Fair Warning

 

“Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation.” — James Madison

A wretched situation, indeed. Because, whereas many of the Republicans in Congress – McCarthy, Boebert, Gohmert, Gosar, Taylor-Greene, Brooks, Paul, Cruz, Tuberville, etc. – are liars, stupid, or nuts, not all of them are. Mitch McConnell, though a liar, is a genius at perverting everything Democrats are trying to do to help average Americans: which happens to include most of his red-state constituency. He can’t be ignorant of the damage he’s causing; by that, and by closing his eyes to Trumpism. Destitute in virtue, rich in avaricious cowardice, he remains silent; the poster boy for the impending crisis. 

Everyone who cares about America’s future must read the recent dissertation in the Washington Post written by Robert Kagan, actual conservative and member of America’s most respected and balanced think tank, the Brookings Institution. Titled “Our Constitutional Crisis Is Already Here,” it’s a frigid dose of reality. If you profess love of America and its form of government, read it, as an act of patriotism. That includes Trumpists, professors for sure. (Non-subscribers have access to a limited number of articles.)

The opening quote of this column, above, also begins the essay. It continues: “The United States is heading into its greatest political and constitutional crisis since the Civil War, with a reasonable chance over the next three to four years of incidents of mass violence, a breakdown of federal authority, and the division of the country into warring red and blue enclaves…” Later: “… Trump and his Republican allies are actively preparing to ensure his victory by whatever means necessary... Some Republican candidates have already begun preparing to declare fraud in 2022…”

Kagan’s analysis of why Trump can do no wrong in the eyes of his supporters, why cowardly Republican leaders fear him, and what it means for democracy, rings true. Justifying red state legislatures’ efforts to legalize overturning disliked election results, unwavering belief in his “stolen election” lie is at the heart of it. A trumpet, heralding the political apocalypse.

The more Trump’s lies are pointed out, the more his cultists love him. “The events of Jan. 6 … proved that Trump and his most die-hard supporters are prepared to defy constitutional and democratic norms…,” writes Mr. Kagan. Said a capitol-rioting woman, he reminds us, “We weren’t there to do damage. We were just there to overthrow the government.” “Just,” she said. Just.

More convincingly and eloquently, Kagan echoes what I’ve written many times: that Madison, et. al., figured they’d created the checks and balances necessary to prevent authoritarianism. Then, though, there were no political parties. If they arose, they surmised, it’d be limited to some states; and, whereas a psychologically unfit deceiver like Trump might become popular locally, national appeal was impossible. Wrongly, they assumed an informed electorate. White, male, and landed, to be sure; but well-enough educated to rebuff demagoguery. Modern Republicans have put that fantasy to rest. Our forefathers were tragically mistaken.

Nor could they imagine today’s rightwing wholesale rejection of the backbone of democracy: elections. Accepting outcomes. Instead, it’s willingness to burn the country down (figuratively, mostly, so far), including threats to poll-workers and their families, to maintain their personal privilege, dismissing the impact on our future. Virtuous it isn’t.

If legislating away free and fair elections is Trumpism’s most obvious threat, anti-mask/anti-vaccine activism is vivid proof of the loss of American idealism for a third of the country and ninety percent of Republicans. All-but-inexplicable susceptibility to transparent lies. Overarching disinterest in understanding the avarice behind them, uncaring how their selfish, misguided, manipulated refusals harm others. (Obvious statement: had American virtue been more present among Trumpists, mandates would have been unnecessary.)

Republicans love to claim Abraham Lincoln as their own, while ignoring his ethos: “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right…” Speaking of Whom, they also claim exclusive rights to Jesus. Which makes sense only if they believe the Sermon on the Mount is fake news. Also fake: Republican Secretaries of States’ attestations to a fraud-free election. And that Arizona thing.

Nothing can convince Trumpists they’re being lied to: about the election, CRT, masks and vaccines; glaring, dangerous, and deeply cynical as those lies are. If Mr. Kagan is to be proved wrong, it’ll be when people like Mitch McConnell and actual conservatives, caring nearly as much for America as for themselves, find the courage to disavow Trumpism and the corrosion at its core. Now or never. Like climate change. Time has all but run out.

Lie Or Leave

Last week’s column began with a quote from an actual conservative. Here’s another, from Michael Gerson, former adviser to George the Second: 

“… The GOP is increasingly defined not by its shared beliefs, but by its shared delusions. To be a loyal Republican, one must be either a sucker or a liar. And because this defining falsehood is so obviously and laughably false, we can safely assume that most Republican leaders who embrace it fall into the second category. Knowingly repeating a lie … is now the evidence of Republican fidelity…”

He’s referring, of course, to the perpetuated prevarication that, but for rampant fraud, Trump won the election. “Laughably false,” indeed. Yet believing or pushing it is now the standard by which Republican politicians are judged. Leave the lie, live lurched and languishing like Liz. In the United States of America, exceptional exemplar of democracy and integrity, it’s inexplicable. So let’s try. 

Republicans’ descent began long before Trump; otherwise, he’d have been laughed out of contention. Now they’re desperate to maintain the delusion. Why? The pandemic. It’s revealing truths about current conservatism so indisputable that the only available responses are lies and attacks on democracy. As in Arizona.

The pandemic has floodlit the falsehood of fundamental post-Reagan dogma; namely, that government is the problem. True enough, about bad government, of which we’ve seen plenty. And now we’re seeing the good kind. In differing responses to the pandemic, that truth is writ larger than Trump’s name on a bankrupt building. A wholly-owned subsidiary of multi-sued Trump, Inc., today’s Republican Party is doing its best to obscure the writing.

In that, they’ve had a head start for decades. But it’s been a struggle to rationalize more than half a million deaths and the incompetence, dishonesty, and contumacious denial that caused them.

Yes, the ground-breaking mRNA coronavirus vaccines, for which federally-financed research and development began years earlier, became available during Trump’s “presidency.” We acknowledge his big-government spending on final production, which any president would have ordered. But then he stopped.

Because of absent planning, misinformation, and what’s been described by taskforce participants as Trump’s disinterest, distribution lagged, while he deliberately sabotaged other efforts to stop the spread. When leadership in (mild) sacrifice was called for, he provided the opposite. Someday, psychiatrists might explain why.

But it supports the hypothesis: without government, the vaccines might never have been created; and had there been better government, distribution would have been wider and faster. For that, it took President Biden. Had Trump not spent months lying about or ignoring the virus, had he not hired sycophants and liars, had he not ridiculed protective measures, experts say, half the deaths wouldn’t have occurred. The contrast couldn’t be greater, the lesson more easily learned.

For Republicans, the consequences are monumental. When people were hurting, the economy in ruins, systems overwhelmed, Trumpublicans did next to nothing. Worse than nothing, after Biden took office, as they voted, unanimously, against his measures to restore the economy and help the desperate; laying down an unmistakable marker. (Unbelievably, as benefits arrive, they’re touting them, implying they deserve credit.) People needed good government, and are grateful for it. The pandemic brought recognition of current, effective leadership, and of its previous lack. Bad news for those voting “no.”

Or so you’d think. Never hesitant to dissemble, Republicans answered President Biden’s speech to Congress with plenty of it. A tale of two ditties, the best of words, the worst of words. What our president proposed were policies any functioning, democratic society should expect from a government of, by, and for its people. As he spoke of addressing child poverty, Republicans sat, stony. When he spoke of internal threats to democracy, of the value of government, tax fairness, education, healthcare, Ted Cruz nodded off. Seventy-percent of listeners, however, liked what they heard. Republicans represent the thirty-percent. 

Knowing the implications, their response warned of “socialism” and government takeovers. Understanding the threat to their rich-people-first agenda, they’re committed to blocking any progressive (i.e. helpful, popular) legislation “one-hundred-percent,” as Mitch McConnell just said. Lacking attractive alternatives, they’ll prevent as many Democratic voters as possible from voting, while ensuring their voters will distrust any lost elections.

The preceding thoughts are fact-based. Now for speculation: Perhaps what’s behind Republicans’ pathological push to forestall mask-wearing and vaccine-taking, now said to have made herd immunity unlikely, is discrediting President Biden’s people-positive leadership, which Republicans haven’t provided for decades; and, mainly, keeping his example of competence from taking hold among voters, even if it kills them.

Far-fetched? In today’s GOP-Q, we’re already seeing destructive anti-democracy treachery in abundance. 

[Image source]

Goe-balls And No-balls

I suppose I've been remiss in not mentioning Rep. Steve Cohen and his reference to Goebbels' "big lie" during the recent so-called health care debate.

Coming, as it did, so soon after pledges of a new civility, it was ill-timed and ill-conceived. As Jon Stewart said, the congressman needn't have resorted to playing the Nazi card, when all he had to do was point out that the Republican arguments were a bunch of unrepentant and shameless lies. Despite the fact that Mr Cohen's remarks were criticized by both sides (and, of course, hyped beyond their original context by the screamers on Fox "news" and blanketed on the right-wing airwaves), at least one commenter here thinks he's been given a pass by "the media." That's as wrong as he was.

Still, I don't think all Nazi references need be ipso facto off-limits henceforth and forevermore. If, for example, some country or other began to round up Jews, or Christians, or blue-eyed blondes and began systematically to kill them in gas chambers, comparisons might be apt. Similarly, we might be justified in raising alarums were there ranks and files of armed men marching down our streets, goose-stepping, raised arms adorned with swastikas, looking over at a guy with a mustache? We might be excused, I'd argue, for comparing them to Nazis.

So where's the line? Somewhere near where truth ends, I'd propose. Did Joseph Goebbels extol the virtues of repeatedly lying, or did he not? Are right-wingers repeating lies, over and over, about the ACA, or are they not? Is the repetition of these lies effective in getting people to believe them? May it not be said, under any circumstances, that there are similarities? In what way is Mr Cohen's example incorrect, factually or historically?

On the other hand, when Glenn Beck (who never uses Nazi references) suggested Obama was planning concentration camps, was that true, or was it not? When Michele Bachmann warned of "reeducation camps," was that based on fact, or did it spring, like putrid purulence pouring from a punctured pustule, from whatever polluted processes go in inside her own poor head?

Mr Cohen made his point civilly, I'd say, and it was accurate. It was a bad idea, rhetorically speaking and timing-wise; but it wasn't a falsehood, nor was it screamed, nor was it intended as a springboard for paranoid fantasies bedecked with chalkboards aimed at fueling delusions of the masses.

So, yeah, enough with the Nazi references, especially when they're complete bullsh*t. But let us not forget that the need for civil discourse does not abrogate the right and the responsibility to call a spade a spade. Or a shovel a shovel.

Especially when it's the truth.

Words. No Words.

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Watch the above (enjoy the first three minutes -- why not? -- but it's the rest of it...). Hold your head in your hands. Then, with care, with the best of intentions....

.... BEAT YOUR HEAD AGAINST THE F*CKIN' WALL.

Thank you.

To Kill The Republic

Paying for end of life counseling, advance directives, will be removed from the not-yet-extant health care bill, so it seems.

It's not the fact that advance directives are actually protection against the evils that Sarah Palin imagines in her tiny little mind, nor that paying for them was included in a Republican bill a few years ago, for which the loudest screamers nowadays voted back then. The worst thing about it is NOT that people with money will have an easier time having their wishes carried out than poorer people. It's NOT that Sarah Palin evidently has a doctor she doesn't trust. It's not even that, once again, easily, people with hidden agendas have managed to shepherd the sheep into bleating against that which they need most.

What's really, really, really sad is that the right wing and its screamers -- the very people who like to refer to Obama as a Nazi in order to hide their own tactics -- have adopted the use of the Big Lie, which is in fact a Nazi tactic. Having discovered during the first health care debate, if not before, that bald-faced lies actually work, the Republican party has now adopted it as their most fundamental modus operandi. They no longer even attempt to disguise it. Lying works.

So what does it mean for our republic? I'd say it's pretty clear. On the most critical -- and therefore complex -- issues that face us, that impact our very survival, lies will carry the day. No longer will rational discussion, based on respect for opposing views and aimed and coming to reasonable solutions be the order of the day. The most venal, the most self-interested, the least ethical or honest will rule the day. Lying works, so that's what they do.

It makes me sad beyond expression. It makes clear the end is coming, brought to you by the frightened, the gullible, the thoughtless. And the liars.

Lying works.

[In an attempt to forestall predictable responses, let me say I've never claimed the Democrats are above reproach. But I honestly can't think of examples of out-and-out lying about such a serious matter, programmed and repeated over and over, orchestrated and reinforced by all the leadership and members or Congress, done by the Democratic Party. I'm open to being shown examples. No, the fact is that since Ronald Reagan, Republicans have managed steadily to dumb down debate and most literally to have dumbed down our people, presumably knowing that eventually they'd be able to get whatever they want (or, more properly, to prevent whatever Democrats want) simply by lying big. The bigger, the more effective. And so it is. It's no longer possible to imagine real change for the better. Because lying works, Republicans know it, and only they are willing to use it as over-arching strategy. It takes a level of cynicism that I simply can't get my mind around; a level not given to liberals. Not, at least, in numbers enough to make it grand policy.]
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