened.
… and breaking into fist fights with each other. They're inevitably self-destructing. But are we ready to pick up the pieces? Our need for young, vigorous leadership is desperate. While P01135809 sounds crazier every day Joe sounds more feeble. Distressing as that is to say, it is what it is.
actually, there do seem to be some young Democrats waiting in the wings. we could begin with those two guys in Tennessee, just to take an example from today's news. it's just that right now, all of that stuff is in the FUTURE. all we can hope for is that there's still a functioning republic in, say, five years. and this is by no means a done deal.
"interesting times" indeed. this shit sucks, period. sometimes, all there is to say is something one might have said at about twelve.
Sad, Sad, Sad. True. True. True. But they STILL have the power to destroy destroy destroy. The lead-up to the 2024 election requires eternal vigilance, work like never before, and focus. Let's do it!!!
It’s what they want. They want to destroy the administrative government. They want their white religious way. If that means civil war to destroy their enemies, they’re ready to do that. They feel betrayed by their own party, which was why they wanted Trump. And as far as they’re concerned Democrats are worse than the Republicans who betrayed them.
"ready for civil war" Or so they THINK. I wonder: How long would any of those half-assed militias would last against a US Army regiment with "shoot to kill"orders?
Very true. Also very sad to turn the US military on its own citizens... our soldiers are still citizens... this could have very damaging effects for them.
The sociopathy of a society surely reflects some deep seated, shared, intergenerational trauma? Surely the extreme violence and dedication to the death and destruction implicit in waging back to back foreign wars for almost your whole history, must result in society-wide PTSD? I mean, you're all inured to it, but don't you ever wonder why so many of your movies depict guns, murder, cruelty, egregious violence? You seem to think it's normal, others (outsiders like me) see it as violence propaganda, designed to get you all ready for war on each other and on the latest enemy chosen for you by your psychopathic gun worshipping miltary industrial industry. By the way, Lucian Truscott, I so appreciate being able to speak these words here. If I did on Fb, the scaly grey robot algorithm would throw me into Fb jail, hope you won't. As I will freely admit, Australia is pretty bad for attempted genocide, with consequent buried guilt and our toxic racism, but in comparison with your auto da fè, we don't hold a candle.
Such a good article, and so mystifying as to why the Republicans seem to go out of their way to antagonise the very people they want to vote for them. A suicidal tendency for sure. Of course the die-hard MAGA's are unaffected, not being very bright to begin with, but the smarter ones have to see through the hyporacy such as the criticism of the libs for suppressing free speech when they themselves are the worst offenders such as outlined by Lucian; not allowing Democratic reps to speak in the Tennessee legislature, and as outlined in a recent LA Times editorial: . . . . “While rejecting life-saving controls on deadly weapons, Republicans nationwide have purported to stand strong for free expression. GOP leaders pretend to recoil in horror at so-called cancel culture — the supposed penchant of liberals and Democrats to shut down any who disagree with their political or social positions.
“Yet it has been Republicans, in the years of the post-Trump presidency, who are perfecting the dark art of silencing Americans. Especially those who deign to exercise their right to express opinions and choose officials and policies that represent their values. .
“It has sadly become the Republican norm to stifle debate. Don’t say gay, don’t say gun control, don’t say racism, don’t let kids read the ‘wrong’ books or be read to by the ‘wrong’ people, don’t permit children to learn about their bodies or their rights.
“A government in which the majority can silence those with competing views is in serious trouble. One that goes further and actually expels those with competing views is dangerously close to becoming post-democratic and post-liberty.”
My fear is that we're rapidly (if not already) getting to the point where the GOP simply doesn't want honest elections anymore, because they know they will lose most of them. So they've abandoned any remaining adherence to democratic principles regarding elections. Why should they bother if they don't need to? It's easier to lie, cheat, and deny.
Exactly so. We vote out the trumpistas and block their hostile takeover attempt, or we're going to have to take to the streets and meet them there, I don't see any middle way if they're determined to push this to the final end. It's coming like 1861, barring a miracle.
Exactly! They are at that point. Yet they still don't understand that it's their own words and actions that put people off. Just as Trump doesn't get it that his own words and actions are why he is in trouble with the law. They are just out to get him because they don't like him in his mind. All political. Even McCarthy and Jordan and Greene and company reinforce this accusation. The whole lot of them are a worthless pathetic bunch. I have respect for opposing opinions if they are founded on logic, on reason, but this is pure malice on their part. Nothing else. I think it's because they hate the truth and goodness in any form. It really bothers them, makes them very uncomfortable.
This from Slate writer Ben Mathis - Liley (article about Trump and Meadows defenses in Georgia: . . . "Meadows’ claims are similar to the one that Trump has made about his own behavior in 2020—that he believed the election was “rigged” against him as a matter of objective fact, meaning that his actions were reasonable attempts to secure the correct outcome. In his telling, the smoking gun was in fact a “perfect phone call.”
This line of reasoning was reintroduced to circulation by right-wing law professor Jonathan Turley on Fox News after the Fulton County indictments were announced:
You know, it makes perfect sense when you’re challenging an election to say, “You know, I only need around 11,000 votes.” So if you do a statewide review, that’s not a lot in a state like Georgia. That’s not criminal. That’s making a case for a recount.
Georgia, however, had already completed two recounts—one by hand and one by machine—by the time that Trump and Meadows spoke with Raffensperger. The fraud allegations the president was pursuing, moreover, were largely if not entirely sourced from random social media accounts and online message boards, and had already been dismissed by his own administration’s Department of Justice.
As a legal matter, Trump’s contention he truly believed that voting results were “rigged” has problems. Among them are the concept of willful blindness and Trump’s alleged statement that Vice President Mike Pence was being “too honest” in his response to the election, which would seem to imply an awareness that his own conduct was not honest."
Today's Republicans keep proving by their words and actions that they value holding power and loyalty to their Party above all else -- above the public good, above national interests, above the will of the people. They are modern Bolsheviks.
Rethuglicans have been cheating at elections since Nixon. They freely admit that if elections were fair and everyone voted they would never win again. Cheating is the only way to win.
You made it so clear that Trumpublicans (a/k/a MAGA) are politically suicidal, yes, but also, as you wrote so chillingly at the end of your piece, homicidal. Let's add one more -al word: delusional. Okay, some of them recognize they are on the losing end of public opinion, for which the short-term remedy is to take polling places out of Democratic-leaning districts. In the longer term, there's flat-out political indoctrination in schools and universities -- see Florida. Speaking of which, William Galston of the Brookings Institution writes in the Wall Street Journal (!?!) that Scott Yenor, an influential advisor about education to DeSantis, has speechified about "feminine goals of homemaking and having children" and within those homes, "manly leadership" is expected. I am *not* making this up. Not to be *too* apocalyptic, but when you remind us in detail of all the federal funding DeSantis and other Republican governors refuse, money that would actually help real people in their states, all I see in my mind's eye is the jpg on the internet showing the original typescript of Hitler's March 1945 "Nero Decree," in which he ordered Germany's infrastructure destroyed. Yes, MAGAnistas want "to love Donald Trump and stick it to the libs." Commit Republican suicide? Sure. Blow up this democracy at the same time? Just as sure. Bartender, bring me a double. For medicinal reasons.
Did Scott Yenor just wake up from a sixty-year nap and doesn’t recognize that traditional sex roles have changed? Or perhaps he’s just nostalgic for the 1950’s.
Nostalgic for the 1850s, more likely. I am certain the GQP fantasizes about a world in which blacks could be definitively made to SHUT UP about equality and returned to slavery, and virtuous white women could concentrate on marital child-bearing and full-time mothering.
I see there might be something wrong with Lucian's auto correct. He kept writing about this person named de santis, in fact I know the guv's name is De Satan as in, you know, "of Satan", a proud name going all the way back to our hominid ancestors.
The crackup of the GOP has to be the most astonishing domestic story I've seen in my lifetime (and since I'm 72 I've seen some doozies), but since I grew up in an alcoholic family and have known a few drunks and addicts over the years it's not entirely unfamiliar. As an old truism in the recovery world has it, "Denial is not just a river in Egypt." So many of the Republicans' antics fit the alcoholic pattern. In the disease model, alcoholism and addiction are progressive diseases: if they aren't treated, they keep getting worse.
The GOP has been headed in this direction since at least the Reagan administration, but -- again like many alcoholics -- it looked fairly normal to the casual observer. It's been enabled in a big way by the voters, the donors, and especially by SCOTUS. In decisions like Bruen, Citizens United, and Shelby County, the Supreme Court in effect opened the liquor cabinet and let the GOP drink its fill. It did, and we're seeing the result: a pathetic party stumbling around drunk that still has the power to do a lot of damage. (If the GOP has an avatar, it's probably Rudy Giuliani.) So, yes, the suicidal impulse is there, but it's part of a more common pattern.
NB: This is a substantial rewrite of the original reply, which contained two inexcusable errors: …
Stuart Stevens wrote a piece in 2019 that a Daily Beast copy editor, or editor, headlined
Trump-Drunk Republicans Are Choosing Russia Over the Constitution
I thought the "Trump-drunk" description—not in Stevens's piece—such a dead-on replacement for HRC's unthinkable "basket of deplorables" I assumed it would go viral. But Stevens never used it himself, the Daily Beast never did again, nor did anyone else. MAGAts worked.
The guy was way ahead of the curve -- or maybe there's just not enough overlap between politicos and people familiar with alcoholic behavior. (If not, I suspect denial is in play once again.) I'm gonna do what I can in my little way to raise the comparison because I do believe it's a key -- not the only key, but an important one -- to understand Trumpism.
I don't want to trump your ace (no pun intended), but I am 11 years older, and am as astonished as you. The alcoholic connection/insight is most interesting.
I keep wondering what my father (1922–2008) would think of it. He was the 4th Democrat ever to register in the metro Boston town we both grew up in, served as an Army Air Corps noncom in WW2 (and said of all the books he read about the war, _Catch-22_ came closest to capturing his experience), and was always engaged in local political activity. We talked a lot during Watergate, he in his early 50s, me in my early 20s, and I think he was astonished by how brazen the Nixon administration was. Since my political awareness only went back a few years at that point, and was hugely influenced by the tumultuous '60s, I tended to assume that this was politics as usual. GOP behavior has gotten steadily worse since then, but I still think my father would be horrified. As he was politically coming of age in the 1930s, Hitler was consolidating power in Germany then starting to steamroller Europe, so I especially wonder what connections he'd see between the two.
We are sisters under the skin -- your father, my mother. Before she went to work, we lived in WI., where she was Eau Claire County Democratic chairwoman. She busted her chops trying to unseat Joe McCarthy -- and took it as a personal loss when she failed. (Certainly a different WI. than today's.) I guess we should be thankful they're not around to see this, tho my guess is they would regard it as the beginning of the end. Which, alas, I think it may be. The hate and the crazy has settled in too deep.
That sound you couldn't hear a second ago was me letting out a loud "whough!" in Los Angeles. Your dad would indeed be horrified. The Professional Pundit class (a/k/a gasbags) gets all nose-up, sniff-sniffy, tut-tutty when a reasonably sentient person (you, for example) mentions a l-e-e-t-l-e similarity between the extremely prejudiced, often violent, guys who were in brown shirts then and the same kind of people today who dress in camo. (Pleasant pivot: your mention of your dad and "Catch 22" made me laugh: I was reading it when I was in Army basic training at Ft. Knox. Our drill sergeant, who served in combat in Korea, tried not to smile when he saw the paperback neatly squared away in my foot locker.)
I came of political age in the mid/late '60s, was in college 1969–74, and, since I was involved in various political movements, heard the word "fascist" thrown around too (excuse the word) liberally. My wonderful history prof at Penn, the late Jack Reece, opened his first Modern European History lecture on Fascism and Nazism with "What is a fascist -- other than someone you don't like?" He knew his audience, that's for sure. ;-)
This helps explain why I was slow to apply the F-word to the Republican Party -- until the Trump administration got underway. Now it's so obvious I'm amazed that more reasonably intelligent observers don't see it and call it out. I mean, playing footsie with Orbán? the blatant voter suppression? the love affair with guns? the denial of bodily autonomy to women? I've been recommending Milton Mayer's 1955 book THEY THOUGHT THEY WERE FREE: The Germans, 1933–45, to everyone who hasn't read it, or read it recently. (I read it for the first time in that history course mentioned above.)
Thanks for the recommendation of the Mayer book, which the L. A. Public Library website says will be delivered to my local branch toot sweet. In return, I recommend you (everyone) read "A Village In The Third Reich: How Ordinary Lives Were Transformed by the Rise of Fascism," published this past spring. Since you mention women's "bodily autonomy" and fascism, the Washington Post has a lengthy article about Texas localities passing laws making it illegal to use their (public) roads to drive someone to get an (out-of-state) abortion. What's next? Requiring pregnant women to wear a "P" on an armband or their clothes to make it easier to identify and track them? This is the place where I would drop in a vintage photo of Jewish women under Nazi rule wearing the Star of David.
Thanks for recommendation -- I'm especially drawn to the subtitle. The extent to which not a few Republicans are willing to go to deny women in their states reproductive autonomy -- well, among other things it reminds me of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which allowed slaveholders and their agents to reach into non-slave states to retrieve "their property." (P.S. Just requested the book through my regional library network.)
Yes indeed! As I've often argued with regard to reproductive rights, the so-called "pro-life" movement is actually pro-death. The don't care how many women die from illegal abortions or who perish from severe-problem pregnancies. Nor do they care how many of the forced-birth children die from neglect or abuse.
“You can control my uterus when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.” A true pro-life movement would start with free access to effective contraception, first-rate prenatal care, abortion as a medical decision between a woman and her doctor, and good continuing maternal and child medical care. I’m at the point of saying that people who haven’t raised adopted or foster children shouldn’t have a vote on this issue because they’re not part of a solution. However, that standard would make issues like climate change impossible to discuss. No, they don’t care. And I wonder how many have paid for an abortion.
I've noticed something odd around here lately. Suddenly, everyone - - - store clerks, receptionists, hair dressers, farmers - - - seems to have a hate on: scowls now, instead of smiles. This is new. Normally folks here are friendly, pleasant, upbeat.
And I think I know why. Almost everyone around here is a Republican. And the big hate-on out here began around the time The Great Orange One was indicted. So I suspect our normally pleasant Republicans have been whipped up into an into an angry fury by right wing media, over the travails of Trump, the anointed one. Trump as Christ? Who woulda' thunk it?
There may be no answer to the question Mr. T. poses -- or it may be the same answer (whatever it was) that created cult followings for other crackpots and crooks. Maybe this crowd has noting of meaning in their lives so they've thrown in with a destroyer. It is ironic that it was Trump who introduced the crude phrase, "a shithole country." Well, he didn't intend it to be descriptive of THIS country, but that's what roughly a third of it is. Maybe, like everything else, including the Earth, the shelf life is predetermined -- and it is only the mode of destruction that varies.
I’m glad I got a decent night’s sleep before reading Lucian’s insightful, but disturbing, piece on suicidal politics. The dynamics of political suicide, and personal suicide are similar, and one may lead to the other as has happened before. Cults such as MAGA Republicans, Nazis, Jonestown, and a variety of smaller religious sects that want to bring on the ‘rapture’, see their mass psychosis devolve into mass suicide when they believe they have no longer have any other choice. That’s not where we are politically at this moment. Neither MAGA or what’s left of the GOP is ready to commit suicide, IMO. They will retreat to the enclaves that are already established while the non-MAGAs seek out safer territory as is already happening with medical professionals, academics, and others who see the the fascist handwriting on the wall. That sorting out is far from finished, and is the real dynamic governing our politics. Red will get redder, Blue will get bluer, and purple will struggle, perhaps violently.
Right now MAGA, at its core, is nihilistic. It exists to destroy, to vent hatred and grievance, not to build a new society, or rebuild a damaged one, based on a thought-out ideology. Beyond wanting a White, straight, ‘Christian’ authoritarian culture they have no idea how such a society would function, or what it would be like to live in it. But they will, or try to, create versions of it where they can. Florida, Texas, Idaho, are on their way. *Rump is offering no direct leadership, has no vision beyond his unlimited personal greed and need for vengeance. MAGA, given the limited intelligence its fanatical followers have demonstrated, hasn’t reached the suicidal stage because the hot civil war they so fervently want hasn’t happened, and let’s hope it doesn’t. The proxy civil war we are fighting all over the country at the ballot box is heating up. DeSatan couldn’t be clearer when he states, proudly, that he wants to turn the U.S. into Florida. *Rump doesn’t offer up such a dystopian vision. In reality he offers nothing but himself, now as a martyr. It’s when MAGA loses decisively at the ballot box that we enter the most violent phase of our sorting out. When its political underpinnings are challenged, when gerrymandering, voter suppression in all its forms, the wholesale intimidation represented by minority rule, doesn’t work at least in some places, sporadic violence is bound to happen. But none of it is going to make MAGA disappear even if *Rump were to die eating his quarter-pounder today.
I don't think their "military weaponry" would last very long against the REAL military. I just hope a Dem President, when and if this confrontation happens, will give orders to our troops to show no mercy toward these traitors.
When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose…like any organism that can’t or won’t adapt to change, that organism is doomed to extinction and that’s where the GOP is headed and the GOP doesn’t care what gets destroyed along the way as they self destruct…utter nihilism…
"Never interfere with the enemy when they are in the process of destroying themselves" Bonaparte
Also Sun Tzu.
They want to be victims. They think they are victims. Poor white folks being victimized by women and people of color. They’re victims… of their own stupid, ignorant laziness. Just my opinion.
And they are victims of ceaseless rhetoric explaining endlessly just how they are victimized. And the tape is on a automatic repeat loop. I mean, of course, Fox News.
If you live in the heartlands, all you hear, day in and day out, is the bombast and blather from the talking clones on Fox--and the the talking heads at Fox will never again make the mistake of telling the truth.
These folk may well be stupid, ignorant and lazy...but they are being fed a diet very, very low in nutritional facts and honesty. The fact-poor diet keeps them ignorant.
Samo, samo here in rural northern NV. Understand completely.
"If you live in the heartlands, all you hear, day in and day out, is the bombast and blather from the talking clones on Fox..."
Is Northern Minnesota considered the heartlands? I live here and never hear Fox News. I try to regularly watch NBC Nightly News and PBS News Hour in the evenings and listen to videos from MSNBC in the morning as I work. (all of which drive my Trump supporting husband nuts). I am thankful we do still have some choice in our searches for what matters in life.
I was thinking more along the lines of Wisconsin, Ohio, Illinois, Tennessee, Kentucky Missouri etc.
You are very fortunate not to live in an area of deeply red folk with Trump signs a-waving from their porches and trucks and hear praisetalk of Trump in every cafe and lunch counter. Minnesota must be mostly blue?
Maine is purple...the populous southern part of the state is solid blue; the much less populated areas (north of Augusta) of the state are mixed and there is a LOT of rural redneckery here. Almost every auto service garage, barber shop or professional office that has a tv will have Fox News running. I make sure that the office manager knows that not everyone likes Fox and I ALWAYS request that the channel be changed or they will lose my business...but it's an uphill battle.
https://www.minnpost.com/state-government/2023/05/minnpost-guide-to-the-minnesota-legislatures-2023-done-and-undone-lists/#:~:text=Child%20tax%20credit%3A%20One%20major,boost%20the%20credit%20by%20%24350.
DEMOCRATIC-FARMER-LABOR PARTY CONTROLS ALL 3 BRANCHES, GOVERNOR TIM WALZ, THE HOUSE, THE SENATE, ETC. SEE WHAT CAN BE ACCOMPLISHED WHEN GOP REACTIONARIES SIDELINED! AND WITH A 17.5 BILLION DOLLAR BUDGET SURPLUS, TOO!
The 8th District, which traditionally included the Iron Range mining towns had been blue for ages, supporting miners rights, etc. In 2016, it went red, supporting Trump. I was so surprised. Now it is the metro areas that are blue in MN but quite a bit of outstate (away from the Twin cities) is red now, much to my chagrin.
That won't last, just watch, they will catch on once the actions mentioned in the MN Post article I just posted sink in!
Gotta get back to Nebraska at Minnie-SOH-tah football, sold-out and raucous fun, in Mpls, 22 blocks from here down SE Fourth Street!
I drove across the country in 1993 and punched the buttons on the car radio as I drove. From Pennsylvania to Utah, Rush Limbaugh was loud and clear on nearly every channel. As one channel became out of range, I punched the buttons and another appeared. Yes, TL Mills. You are right about the heartland and the propaganda that feeds it.
You stated your opinion well. I share it.
Thanks!
This has been a slow motion suicide starting decades back when someone shoved their hand up Ronald Reagan and had him start dismantling the Great Society. Likely because it threatened to raise up too many people found racially and ideologically unacceptable to the corporate culture they wanted to fully morph the founders dream into. IMO
Eisenhower was the last Republican in leadership with decency and eyes clear enough to realize that balance was what was needed, not dominance. Bush senior was the last one with an iQ higher than a pineapple.
And there’s little doubt McConnell and that warped piece of playdough Newt Gingrich et al. were invested players as were Ayn Rand’s posse who were incapable of understanding she wrote fantasy for cosplayers.
I despised Bush Sr. when he was president. in hindsight, he was far more competent than any of his Republican successors. And yes, Ayn Rand metastasized in the Republican Party, though overshadowed now by MAGA nuttiness.
Whoa...talk about setting a low bar! GHWBush was in on the mess with the Iran/Contra Affair and his Attorney General, Bill Barr--already known as the Cover-Up General, for his help in covering Reagan's treasonous actions in subverting President Carter's attempts to free the hostages--told Bush I to not only pre-emptively pardon Weinberger but also 5 others who could have given damning evidence or eye-witness testimony that Bush was NOT "out of the loop" of knowledge about Reagan's treasonous chicanery and Bush I's own involvement therein.
(excellent article on this matter by Thom Hartmann in The Trial Lawyers magazine under Politics. The name of the article is "Bill Barr is the Master of Covering Up Political Scandals"...I couldn't find the date it was written)
Lol...I did not mean to imply it was a high bar by any stretch!!
Oh, I know...but people should know just how low George Herbert Walker Bush went...he had very few principles, it seems.
Whole heartedly agree w/Ike.
Ready? Can't dispute GHWB's IQ being >a pineapple.
Bush the Elder was a drunk* and skirt chaser**. Started well before he was in politics then continued post-presidency. He had an active role in Iran-Contra. Then when president issued pardons to coverup the affair. In the Gulf War dithered for months (2August to 17Jan) as Ir raped and pillaged Kuwait, after hostilities suggested to the swamp Arabs, the Shia, and the Ir Kurds to overthrow Saddam while implying the US had their backs. US pilots and satts watched the ensuing slaughter. Don't know if Bush the Elder did. Do known no former head of the CIA should ever be President/CinC. For obvious reasons.
*, ** I stand by both.
Ayn Rand: Brings back nightmares from undergrad days. Rather be tortured than forced to read her chit ever again. Surprised the very gay-gay Roy Cohn didn't hook up with her to keep up the pretense of being straight.
Thank you, sir. Whilst in my own undergrad days, I had some friends who tried to talk me into reading the "marvelous" works of MS. Rand--I would be transformed, they said. Yeah, right...I couldn't read her chitty output either. Ugh!
PS: ...as for * and **...well, keep in mind his Daddy Preston was a Conneticut banker (who became a Senator) who made his money by laundering Nazi gold. Alcohol was probably a necessity. Moreover, the poor man was married to that very formidible battle-ax, Barbara Pierce. I always wondered if it was truly GHW's ambition to be Prez---or was it hers? Ask Al Franken about her oh-so-famous "benevolence and good nature".
One of my Phil. professors made his classes read her in order to develop an argument proving her works are not philosophy. Sorta took the sting out of reading it knowing the goal was to destroy her epistemology.
Well, that would be a more read-worthy goal than wading through her self-indulgent oeuvre for "pleasure" and/or "enlightenment", that's for sure!
Excellent analysis! But didn’t LBJ state that George Bush (Sr) “couldn’t walk and chew gum at the same time”?
what I remember is that he said that Gerry Ford couldn't "fart and chew gum at the same time." I don't remember him saying much about Bush, who pretty much wasn't worth commenting on when LBJ was alive.
LBJ's story is genuinely tragic, in the classical sense. I remember Michael Gambon talking about how hard this fact hit him when he was playing LBJ for an HBO movie. I wonder if the movie is still available now that HBO is Max and seems to be all about embracing mediocracy.
LBJ also said about Ford that he “…played too much football [in college] with his helmet off.”
yep...I'd forgotten that.
According to some political writers, GHWBush was the ultimate lickspittle. Despite being born into wealth with many privileges and opportunities, GHW's best moments were as a young Navy pilot in WWII. He had many golden opportunities in his public career to stand out and be strong but the man lost his backbone during the war and never regained it.
He was Chairman of the RNC under Nixon...and the justifications and excuses he made for Tricky Dick were embarrassing--he didn't NEED the job; he could have expressed honest disgust, and quit. His stint as Director of the CIA was marked by some scandal and GHW's efforts to resist a major reformation of the agency that was founded in 1947. He was so ambitious to be President, that he accepted the VP job under Reagan and became embroiled in Iran/Contra...
that was always my take on him...Company Man in an embarrassing company. he was certainly all over the Iran/Contra thing, as was the Boss. and, since they weren't really doing impeachments as such back then, they got away with that completely outrageous crime. and Ollie North ended up a right-wing radio star.
when you know the extent to which Prescott Bush really was getting rich out of his bank's too-close dealings with Hitler, the amoral nature of the whole bloodline becomes more apparent.
the great irony is that, as much as I HATED Bush II, I'd trade him for TFF any day.
or am I wrong about this? it's really hard to tell, since TFF is just so completely unsuitable for any actual JOB.
I would trade anybody other than maybe Andrew Johnson for TFG!!!
That version of the quote is even better. Maybe he did say it about Gerald Ford, and I got my Republicans mixed up. Do you recall the title of the movie about LBJ? I think I saw it.
Path to War.
Thanks! It was excellent; I recall it was three episodes.
if it is, that makes it three times better, since Michael Gambon is one of the Great Genius Actors. I saw a BBC version of "The Seagull" in which he played Trigorin and, basically, blew away all other Trigorins.
ahhhh.....that sounds like it!!! thank you. I might have spent DAYS trying to figure it out.
not really...I'd probably recognize it if I saw it. I think it begins with the definite article, which hardly limits the field.
Must look that up!
I thought at first the reference was to MacBird, a satirical play implying strongly LBJ was a plotter in the JFK assassination, but a Vietnam War film makes even more sense.
Richard I read that in high school. I’ve since revised my opinion on LBJ.
Tried to like 25 times. substack. wouldn't let me
Me too. I’d give it an A++
Right on !!!!
Yes, but: They are still taking over the country, slowly, stealthily. Every day, another school board, another library board, another town council is being taken over by right-wing fanatics. They immediately begin imposing their will. State legislators are passing more and more extreme, vindictive anti-abortion laws and are working actively toward banning birth control. This doesn’t look like suicide to me! It looks like ruthless, relentless fanatics who are finally over the fence that kept them out on what used to be called the lunatic fringe, and they are now infiltrating all our institutions.
Except things have tilted so far they’re now stabbing themselves.
Maybe, here and there, they’re stabbing themselves with weapons intended to kill liberals. But — So many more places they are successfully taking over —a fait-accompli before liberals even know what happened.
… and breaking into fist fights with each other. They're inevitably self-destructing. But are we ready to pick up the pieces? Our need for young, vigorous leadership is desperate. While P01135809 sounds crazier every day Joe sounds more feeble. Distressing as that is to say, it is what it is.
actually, there do seem to be some young Democrats waiting in the wings. we could begin with those two guys in Tennessee, just to take an example from today's news. it's just that right now, all of that stuff is in the FUTURE. all we can hope for is that there's still a functioning republic in, say, five years. and this is by no means a done deal.
"interesting times" indeed. this shit sucks, period. sometimes, all there is to say is something one might have said at about twelve.
On all points, agree 100%.
But, alas, they are fringe no more. Deterioration is built into everything - people and institutions. Ever was it thus. Amen.
I concur, unfortunately.
Sad, Sad, Sad. True. True. True. But they STILL have the power to destroy destroy destroy. The lead-up to the 2024 election requires eternal vigilance, work like never before, and focus. Let's do it!!!
It’s what they want. They want to destroy the administrative government. They want their white religious way. If that means civil war to destroy their enemies, they’re ready to do that. They feel betrayed by their own party, which was why they wanted Trump. And as far as they’re concerned Democrats are worse than the Republicans who betrayed them.
"ready for civil war" Or so they THINK. I wonder: How long would any of those half-assed militias would last against a US Army regiment with "shoot to kill"orders?
Would be ugly but the final outcome not in doubt. The MAGATS are somewhat delusional about everything connected with that kind of desperate stupidity/
Very true. Also very sad to turn the US military on its own citizens... our soldiers are still citizens... this could have very damaging effects for them.
The sociopathy of a society surely reflects some deep seated, shared, intergenerational trauma? Surely the extreme violence and dedication to the death and destruction implicit in waging back to back foreign wars for almost your whole history, must result in society-wide PTSD? I mean, you're all inured to it, but don't you ever wonder why so many of your movies depict guns, murder, cruelty, egregious violence? You seem to think it's normal, others (outsiders like me) see it as violence propaganda, designed to get you all ready for war on each other and on the latest enemy chosen for you by your psychopathic gun worshipping miltary industrial industry. By the way, Lucian Truscott, I so appreciate being able to speak these words here. If I did on Fb, the scaly grey robot algorithm would throw me into Fb jail, hope you won't. As I will freely admit, Australia is pretty bad for attempted genocide, with consequent buried guilt and our toxic racism, but in comparison with your auto da fè, we don't hold a candle.
Kathy, everything since ww2 here has been a preparation for war.
I've been in Facebook jail many, many times. it's not so bad and no one ever complains about the food.
Such a good article, and so mystifying as to why the Republicans seem to go out of their way to antagonise the very people they want to vote for them. A suicidal tendency for sure. Of course the die-hard MAGA's are unaffected, not being very bright to begin with, but the smarter ones have to see through the hyporacy such as the criticism of the libs for suppressing free speech when they themselves are the worst offenders such as outlined by Lucian; not allowing Democratic reps to speak in the Tennessee legislature, and as outlined in a recent LA Times editorial: . . . . “While rejecting life-saving controls on deadly weapons, Republicans nationwide have purported to stand strong for free expression. GOP leaders pretend to recoil in horror at so-called cancel culture — the supposed penchant of liberals and Democrats to shut down any who disagree with their political or social positions.
“Yet it has been Republicans, in the years of the post-Trump presidency, who are perfecting the dark art of silencing Americans. Especially those who deign to exercise their right to express opinions and choose officials and policies that represent their values. .
“It has sadly become the Republican norm to stifle debate. Don’t say gay, don’t say gun control, don’t say racism, don’t let kids read the ‘wrong’ books or be read to by the ‘wrong’ people, don’t permit children to learn about their bodies or their rights.
“A government in which the majority can silence those with competing views is in serious trouble. One that goes further and actually expels those with competing views is dangerously close to becoming post-democratic and post-liberty.”
My fear is that we're rapidly (if not already) getting to the point where the GOP simply doesn't want honest elections anymore, because they know they will lose most of them. So they've abandoned any remaining adherence to democratic principles regarding elections. Why should they bother if they don't need to? It's easier to lie, cheat, and deny.
2024 is a very, very big deal.
Exactly so. We vote out the trumpistas and block their hostile takeover attempt, or we're going to have to take to the streets and meet them there, I don't see any middle way if they're determined to push this to the final end. It's coming like 1861, barring a miracle.
My god, I hope you're wrong.
me too. but the "new normal," whatever else happens, is that EVERY Repug defeat is going to be treated as fraudulent. watch. it's already happening.
Exactly! They are at that point. Yet they still don't understand that it's their own words and actions that put people off. Just as Trump doesn't get it that his own words and actions are why he is in trouble with the law. They are just out to get him because they don't like him in his mind. All political. Even McCarthy and Jordan and Greene and company reinforce this accusation. The whole lot of them are a worthless pathetic bunch. I have respect for opposing opinions if they are founded on logic, on reason, but this is pure malice on their part. Nothing else. I think it's because they hate the truth and goodness in any form. It really bothers them, makes them very uncomfortable.
This from Slate writer Ben Mathis - Liley (article about Trump and Meadows defenses in Georgia: . . . "Meadows’ claims are similar to the one that Trump has made about his own behavior in 2020—that he believed the election was “rigged” against him as a matter of objective fact, meaning that his actions were reasonable attempts to secure the correct outcome. In his telling, the smoking gun was in fact a “perfect phone call.”
This line of reasoning was reintroduced to circulation by right-wing law professor Jonathan Turley on Fox News after the Fulton County indictments were announced:
You know, it makes perfect sense when you’re challenging an election to say, “You know, I only need around 11,000 votes.” So if you do a statewide review, that’s not a lot in a state like Georgia. That’s not criminal. That’s making a case for a recount.
Georgia, however, had already completed two recounts—one by hand and one by machine—by the time that Trump and Meadows spoke with Raffensperger. The fraud allegations the president was pursuing, moreover, were largely if not entirely sourced from random social media accounts and online message boards, and had already been dismissed by his own administration’s Department of Justice.
As a legal matter, Trump’s contention he truly believed that voting results were “rigged” has problems. Among them are the concept of willful blindness and Trump’s alleged statement that Vice President Mike Pence was being “too honest” in his response to the election, which would seem to imply an awareness that his own conduct was not honest."
Today's Republicans keep proving by their words and actions that they value holding power and loyalty to their Party above all else -- above the public good, above national interests, above the will of the people. They are modern Bolsheviks.
A perfect description. Kosmo..
Wow! I was nearly at the “OMG...this would work for them??!!” when you shook me out of my stupor and I realized that they are GUILTY of sedition!
Rethuglicans have been cheating at elections since Nixon. They freely admit that if elections were fair and everyone voted they would never win again. Cheating is the only way to win.
You made it so clear that Trumpublicans (a/k/a MAGA) are politically suicidal, yes, but also, as you wrote so chillingly at the end of your piece, homicidal. Let's add one more -al word: delusional. Okay, some of them recognize they are on the losing end of public opinion, for which the short-term remedy is to take polling places out of Democratic-leaning districts. In the longer term, there's flat-out political indoctrination in schools and universities -- see Florida. Speaking of which, William Galston of the Brookings Institution writes in the Wall Street Journal (!?!) that Scott Yenor, an influential advisor about education to DeSantis, has speechified about "feminine goals of homemaking and having children" and within those homes, "manly leadership" is expected. I am *not* making this up. Not to be *too* apocalyptic, but when you remind us in detail of all the federal funding DeSantis and other Republican governors refuse, money that would actually help real people in their states, all I see in my mind's eye is the jpg on the internet showing the original typescript of Hitler's March 1945 "Nero Decree," in which he ordered Germany's infrastructure destroyed. Yes, MAGAnistas want "to love Donald Trump and stick it to the libs." Commit Republican suicide? Sure. Blow up this democracy at the same time? Just as sure. Bartender, bring me a double. For medicinal reasons.
I’ll have the rest of the bottle, thank you!
SOL (Smile Out Loud)
Did Scott Yenor just wake up from a sixty-year nap and doesn’t recognize that traditional sex roles have changed? Or perhaps he’s just nostalgic for the 1950’s.
Nostalgic for the 1850s, more likely. I am certain the GQP fantasizes about a world in which blacks could be definitively made to SHUT UP about equality and returned to slavery, and virtuous white women could concentrate on marital child-bearing and full-time mothering.
I see there might be something wrong with Lucian's auto correct. He kept writing about this person named de santis, in fact I know the guv's name is De Satan as in, you know, "of Satan", a proud name going all the way back to our hominid ancestors.
The crackup of the GOP has to be the most astonishing domestic story I've seen in my lifetime (and since I'm 72 I've seen some doozies), but since I grew up in an alcoholic family and have known a few drunks and addicts over the years it's not entirely unfamiliar. As an old truism in the recovery world has it, "Denial is not just a river in Egypt." So many of the Republicans' antics fit the alcoholic pattern. In the disease model, alcoholism and addiction are progressive diseases: if they aren't treated, they keep getting worse.
The GOP has been headed in this direction since at least the Reagan administration, but -- again like many alcoholics -- it looked fairly normal to the casual observer. It's been enabled in a big way by the voters, the donors, and especially by SCOTUS. In decisions like Bruen, Citizens United, and Shelby County, the Supreme Court in effect opened the liquor cabinet and let the GOP drink its fill. It did, and we're seeing the result: a pathetic party stumbling around drunk that still has the power to do a lot of damage. (If the GOP has an avatar, it's probably Rudy Giuliani.) So, yes, the suicidal impulse is there, but it's part of a more common pattern.
NB: This is a substantial rewrite of the original reply, which contained two inexcusable errors: …
Stuart Stevens wrote a piece in 2019 that a Daily Beast copy editor, or editor, headlined
Trump-Drunk Republicans Are Choosing Russia Over the Constitution
I thought the "Trump-drunk" description—not in Stevens's piece—such a dead-on replacement for HRC's unthinkable "basket of deplorables" I assumed it would go viral. But Stevens never used it himself, the Daily Beast never did again, nor did anyone else. MAGAts worked.
The guy was way ahead of the curve -- or maybe there's just not enough overlap between politicos and people familiar with alcoholic behavior. (If not, I suspect denial is in play once again.) I'm gonna do what I can in my little way to raise the comparison because I do believe it's a key -- not the only key, but an important one -- to understand Trumpism.
(Above reply changed substantially from original.)
I don't want to trump your ace (no pun intended), but I am 11 years older, and am as astonished as you. The alcoholic connection/insight is most interesting.
I keep wondering what my father (1922–2008) would think of it. He was the 4th Democrat ever to register in the metro Boston town we both grew up in, served as an Army Air Corps noncom in WW2 (and said of all the books he read about the war, _Catch-22_ came closest to capturing his experience), and was always engaged in local political activity. We talked a lot during Watergate, he in his early 50s, me in my early 20s, and I think he was astonished by how brazen the Nixon administration was. Since my political awareness only went back a few years at that point, and was hugely influenced by the tumultuous '60s, I tended to assume that this was politics as usual. GOP behavior has gotten steadily worse since then, but I still think my father would be horrified. As he was politically coming of age in the 1930s, Hitler was consolidating power in Germany then starting to steamroller Europe, so I especially wonder what connections he'd see between the two.
We are sisters under the skin -- your father, my mother. Before she went to work, we lived in WI., where she was Eau Claire County Democratic chairwoman. She busted her chops trying to unseat Joe McCarthy -- and took it as a personal loss when she failed. (Certainly a different WI. than today's.) I guess we should be thankful they're not around to see this, tho my guess is they would regard it as the beginning of the end. Which, alas, I think it may be. The hate and the crazy has settled in too deep.
That sound you couldn't hear a second ago was me letting out a loud "whough!" in Los Angeles. Your dad would indeed be horrified. The Professional Pundit class (a/k/a gasbags) gets all nose-up, sniff-sniffy, tut-tutty when a reasonably sentient person (you, for example) mentions a l-e-e-t-l-e similarity between the extremely prejudiced, often violent, guys who were in brown shirts then and the same kind of people today who dress in camo. (Pleasant pivot: your mention of your dad and "Catch 22" made me laugh: I was reading it when I was in Army basic training at Ft. Knox. Our drill sergeant, who served in combat in Korea, tried not to smile when he saw the paperback neatly squared away in my foot locker.)
I came of political age in the mid/late '60s, was in college 1969–74, and, since I was involved in various political movements, heard the word "fascist" thrown around too (excuse the word) liberally. My wonderful history prof at Penn, the late Jack Reece, opened his first Modern European History lecture on Fascism and Nazism with "What is a fascist -- other than someone you don't like?" He knew his audience, that's for sure. ;-)
This helps explain why I was slow to apply the F-word to the Republican Party -- until the Trump administration got underway. Now it's so obvious I'm amazed that more reasonably intelligent observers don't see it and call it out. I mean, playing footsie with Orbán? the blatant voter suppression? the love affair with guns? the denial of bodily autonomy to women? I've been recommending Milton Mayer's 1955 book THEY THOUGHT THEY WERE FREE: The Germans, 1933–45, to everyone who hasn't read it, or read it recently. (I read it for the first time in that history course mentioned above.)
Thanks for the recommendation of the Mayer book, which the L. A. Public Library website says will be delivered to my local branch toot sweet. In return, I recommend you (everyone) read "A Village In The Third Reich: How Ordinary Lives Were Transformed by the Rise of Fascism," published this past spring. Since you mention women's "bodily autonomy" and fascism, the Washington Post has a lengthy article about Texas localities passing laws making it illegal to use their (public) roads to drive someone to get an (out-of-state) abortion. What's next? Requiring pregnant women to wear a "P" on an armband or their clothes to make it easier to identify and track them? This is the place where I would drop in a vintage photo of Jewish women under Nazi rule wearing the Star of David.
Thanks for recommendation -- I'm especially drawn to the subtitle. The extent to which not a few Republicans are willing to go to deny women in their states reproductive autonomy -- well, among other things it reminds me of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which allowed slaveholders and their agents to reach into non-slave states to retrieve "their property." (P.S. Just requested the book through my regional library network.)
So spot on!
Excellent. (See my later comment.)
Not only are they suicidal, they don't care who they take with them. Hundreds of thousands of COVID deaths. Gun deaths. https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/28/health/repeat-firearm-injury-study/index.html
Yes indeed! As I've often argued with regard to reproductive rights, the so-called "pro-life" movement is actually pro-death. The don't care how many women die from illegal abortions or who perish from severe-problem pregnancies. Nor do they care how many of the forced-birth children die from neglect or abuse.
“You can control my uterus when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.” A true pro-life movement would start with free access to effective contraception, first-rate prenatal care, abortion as a medical decision between a woman and her doctor, and good continuing maternal and child medical care. I’m at the point of saying that people who haven’t raised adopted or foster children shouldn’t have a vote on this issue because they’re not part of a solution. However, that standard would make issues like climate change impossible to discuss. No, they don’t care. And I wonder how many have paid for an abortion.
I've noticed something odd around here lately. Suddenly, everyone - - - store clerks, receptionists, hair dressers, farmers - - - seems to have a hate on: scowls now, instead of smiles. This is new. Normally folks here are friendly, pleasant, upbeat.
And I think I know why. Almost everyone around here is a Republican. And the big hate-on out here began around the time The Great Orange One was indicted. So I suspect our normally pleasant Republicans have been whipped up into an into an angry fury by right wing media, over the travails of Trump, the anointed one. Trump as Christ? Who woulda' thunk it?
Where is “out here?”
There may be no answer to the question Mr. T. poses -- or it may be the same answer (whatever it was) that created cult followings for other crackpots and crooks. Maybe this crowd has noting of meaning in their lives so they've thrown in with a destroyer. It is ironic that it was Trump who introduced the crude phrase, "a shithole country." Well, he didn't intend it to be descriptive of THIS country, but that's what roughly a third of it is. Maybe, like everything else, including the Earth, the shelf life is predetermined -- and it is only the mode of destruction that varies.
Some bedtime reading.
Wish me luck in the dream department!
I’m glad I got a decent night’s sleep before reading Lucian’s insightful, but disturbing, piece on suicidal politics. The dynamics of political suicide, and personal suicide are similar, and one may lead to the other as has happened before. Cults such as MAGA Republicans, Nazis, Jonestown, and a variety of smaller religious sects that want to bring on the ‘rapture’, see their mass psychosis devolve into mass suicide when they believe they have no longer have any other choice. That’s not where we are politically at this moment. Neither MAGA or what’s left of the GOP is ready to commit suicide, IMO. They will retreat to the enclaves that are already established while the non-MAGAs seek out safer territory as is already happening with medical professionals, academics, and others who see the the fascist handwriting on the wall. That sorting out is far from finished, and is the real dynamic governing our politics. Red will get redder, Blue will get bluer, and purple will struggle, perhaps violently.
Right now MAGA, at its core, is nihilistic. It exists to destroy, to vent hatred and grievance, not to build a new society, or rebuild a damaged one, based on a thought-out ideology. Beyond wanting a White, straight, ‘Christian’ authoritarian culture they have no idea how such a society would function, or what it would be like to live in it. But they will, or try to, create versions of it where they can. Florida, Texas, Idaho, are on their way. *Rump is offering no direct leadership, has no vision beyond his unlimited personal greed and need for vengeance. MAGA, given the limited intelligence its fanatical followers have demonstrated, hasn’t reached the suicidal stage because the hot civil war they so fervently want hasn’t happened, and let’s hope it doesn’t. The proxy civil war we are fighting all over the country at the ballot box is heating up. DeSatan couldn’t be clearer when he states, proudly, that he wants to turn the U.S. into Florida. *Rump doesn’t offer up such a dystopian vision. In reality he offers nothing but himself, now as a martyr. It’s when MAGA loses decisively at the ballot box that we enter the most violent phase of our sorting out. When its political underpinnings are challenged, when gerrymandering, voter suppression in all its forms, the wholesale intimidation represented by minority rule, doesn’t work at least in some places, sporadic violence is bound to happen. But none of it is going to make MAGA disappear even if *Rump were to die eating his quarter-pounder today.
To repeat myself, they've been there a long time, just didn't have military weaponry before.
I don't think their "military weaponry" would last very long against the REAL military. I just hope a Dem President, when and if this confrontation happens, will give orders to our troops to show no mercy toward these traitors.
My idea of 'no mercy' would be marching them around the property line of Mar-a-Lago all of the sunny hours daily.
When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose…like any organism that can’t or won’t adapt to change, that organism is doomed to extinction and that’s where the GOP is headed and the GOP doesn’t care what gets destroyed along the way as they self destruct…utter nihilism…
Yeah, and they’ll take the rest of the country down with them.