So, as of yesterday, Paul Ryan is out. He's announced that he's not going to run for reelection. Given that for maybe the first time in his career he'd have been facing a tough campaign, most likely against Union iron-worker Randy Bryce (although the Democratic primary in the district is months away, yet) for basically the first time in his career, I'm not sure I can blame him. That Eddie Munster-looking motherfucker has all the charisma of a well-worn copy of Atlas Shrugged, and in this political climate I'm not sure that, nor all the Koch Brothers' money, nor all the Wisconsin GOP's dirty tricks would be enough to save him, with that in mind.
But, there's another major factor at work here.
Republicans. Specifically, Republican voters.
Also, with a side of nutty House Republicans.
Ginny Thomas, the wife of SCOTUS Justice Clarence Thomas, recently shared a meme that said "Donald Trump was caught in the company of two prostitutes." The picture, of course, showed Trump sitting with Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan.
Paul Ryan, who in 2011-2012 famously put Ayn Rand back in the radar range of American popular culture and was memorably eviscerated for it, directly by Rachel Maddow, less directly by Chuck Colson. Paul Ryan, who has done more than damned near anybody to solidify what the Republican Party...at the Congressional level, at least...really stands for. Paul Ryan, the dead-eyed Granny Starver, fanatical Ayn Rand devotee, and yes, Conservative Catholic...that last being a trait shared with Mrs. Thomas.
Paul Ryan, who got steamrolled by Trump and his Supporters just like everybody else with an (R) next to their name and who, like almost all of the rest of them, suddenly discovered that his spine had been surgically removed. Not only that, but a certain percentage of House Republicans to his Right (!) wanted to get rid of him for not being supportive enough of Donald Trump. So yeah...
Enjoy your retirement, asshole.
So far, Paul Nehlen, the Nazi motherfucker who I've written about before, is the only alternative to Ryan that has presented itself thus far. Nobody else that I'm aware of as a prospective replacement for Ryan in his district has even close to any kind of following or name recognition. The Wisconsin GOP has said they will refuse to back him. What do you want to bet, that's going to change? Initially, they didn't back Trump either, and nobody thought he could win the Primary, or they thought he'd get killed in the General Election. My bet is the Wisconsin GOP will support the goddamned Nazi, whether they do it openly and enthusiastically or simply follow the Illinois model and do so tacitly by allowing him to run and then distancing himself when he won the primary...but you notice they're not taking any steps to do anything about this mess.
Let me tell you a story:
My journey out of conservative Christianity began, naturally, with my marriage to and ensuing divorce from my ex-wife, and of course with questioning the path I'd been on since the mid-1990's as a result. The adoption of more theologically-liberal views, and the study of other aspects of Christianity and other religions followed swiftly...life experience had already provided me with a basic familiarity with Islam years before, and just from dealing with people, I'd learned more about Agnosticism, Atheism, various forms of Paganism and Satanism. This process of learning was well underway by the time I moved to this area (and moved in with my girlfriend, Angie, and her family) in June of 2003.
That August, I'd found myself with extra time on my hands because we'd both quit working for the shitty property management company we worked for (She was an apartment complex manager and I was a maintenance man.) So, besides looking for a job, I was mostly spending a lot of time on the computer. I posted a lot on several message boards...the social media of the day. A couple of them were gaming-related, a couple of them were religious in nature and one was a science-fiction/fantasy board. One day, I was on Christian Forums AKA ChristianBBS and some nut named Dominic from California...AKA Sola Gratia (Latin for "Faith alone") one of the board's Calvinists, and a serious homophobic nut...posts a very fire-and-brimstone thread literally advocating the burning of homosexuals.
To their credit, the vast majority of the board's assorted posters (a mix of Christians of various types and some trolling Atheists) were horrified...but there were a few "Amen" type comments and a couple more people who actively backed him and egged him on. The shit turned into literally a week-long argument and eventually admins were notified and they only grudgingly...due to multiple terms-of-service violations on this guy's part and since he'd directly threatened at least one LGBT board member and several people knew him and knew where he lived, threats to go straight to the local police...did something about it and locked down the thread, although they never followed through on a pledge to ban him.
Me? I spent that week trying to talk some sense into the guy, trying to talk him down. That right there was a real education in how utterly shitheaded some people can be. I'm not kidding when I say that some of these fucking religious nuts think about gay people more than gay people do.
ChristianBBS was infamous at the time among those who'd had issues with Christian Fundamentalists, the place was not well run, although a couple of the admins tried. Most of the time it was a flaming shit-show of conspiracy theories, homophobia, religious woo without much basis in Scripture, and toward the end, various anti-Muslim bullshit. I found a different board to post on, and a decent number of people followed me there, including one of Sola Gratia's actual, real-world neighbors. According to that neighbor, Dominic beat up a gay dude a couple months after that, and went to prison for assault. By that time, I'd gotten another job, and eventually I dropped off from posting on all those message boards, so I don't know what happened with any of these people after that. Eventually ChristianBBS got bought out by another website, and basically nobody cared.
That site, and the nuts who infested it, had burned that many people.
But, what I learned from that whole experience, is that once you give nuts a platform, eventually that's all you're going to have is rabid nuts, because they'll run everybody else out, and once you become known for openly or tacitly supporting the nuts you're going to get a lot more nuts. You cannot reason with unreasonable people.
Sounds an awful lot like the last 20 years or so of the history of the Republican Party, doesn't it? The Republicans both encouraged and profited from the same exact kinds of extremism, and now things are so screwed up that they have actual Nazis running for office on their ticket.
I spent my last couple of years that I identified as a Christian doing the best I could to fight against the crazy bullshit, before I left in frustration and became an Agnostic Theist in 2006. I spent a couple more years as a Republican, basically doing the same thing while the crazy got worse and worse. Eventually, I had to chew out the by-then former girlfriend over a "Birther" chain E-mail, and though we communicated for many more years, I don't think she ever sent something like that around again. She wasn't insane, or a racist, but ya know, some of the people that she knew were...and she tolerated them being that way.
Needless to say, that's how you end up with a lot more racist nuts.
Eventually, I would spend several years as a staff member on an ex-Pentecostal forum, until I basically was the last functioning staff member. The lessons I'd previously learned would serve me well there and we helped a lot of people start to find their way back to sanity.
So no, resistance is not futile. It just ends up being a lot of work.
More work than a lot of Republicans want to do, apparently, even those who will privately complain about Trump. A record number of Republicans have already quit or are simply not running for reelection.
I can't say I'm sorry to see them go, and to be quite honest I hope that the Republicans lose their ass in the midterm elections in November. All indications seem to point to that being the case, not least of all Trump doing his level best to make it All About Him even though he is very unpopular.
Meanwhile, the situation has now claimed Paul Ryan. If he's out, no Republican is safe.
Make sure you vote, this November, and vote Democrat if you want to continue to live in a free and democratic America that isn't some other country's bitch.
Get out and vote, like your life depends on it, because it just might...
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