Rejecting America (Bottomless III.)

And so tomorrow, as we take the campaign South and West; as we learn that the struggles of the textile workers in Spartanburg are not so different than the plight of the dishwasher in Las Vegas; that the hopes of the little girl who goes to a crumbling school in Dillon are the same as the dreams of the boy who learns on the streets of L.A.; we will remember that there is something happening in America; that we are not as divided as our politics suggests; that we are one people, we are one nation. And, together, we will begin the next great chapter in the American story, with three words that will ring from coast to coast, from sea to shining sea. Yes, we can. ~Barack Obama

There's something I'm becoming concerned about, and it seems to be getting worse rather quickly. Some people have said, given the choice between democracy and losing power, conservatives will reject democracy.

I think it's actually worse than that, and I think this process began over a dozen years ago.

Consider what Elie, here, posted about Fox News (Black guy looting) EVERYTHING IS BAD (Black guy looting) BUY BITCOIN! (Black guy looting) and you know, if this is the kind of shit they're doing these days no wonder we're up to our ears in racist dickbags and people who want to overthrow the government.

And of course Fox News and Rupert Murdoch are balls-deep in this ridiculous shit. Even smarter people on that side, like Elon Musk...seem to find it funny to enable this garbage.

Racism is, of course, the drug being ginned up that these motherfuckers think they will give to the masses to cover for our loss of freedoms and rights...and of course there's a lot of fucking idiots out there who seem to be just fine with all that.

But it gets even worse than that. And it will get worse still.

There are one hell of a lot of these people for whom Fox News doesn't go far enough.

More so even than merely rejecting democracy, these people intend to reject America. Don't get me wrong, it's still for basically the same fucking reason. It all started when a Black man ran for President, expressing a vision of America that was both inclusive and patriotic...and then he won.

These people, be they either authoritarians, racists or whatever else, will never forgive America for, as they see it "Making a Black man the boss of them." Yes, it's childish. So is calling a foreign dictator "Vlad The Great." I can remember when saying shit like that would get you beat up, by conservatives.

As my friend put it "I can remember buying the original Zelda for my NES. Both things are ancient history." 

Yep.

Now, this old former conservative looks at this shit and thinks "Jesus Christ passed out in a shopping cart" and no one on the red side of the line does anything, except cheer this crap on.

I mean for fuck's sake they ran out Tea Party Joe Walsh and Justin Amash, stars of the Tea Party wave of 2009-2010. Mitt Romney, 2012 Republican Presidential candidate...is basically persona non grata in Republican Land despite representing Utah in the Senate. There's not even anything of the old brand left. These people are, for the most part, just dumb racist fascists and they're pretty in your face about it, too. It's not even just that there's nothing else left. It's that there's nothing else these people want to have but autocracy and fascism. 

And if they can't have Trump...they'll kiss Vladimir Putin's ass and live vicariously through whatever image Russia presents to the world...which often bears little resemblance to what's actually going on there.

For years now, the far-right has sought to portray Russia as a religious nation and the Russians as some kind of holy, pious people. Religious observance percentages in Russia are actually pretty low, abortion and drug use rates are pretty high...and Russia is a dysfunctional mess that's openly dominated by criminals and is back to spending too much money on its military. Despite this, they've been unable to conquer Ukraine despite trying since 2014. 

Also, I'm not sure how it is now, but maybe a decade ago I remember reading somewhere, taking note of the fact and doing a little research that showed online porn seemed to be positively dominated by two groups of people, the British and the Russians...all supposedly conservative people who very loudly pretend to have become more so.

You do the math. If these people are so right...or so righteous...why all the drugs and freaky sexual bullshit?

Of course, I also read just the other day that traces of Cocaine have been found all over Parliament in the UK. I guess these people are pretty in your face with their hypocrisy too.

And conservatives in general tend to be bigger porn consumers anyway. As for drugs, at the higher levels, they sure love their Bolivian Marching Powder, too. I'm also reminded of that guy screaming in the face of a Michigan state trooper during the COVID-19 lockdown protests while wearing a pot-leaf T-shirt.

I can remember when doing anything that gave a cop the hint that you smoked weed was regarded as being really fucking dumb.

And when you point this type of shit out, their answer to everything is basically to loudly scream "COMMUNISM!" Even though Communism hasn't been a thing since 1989 and as if they're not happily, willingly crawling in bed with a KGB agent every time they get a fucking chance to. I don't know how evil, hypocritical or stupid you have to be to not see how twisted and wrong that is, but they must be redlining all three by now. Point it out? They just jam the pedal into the floor and firewall the engines. 

These people, I think, have hit the wall of reality, backed the now heavily-damaged truck up, and decided to hit it again until they either crash through or can go no further.

I have to wonder how many people on their own side will be a casualty of that. I saw this tonight, too.

Apparently Kyle Rittenhouse regrets going to Kenosha, and he visibly recoiled when some right-wing interviewer congratulated him. Assuming this is true...well, there's going to be your next culture war casualty and the next person these fuckers throw out the airlock right there.

I keep trying to warn people no one is safe from these fascist motherfuckers.

Except maybe for Donald Trump.

I saw that Devin Nunes is resigning from Congress to go work for Trump's social media startup. I have to wonder how long it'll be before he gets stabbed in the back and kicked to the curb. 

These days that seems to be happening to everybody but Trump and the Boebert/Cawthorn/MTG Axis Of Stupid, and since I also saw tonight that Dan Crenshaw isn't rolling over and taking it called out these people for their "Performance Art" bullshit and called them "Grifters in our midst"...his words...and, yeah. I see it as less the Night Of The Long Knives and more the Night Of The Large Rubber Dildoes but it will happen. It has to, The Purge, Republican edition, is coming.

These people, as Jim Wright of Stonekettle Station put it, are leaving fascism in the rear view mirror. Trouble is, they're coming up on what's basically Fascism, As Written By The People Who Brought Us Jackass and Survivor. Or, if you prefer a shorter label, Idiocratic Fascism: It's got what plants crave.

Even my previous label of "Atavistic non-state fascism" suggests an actual philosophy and is thus probably inaccurate.

As I wrote yesterday there's people who are cynically trying to use this shit but who intend to pull a bait-and-switch, substituting religious theocracy at the last minute when it's too late to do anything about it. Thing is, in researching that post and for some other stuff I'm doing, I was looking up the Sovereign Military Order Of Malta last night...and the sad truth is that (likely against the will of the cynical manipulators) the two tendencies may merge, in which case you end up with a religious leader who dresses like Liberace's stunt double, praises selfishness and says dumb shit. 

You look at some of these people, and you can see the scandals and the Tijuana Donkey Show politics that might well result from them having power. And since there's already been at least one set of reality shows that focused on a large family of religious fanatics and got all tangled up in gross nasty sexual molestation allegations, I don't think it's right to crack any jokes about that.

These fucking people might be dumb, evil, and fundamentally unserious, but what they want to try to do is serious as hell. They want to dismantle America and sell it for parts, to burn everything down so they can rule the ashes. They might be incompetent morons, but they came within minutes of being able to divide the country and end up with Americans shooting at each other.

And they're still trying for exactly that.

And all you get out of it is the perverse entertainment value of the hypocrisy Olympics.

We don't have to go out like that.

So don't.

And the fact that they're being so hypocritical, in your face and stupid about everything should make it easy to say "No."

So why aren't you?

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Part II

The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn't die in vain. Where, then, is the road to peace? Well, it's a simple answer after all. You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, "There is a price we will not pay." There is a point beyond which they must not advance. This is the meaning in the phrase of Barry Goldwater's "peace through strength." Winston Churchill said that "the destiny of man is not measured by material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits — not animals." And he said, "There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty. ~Ronald Reagan