Wednesday, May 18, 2022

Replacement Reality



“False flag.” It’s among the preferred excuses offered by the don’t-blame-us right, to defend the indefensible. After the murders of Black Americans in Buffalo, by an admitted white supremacist, racist antisemite bedeviled by bogus “replacement theory,” it took only a day for it to be applied, Alex Jones/Sandy Hook style. Jones, himself, dredged it up again. Republican candidates and legislators, too. 

Guns are now so deeply embedded in America, it won’t ever change. Shortly before the massacre, two Trump-appointed judges struck down a California law banning sales of military-style weapons to people under twenty-one, like the Buffalo assassin, calling it a violation of the Second Amendment. Maybe it was. But the judge who wrote the opinion offered this bit of Trumpismic illogic: "America would not exist without the heroism of the young adults who fought and died in our revolutionary army," Judge Ryan Nelson wrote. "Today we reaffirm that our Constitution still protects the right that enabled their sacrifice: the right of young adults to keep and bear arms."

Right. Because youngsters joined the Revolution keeping and bearing muskets, we must allow modern killing machines to be purchased by everyone of any age. McConnell-selected, Trump-appointed. Nothing more needs saying.

“Consider your man card reissued,” creeps an ad for the Bushmaster war-weapon clone the murderer used. “If it’s good enough for the professional, it’s good enough for you.” That's a testicle-tanning-Tucker two-fer. BTW: studies show shooting accuracy of professionals drops by 40%, in pressure situations. And amateurs? 

In Ohio, you can now carry a concealed weapon without a permit or training. You no longer have to tell a cop who stops you that you’re armed. Lying about it is now a misdemeanor instead of a felony. So guns will only become more available and less regulated. By now, blaming gun laws for Buffalo is like blaming water for drownings.

Innocent lambs, Foxian talkers blame mental health issues. It’s no excuse: knowing mentally ill and impressionable people are out there, they pound their lies anyway. Any sentient human – which, setting the bar low enough, includes Carlson and fellow promoters of “replacement theory” – recognizes the deadly combination and its inevitable tragedies: guns for the having, plus disturbed people vulnerable to fear- and hate-mongering. Violence in response is entirely predictable. It's happened many times before.

If a tinder-dry forest catches fire, you don’t exculpate the person who walked through it with a flame-thrower. Because America will do nothing about the tinder, the only hope for change is confronting the people who, knowing the forest is a firebox, keep firing flames into it. If it’s impossible to rid ourselves of guns and mentally fragile people, it’s possible, theoretically, to do something about the harm people like Tucker are doing.

Our constitution gives them the right to spread their lies, though it’s homicidally close to shouting “fire” in a packed theater. We’re blameless, they insist. But they know who’s out there, on whom their words are falling, and they keep doing it. Lacking morality, they won't stop. Pressuring their sponsors might be the only option. That, and less “bothsiderism” from “liberal” media.

So let’s consider the “replacement theory” they’re pushing, convincing armed and fragile people and everyone else there’s a plot to “replace” them with people unlike them. (We can hope.) Deniers of most reality, Trumpicists have correctly noticed that American demographics are changing. Behind which, they see a dastardly liberal plot. Which is ironic, as it’s their party’s policies that ensure the birth, among others, of more people of the sort they abhor. Who, if they are voting, are Americans, enjoying the same freedom as they. But Trumpophiles reject all Americans’ freedoms except their own.

Then what about immigrants? If it’s true, which it isn’t, that America-hating liberal groomers of innocent children are opening floodgates to create more voters, it’d be the flipside of Republican lawmakers doing everything they can to ensure only their voters vote. Lacking the most minimal empathy, ignoring the fact that, except for Native Americans, we’re all immigrants, they can’t imagine the possibility that it’s BECAUSE we're descendants of immigrants, that liberals welcome them. And because immigrants aspire to the “American dream” far more than those who didn’t have to fight to get here.

As Republicans insist on mis-educating their own, America counts on immigrants, not just to become voters, but to keep the dream alive. Quoting NYT's Brett Stephens, "What the far right calls "replacement" is better described as renewal." (tinyurl.com/nytbrett)

Replacement theory is just another time-tested, dishonest scare tactic to secure votes from people about whom they’ve never cared, for whom they haven’t had helpful policies for decades.

3 comments:

  1. Republican snowflakes fear two things: Competition and Retaliation.

    Competition without the protection of their privileged positions as white folk, or even just as non-persons of color. The mulligans white people receive up front in jobs, housing, and just overall ease of living are at risk to these people because they can't compete on a skills or knowledge basis--or fear they can't at any rate.

    Retaliation based on being outnumbered, as the country becomes more multi-cultural and multi-hued. This is based partly on guilt, because they know how they have either treated POC wrongly or have stood by while it happened.

    These are some top-line thoughts I have this morning, and I actually have more to say about it, but I need to save the flexibility in my hands for yard work today and tomorrow. They've only got so much to give and I need it for weeding! Good sunny weekend to all!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I hear ya Mary...

      Ask an alt right zombie why it was that Drumpf never sent in the military on 1/6? How come he didn't so much as tweet? Nobody has even been questioned on the left for their "involvement" on 1/6. because they were not there.

      It was the only coup in American history is what it was. They will absolutely keep trying.

      One of Stacy Abrams sayings is that GA. is #1 for business, but dead last as a place anyone wants to live. That sums up the Confederacy.

      Delete
    2. The Confederacy. Interesting that I've been thinking about it a lot recently, as I am re-reading Gone With The Wind. I first read it at 12 years of age (precocious, much?) while staying with my Aunt and Uncle in Grandview, WA for a couple weeks during the summer. Aunt Mary needed to keep me busy between dental appointments (Dad's cousin was a dentist in Richland and he did our fillings for free. Trust me, it was no bargain for us kids!). But I digress. The new version of GWTW has a fore word by Pat Conroy which is as brilliant as you would expect from him (rest his brilliant soul). It explores our modern misgivings about the story told by Mitchell and its effect on the South at the time of publication. He explains his personal history through his mother's obsession with the romanticized South which was very common, and perhaps still is. It is a thread not highlighted in discussions of the book, perhaps over-shadowed by the main character's strength of personality, but it is actually the strongest aspect of the war and it's aftermath. The women who were not on the battlefield but were deeply wounded by the war and the devastation to their fairy-tale lives it left behind. Conroy says it is an insult felt to this day by Southern women (or at least when he wrote the fore word). It explains a lot, if you think about it. It merited a first and second reading for me. The novel itself, even with all the derogation of Blacks, is still a compelling read. I find that I am paying much more attention to Mitchell's descriptions of the realities of war than I am about Scarlett's travails. Those I know very well, as this is approximately the 14th time I've read this book. No judging, please.

      The other thoughts I have lately on the Confederacy are from Beau of the Fifth Column's post yesterday regarding the new names of military installations being changed. No more "names of traitors" will grace the gates of American posts. It's a good thing, in his and in my opinion. If you don't listen to Beau on YouTube, I suggest it strongly. He's very smart and experienced and gives me hope that there can be Progressive White Southerners!

      As a country, we messed up big time during Reconstruction. We should have smacked down the racists and Jim Crow then. Maybe if we had done so, the brain and soul rot of modern racism and White supremacy would have been destroyed. I have to say, if those are the folks we're "replacing", I'm all for it!

      P.S. Smooth, I usually agree with Stacy Abrams and I hope so much that she prevails this time in her quest for the Governorship!

      Delete

Comments back, moderated. Preference given for those who stay on topic.

Popular posts