Wednesday, June 15, 2022

Just Another Republican


Around the black hole of GOP rage and racism, a careful observer can make out  several concentric rings moving away from the party, like ripples in water after a murder victim has been weighed down and tossed into a reservoir.

There are the recently former Republicans who were run out of the party in 2015/2016, who have since colonized the mainstream media and cable news and who more-or-less now control that sphere of  political narrative.

There are the even-more-recently former Republicans who were ejected from the party between 2017 and 2020.  These even-more-recently former Republicans are either granted or denied absolution on a case-by-case basis by the recently former Republicans, who have set up an Indulgence Factory to control access to the mainstream media and cable news outlets which they have colonized.

There are the Post-January Sixth Republicans who were shocked enough by the Republican mob that stormed their workplace looking to murder Donald Trump back to power that they momentarily renounced Trump and all his works and and all his pomps.  Then, one by one, they obediently fell back in line.

There are the Second Impeachment Republicans who, on February 13, 2021, voted to impeach Donald Trump during his second impeachment hearing.  Since then they have either quit the party, been run out of the party, are in the process of being run out of the party, or have been lying doggo. 

There are the January Sixth Committee Witness Republicans, who stayed dog loyal to Trump until he was out of office or until they could see that the ship was cracked down to the keel and was going down.  Now they're telling tales and selling books.

Even the ‘good’ lawyers didn’t blow the whistle on Trump. That was wrong.

As you know, these grifters, creeps, cowards, willing dupes and lifelong enablers of the monster factory the GOP are wildly overrepresented in the media. They poop out books like a PEZ dispense popping out candies and have spun off  I-can't-count-how-many bullshit, boutique "independent" Third Way/Country First/Purple Project "movements" that will amount to nothing and go nowhere even as they dream of somehow cleansing and reclaiming the Republican party.

But the Republican party doesn't need cleansing or reclaiming because the Republican party is operating exactly as designed.  And these grifters, creeps, cowards, willing dupes and lifelong enablers of the GOP monster factory are not the Republican party and they never were.  They occupied the fremen-riding-the-sandworm seat atop the party for a time, but now the sandworm has bucked them off and a new cohort riders are working the Maker hooks and driving wingnut Shai-Hulud .  

The drivers change, but the party does not.



So if the grifters, creeps, cowards, willing dupes and lifelong enablers of the GOP monster factory are not the Republican party and never were, then who is?

Ah, for the answer to that we will need to open our hymnals to #475 -- "I am the church! You are the church!" -- and let's all sing the first verse together:

The church is not a building;
the church is not a steeple;
the church is not a resting place;
the church is a people.

It's really just that simple.

The Republican party is its people.  

And who are the people of the Republican party?

They are the 74,216,154 people who turned out to vote for Donald Trump in 2020.  Eleven million and change more than came out for him in 2016.

The party is these people:

More than 100 GOP primary winners back Trump’s false fraud claims

A Washington Post analysis shows the former president’s election denialism has become a price of admission in many Republican primaries

The party is the overwhelming majority of GOP lawmakers who still line up behind Trump.

The party is the people that watch Fox and OANN and Newsmax...and the people that produced that  filth.  

The party is the illegitimate majority on the nation's highest court.  

The party is the consultant and ad makers and pollsters who are working hard to get the GOP back in power.

And of course, the party is this guy.



Because when you boil it all down, Trump is just another fucking Republican, but louder.

Does he believe a lot of stupid, crazy, dangerous nonsense that he picked up from Fox News or just conjured up out of his own demented, narcissistic imagination?

Yes he does.

After any individual stupid, shitty lie is shot down, is his reaction always, "Yeah, well whatabout this other stupid, shitty lie?!?" over and over and over again, endlessly?


Yes it is.

And rather than being open to any new information that might contradict what he wishes to believe, does invariably attack anyone who tries to tell him anything he doesn't want to hear?

Absolutely.

So, is this substantively different in any way from the Crazy Uncle Liberties you have in your life?

Nope.  Exactly the same pathologies.

And who taught them to believe the liars and the lies they tell?  To always have another lie at the ready for when the previous lie collapses?  To reflexively attack anyone who tried to tell them anything they don't want to hear?

Ironically, it was those very same grifters, creeps, cowards, willing dupes and lifelong enablers of the GOP monster factory who now swear that the GOP was just fine back when they were pulling the strings but somehow it magically morphed into a herd of neo-fascist swine virtually overnight because something something Trump.

But Trump didn't transform the Republican party.  Quite the opposite.  The people of the Republican party manifested Donald Trump.  The people of the Republican party in their tens of millions nominated, elected, re-nominated and nearly re-elected Donald Trump.  

Because Donald Trump remains the truest avatar for open sewer of deranged, aggrieved, racist bullshit that the GOP truly is.


I Am The Liberal Media

3 comments:

Neo Tuxedo said...

several concentric rings moving away from the party, like ripples in water after a murder victim has been weighed down and tossed into a reservoir.

"Like a tunnel that you follow to a tunnel of its own
Down a hollow to a canyon where the sun has never shone
Like a door that keeps revolving in a half-forgotten dream
Or the ripples from a pebble someone tosses in a stream..."

But the Republican party doesn't need cleansing or reclaiming because the Republican party is operating exactly as designed.

The Right-Wing Noise Machine (proposed by Lewis Powell in 1971, wished for by Jabba Hemophiliac Ailes in 1972, implemented by various hands in the years since until Rupert Murdoch brought its superlaser online in 1996) is what's operating exactly as designed. It's the reason why, for a long time, the Republican Party needed cleansing, or reclaiming, or both; it's also the reason why neither of these is possible, because there's nothing left to reclaim. The Crazy Uncles Liberty, with the Noise Machine as their Sirius Cybernetics Advanced Brain Substitute, have hollowed out the skin of the Party of Lincoln (and even the party of Eisenhower) and now wear it as an Edgar suit.

"...if winning is off the table, what should we do instead? [...] This is not a question with straightforward answers. Straightforwardness is for victors who get statues and ballads. The defeated operate from shadows and hidden places, and the legacies they leave are cryptic and secret."
-- Elizabeth Sandifer, introduction to the expanded edition of Neoreaction a Basilisk (Ithaca: Erudtiroum, 2017)

Robt said...

I can say since Reagan, the GOP has been using Teddy Roosevelt's playbook somewhat in campaigning.

Teddy formed his "Bull Moose" party.

Reagan had his John Birch Society lunchbox voters, HW Bush had his Reagan claim to fame party, GW Bush had the young guns and TEA party, Trump had his QANON -MAGA party.

They razzle dazzle their GOP voters with the newest rage.
We may see the Jim Jones party before long. One thing for sure, Qanon ad MAGA is drawing yawns. I am betting on the Fascist party.

Anonymous said...

One of the old blind Republicans was a witness at the Jan.6th committee hearing today. A Judge J. Michael Luttig. During the hearing I couldn't quite make out his points but it was mentioned he'd written an OpEd in the NYTimes so I looked that up.
Seems he's under the delusion that there some "Republican Party" somewhere that can be informed of what the big Orange Donnie and crew are up to and when they find out they'll "set things aright".
How delusional is that?
Also, I've seen all the videos during the hearings of Barr saying Donnie is "unhinged from reality" etc. But when asked recently if he'd vote for Donnie again, he said if he got the nomination then Barr would vote for whomever the Republican nominee was. That's a yes.