Small "R."

Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them.

I've been watching the events of the last couple of days and...to borrow from current Republican parlance, I'm...very concerned.

First, Trump threatens to deny federal disaster relief funds to California, claiming bad land management practices, never mind that the State has precisely dick to do with wild lands management or fire protection in the affected areas, which are largely Federal land...and thus the responsibility of the Bureau of Land Management and other Federal agencies to maintain. I'm quite serious in asking this...is there anything, anything at all, that these Republican assholes are willing to take responsibility for?

I mean, for some people...Americans...the world is literally burning, and all Republicans can think about is themselves and their petty resentments?

Per the Wikipedia article on the Woolsey Fire, one of the people who lost their home is Caitlyn Jenner. So you'd think a high-profile Republican being affected might cause Republicans to look up from their endlessly selfish pursuits and notice that something happened to one of their own. Except, oh, wait, Caitlyn naturally came out against the Trump administration's constant mistreatment of transgender people so I guess I ought not to be surprised that none of them deign to notice what's going on.

Case in point; of course, it's Trump. It was raining yesterday, so dude couldn't be bothered to get off his ass and go to the event he was supposed to go to. I mean, dude went to France and then spent the day sitting in his hotel room Tweeting and watching cable news? Who the fuck DOES shit like that? I mean, in all seriousness, send me to France and I'll gladly take part in a ceremony honoring our war dead. Hell, I'd do it regardless of the weather. I'd quite honestly just be happy to get out of this country for the first time since 2006...and my last actual overseas trip, such as it was, was in 2003. Trump isn't even paying for the trip, you give me a free trip to France...governmental responsibilities or no the last fucking thing I'm going to do is sit in my hotel room and angry-Tweet about shit.

And it's not just a routine trip, either. World War I ended 100 years ago tonight. Even I kind of feel the enormity of something like that, despite the fact that it was a long time before I was even born. World War I set the stage for America to begin establishing its power in the world and ironically it was under arch-racist Woodrow Wilson that America was one of the main powers behind the League of Nations and first really made use of the 'Soft power' that we would wield to establish such dominance over most of the next 100 years. Yet you know, it's funny that Trump and all his racist supporters never seem to have even one damn thing (good or bad) to say about somebody like Woodrow Wilson. I find that a little odd.

Except, sometimes I wonder if they'd even know who he was.

You know what gets to me, about all this? It's the smallness and yes, the meanness of these fucking people. America isn't America if everybody gets to take part, Heaven isn't heaven if everybody gets to go. These are the people who, metaphorically speaking...are why Jesus was born in a stable. Fuck you, I got mine. Despite the fact that the origins of their mentality lie in the Puritan Calvinism of the Pilgrims, the actuality of it has more to do with the Atheistic Objectivism laid out in the writings of Ayn Rand than with Christianity or the teachings of Jesus Christ...filtered through the false prophecies of  a French madman or otherwise. Trump's ideal of America is more Ayn Rand's fictional billionaires' paradise of Galt's Gulch than it is Reagan's shining city on a hill.

And yet, this toxic brew has everything to do with American Evangelical Protestant church culture...

Given that the pillars of conservatism as I was taught it were generally 'things as they are' along with free trade, human dignity, innovation, international engagement, a strong national defense and the creation of wealth for everybody (rather than the select few) this fascination today's conservatives have with withdrawing from the world...with slamming the door on the very system their parents created...baffles me to no end. It's like they basically decided that since White People weren't the ones getting everything, they didn't want it anymore...even though there's not a person on the planet (including them) whose life isn't improved in some way by our global economy, global society and yes, global engagement.

That includes Republicans, and their voters.

But I guess things being better for everybody isn't good enough for them. They want to not just get everything, but also be able to see that everybody else is miserable, too. Heaven isn't heaven if everybody gets to go. As others have pointed out, a lot of the reason these people believe in this crap is they think they'll get to sit up there in heaven and gloat while the rest of us get barbecued by Satan or something.

Personally, I prefer the bigger perspective...hell, that's the view of the Bible, of God, and of Heaven that I was taught, if you want to get really technical.

What's the point of going to heaven, if only people like me get to go? What's the point of America if only people like me get to live here? I much prefer the vision of America as the melting pot that I was taught in elementary school back in the 1970's and 1980's.

But I like this whole global society thing, too.

Why?

I'm nobody, I'm not nearly as much of a writer as many of the people I follow on social media...but I can say I know for a fact that people all over the world have read my stuff. That wouldn't be possible without the internet or the international system that America was a big part of creating. No, it doesn't dump money in my pocket...but money isn't why I do this, I'd like it to be eventually, but that takes years of work to even reach that point.

 But it's not just that kind of stuff that bothers me. Since the election, since they lost the House, Republicans seem to also be withdrawing from...well, things as they are...or in fact from the point of any person now living, always have been. Let's look at this logically: The entire idea that America was founded on was voting. If you consider even the literal descendants of the damned Pilgrims, for example, there isn't a damn one of 'em whose grandfather's grandfather's grandfather didn't live and die under some variation of the Stars and Stripes and our democratic system. Maybe it wasn't as developed as it is now, maybe America wasn't as powerful...but the ideals that guided us have always been powerful and ever-expanding, with (right or wrong) the idea that we'll eventually get to everybody. In an ideal world, everybody would have been included in the first place...but just as the idea of America is ever-expanding and our consciousness is ever-expanding, so is our definition of 'Rights.'

Of course, that's probably why Republicans, or at least today's version of them, wants to slam the door on the American Experiment, and the American Ideal as well. It's not just the rest of the world, they fear and hate their own neighbors, too.

Who needs Communists, or Russians, or Muslims or even terrorists...let alone enemy combatants or even, ya know, actual enemies when you can fear and hate the people living right next door because they might be voting for the other party? Or even just for no reason at all, or because their car or their house might be a little bit nicer? I mean, if we really want to go down the rabbit-hole of petty resentment-as-national-philosophy, it never stops.

When you're a small person who's terrified that people unlike yourself may vote, and that they may well vote for the other party...experiments and ideals don't much enter into it, do they?

But then I guess, me, Me, ME!!! isn't much of an ideal, now, is it?

And no matter how you dress it up that's what modern conservatism and Republicanism have become, the glorification of selfishness.

When what you're clearly terrified of is, in fact, the American Ideal, especially if it includes Black people voting and/or all the votes being counted?

Yeah, it's time to hang it up and go home at that point.

Ya know, I'm not sure what these fucking people believe in anymore, but it sure as hell isn't America.

These fucking people have become so small and petty that I think "Republican" should be consistently spelled with a small "r" no matter whether it's proper English or not.

It's also an inaccurate description, because the last thing these fuckers actually believe in is the Republic...not just as it's currently constituted...but as it ever was.