Wednesday, October 12, 2022

Devolution


Dan Evans. Mark Hatfield. Tom McCall. Everett Dirksen. Jacob Javits. Dwight Eisenhower. Nelson Rockefeller. Margaret Chase Smith, John Lindsey, Arlen Spector, Howard Baker, Lowell Weicker, Chuck Hager. Ulysses Grant. Abraham Lincoln. My remarkable aunt.  

What’s become of the party that once embraced people of conscience, ideas, believers in democracy, cooperators for progress, acceptors of election results? How can it have devolved to one whose heroes are small-minded, election-denying liars, racists, liars, antisemites, xenophobes, devoid of positive ideas or helpful plans? And liars. 

Trump, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Jim Jordan, Lauren Boebert, Trump, Matt Gaetz, Ron DeSantis, JD Vance, Greg Abbott, Trump, Kevin McCarthy, Marsha Blackburn, Tommy Tuberville, Herschel Walker, Mehmet Oz. Kanye West, of all people. Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz. And Trump. Let’s not forget Trump.

How could we, though? From Trump’s recent rally comes this from featured speaker, know-nothing, former football coach and now Senator, because Alabama is football is Alabama, Tommy Tuberville. Speaking about Democrats: “They want crime. They want crime because they want to take over what you got. They want to control what you have. They want reparation because they think the people that do the crime are owed that.”

Thunderous applause followed the undisguised racism and unoriginal lies about Democrats and crime. Another rally-featured, mendacious Trump sycophant, MTG revealed that Democrats have begun murdering Republicans. From leadership? “Didn’t hear it.” Their silence – anyone’s silence – is complicity.

How did the devolution become so universal? Top to bottom, Republicans no longer bother to hide their turn to fear-mongering, hate-fueling, and resentment. Knowing it’s what brings in their votes, they run on it, unashamed. Abandoning people of conscience, people open to ideas, ones hungry for legislative problem-solvers, they cater to followers of Tucker Carlson and Q-anon conspiracists. And, leading the lowly list, Trump, now taken to wearing Q badges, and whose mental health is deteriorating ever more rapidly, as he claims to have declassified the documents he stole, with his very, very large brain

Rather than helpful policies, Republican politicians expect – with good reason – their enraged voters to accept lies and vote accordingly, on their constantly-fed fears and resentments. This they do fully confident that no matter what legislation they propose or how they vote in ways that will hurt those same people, they’ll have their support.

Thus, their unanimous “no” votes on the Inflation Reduction Act and, now, as jobs and money for included projects come to their states and districts, they take credit. Write to President Biden to ask for more. While four Republican legislators, including Marco Rubio, up for reelection, introduce legislation to undo the part of the IRA that lowers prescription costs; benefitting no one but the drug companies who’ve given hundreds of thousands of dollars to their campaigns. There’s no better evidence of Republican fealty to contributors, not constituents. 

They count, too, on their ability to wipe from memory how President Biden’s leadership has created millions of jobs; how the American Rescue Plan saved a crashing economy, preserving more millions of jobs. Get them to focus on inflation, blame it on Biden, they decided, not our corporate paymasters making record profits. Or the pandemic’s aftereffects. On the Foxotrumpified, it works.

Worried that belief in Trump’s election lies alone might not carry them to victory in November, they’re flogging another one, nationwide and here, repetitively, backed by dark money super PACs. 87,000 IRS agents, coming “to harass the middle class,” claims a local candidate, sweet and smiley. Despite it having been debunked repeatedly, she’s more than willing to spread it. Knowing it’s far harder to convince people they’re being lied to than to embed a lie in the first place, it’s what they do. 

And, sadly, they rightly count on Democrats to fail even to try to counter with the truth. We’ve seen the ad literally hundreds of times. Rebuttal ads? Zero. Same with the “wide open borders” feverish figment, which ignores the record number of interdictions both of drugs and illegal border-crossers under President Biden. And, for the wall-eyed, the fact that most of the intercepted drugs are discovered at border checkpoints. Ask any Trumpist, though, and they’ll bear credulous witness to the lie.

Or another big one: crime, which as we heard from Coach Tommy, Democrats want. Whereas it’s true murder rates are up (the highest rates are in red states), there’s been a steady decline in violent crime, nationally, since 1990. It’s everywhere, though, candidate ads blare. What do Republicans, including our smiley senate candidate, plan to do about it? More silence. 

Surely we can all agree on this, however: what a relief it’ll be, no matter the outcome, when the election is over. I can no longer stand the ads from either side.

4 comments:

  1. Never has our democracy been more threatened than now. Our biggest enemy is us. ‘We have met the enemy and they are ours’ - Oliver Perry.

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  2. "We have met the enemy, and he is us." Pogo

    https://real-leaders.com/pogos-warning-to-business-we-have-met-the-enemy-and-he-is-us/

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  3. The one thing I wish I would see is people asking these republican fascist lying moron candidates exactly what they would do to solve inflation, crime, etc. and then make that candidate actually give an answer. Also ask them if the record profits are contributing to inflation. Also what about all the money dumped into the economy that also blew out the deficit due to the massive unfunded tax cut. And so on and so on. I really agree with your point, Dr. Schwab, about the lack of Democratic add response to all of their bullshit. It really frustrates the hell out of me. I would love to set up billboards around all the new infrastructure projects that say things along the line of - "see this beautiful bridge (or whatever) - Lauren Boebert (fill in whoever else applies here) voted against you getting it." I use her since I am from Colorado though luckily not her district.
    Thanks for all you do and have a great weekend.
    Dan from Colo.

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  4. jmho...

    For all the loud mouthed, salty, pointed, ruff and tumble, no quarter asked, no quarter given, strait up, in your face, won't give an inch, never hiding, confrontational, never ending mouth, of never ending opinions...ect. I may have...

    The world still needs people like me. Because the world is full of thems who mean to run everyone over in their path. And those innocent folks have no idea how to deal with the thems that mean to run everyone over.

    Every once in a while. The world needs a Chesty Puller. A black sheep. Someone so set in their beliefs that they never move for anyone, for any reason, and dares you to change that. Because the only way to solve a problem, is to solve the problem. Everytime. Problems get in my way. They slow me down. Someone like me eliminates problems because I can't sleep otherwise. I don't live my best life. If it's a bully? Then they are ruining many lives. For me, bullies are public enemy #1. They prevent everyone around them from being stress free. Bullies are like Raid! for peace. Just kinda spay everything down with their energy. Someone who won't stop until they are stopped. It's confrontational. Because a bully means to vaporise you if you try to stop them. Which is why nobody ever does. AKA Drumpf. Roger Stone, the KKK etc.

    Just seems to me all the mealy mouthed crap from the govt. ain't worked. And won't. Ever...

    You need to look these people in the eye and cold cock em'. Put them on trial and lock them up like common folk who don't know how to deal with these mega aholes of the world. You HAVE to prove to everyone that this bully is out of business for good.

    Yunno...Some Cadillac with brothers riding 4 deep drive by the capitol, they go to jail. But a full insurrection still has not done a damn thing been done to stop the next one. Not a damn thing.

    The good news is there's still a lot of people who are still there that can make a difference. I am just waiting for it. Not much else any one of us can do. We vote, we ain't complete idiots. But this is too big for anyone. Is it too big for us all to defeat? We are all about to find out. I think too many mistakes over the last 50 years has sunk our ship.

    Unless women and young voters join in, we are all screwed.





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