Signs Of The Times (Q-Berty, The Series, Part One.)

At length did cross an Albatross,
Thorough the fog it came;
As if it had been a Christian soul,
We hailed it in God's name.

It ate the food it ne'er had eat,
And round and round it flew.
The ice did split with a thunder-fit;
The helmsman steered us through!
And a good south wind sprung up behind;

The Albatross did follow,
And every day, for food or play,
Came to the mariner's hollo!

In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,
It perched for vespers nine;
Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white,
Glimmered the white Moon-shine.'

'God save thee, ancient Mariner!
From the fiends, that plague thee thus!—
Why look'st thou so?'—With my cross-bow
I shot the ALBATROSS. ~Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

At some point in the last couple of days, former Trump lawyer Lin Wood made the sign of the "Q" in the air, in lieu of the sign of the Cross. Shades, perhaps, of John Galt at the end of Atlas Shrugged?

If it had been written by some dumb-ass Trump-Supporting teenage Fanfic writer these days, maybe.

Fucking Christ, what the hell is even wrong with people?
The idolatry of this so-called political movement never ceases.

Note I say this as a former Christian and former conservative. These people have well and truly thrown out Christ, though their attempt to replace Him with Donald Trump appears to have failed.

This isn't the improvement that it looks like at first.

I say that because these fucking idiots appear to be wanting to party like it's 1935, or something.

Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar, among others, were all set to form some sort of "Anglo-Saxon caucus" to protect "Anglo-Saxon architecture and political traditions."

What the hell is an "Anglo-Saxon political tradition?"

Elected kings, perhaps?

Constant, crippling wars with the Vikings?

Being defeated by the French? 

(I mean, technically the Normans were French Vikings, but they were also one of the primary groups to factor into the formation of both modern British and modern French cultures.)

No, I don't think that's it.

I don't think that's it because I distinctly remember that, in American culture at least, prattling on about "White Anglo-Saxon Protestants" began with the second formation of the Ku Klux Klan around 100 years ago, which was directly inspired by the film Birth Of A Nation, a racist film directed by DW Griffith and released in 1915 that was, in fact, screened at the White House and given rave reviews by none other than President Woodrow Wilson.

Just in case anybody wonders what they meant by "Make America Great Again."

This is what they'd replace modern concepts of freedom and liberty and democracy and self determination with.

The Anglo-Saxon Caucus appears to already have imploded, due to extreme blowback even within the Republican Party itself (I deliberately used Adam Kinzinger's quote-Tweet as an example) with even MTG herself trying to pawn off responsibility onto her staff, or something.

But I'm here to tell you, the idea will stick, if not actually gain steam with what's left of the Republican voter base. I personally know Republican voters who think that pretty much every President prior to Trump (with the debatable exception of open racists like Andrew Jackson and Woodrow Wilson) somehow "sold out America."

And this was an effort by the worst of the Republican Party to harness the energy of that dim-witted, violent-minded, nationalist base and to turn the Vox Vulgaris being given energy and form by people like J.D. Vance, Peter Theil and Tucker Carlson into a more-coherent political movement with actual organization in Congress to back it up.

And just because the effort disintegrated in the space of a few days, don't think that means anything.

This ain't over.

If anybody's political fortunes suffer, it will be those of Republicans who pushed back against this shit.

I'm willing to bet that in a few years, Blowbert or MTG will be the House Minority Leader. In another ten years, even with the Republican Party (assuming current electoral trends continue) reduced to irrelevance, we'll wish for the good old days of Tea Party Joe Walsh, Paul Ryan and Trey Gowdy.

I just read John Boehner's book. Remember that guy? The first nominally Tea Party Speaker Of The House?

He's being given a redemption arc these days because current Republicans are so insane that motherfucker almost sounds like a Democrat by comparison.

And don't think Republican voters haven't noticed this and made the same comparison, albeit negatively.

Modern Republicanism is a feedback loop of shitty behavior, shitty ideas, and shitty treatment of other people and don't you forget it.

Ideas pushed by outright Nazis and White Supremacists five or ten years ago are now the main consumable fare on Fox News.

The "Alt-Right" may have collapsed fairly quickly, but most of its ideas quietly became Republican Party doctrine over the last few years, officially or (more often) otherwise.

Don't ever think these people bitching about "Cancel culture" or higher education or Political Correctness (whatever that means) is in good faith.

They're just mad because they don't control the narrative anymore, even as regards themselves.

And these fucking people would burn down the whole damn world, would do or say anything, to regain that power. At the absolute minimum they'd like to go back to the days when even a Democratic presidential candidate had to try to sound like a conservative. Not that any of these motherfuckers are conservative in any sense of what that word actually means. The truth is, given their darkest desires, they'd just as soon go back to the days of Segregation, or Slavery, or Bishops and Kings ruling over everything. They just want the label of being conservative, to try and preserve the myths they tell about themselves to try and make it seem like they're righteous.

But you know, I remember what I was taught, and this sure as hell ain't it.

Being a conservative, in any real sense, is about trying to preserve the status quo of the society you're in and reverence for revealed Truth and the wisdom of one's ancestors. According to those things, America is and should be a pluralistic small-L, Small-D, Liberal Democracy. Yes, that means neither conservatives nor liberals would get to win all the time. That's not what these people want. That's not what these people are.

That's not what the perpetual anti-liberal Opposite Day of modern Republicanism demands, either.

And it's a sign of the time that so many people cannot, or simply refuse to, see it.

That's got to stop. If we want a better country, we have to be better citizens.

And I'm here to tell you, we can't ever let these motherfuckers live this bullshit down.

Ah! well a-day! what evil looks
Had I from old and young!
Instead of the cross, the Albatross
About my neck was hung.

~Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

Q-Berty (Progenitor post for this series.)