GQP A Threat To America

April 26, 2021

America right now is in a grip of not only a health-related pandemic, but also a mental-phyical epidemic of pure crazy-lying and bullshit by nearly half of the population — Republicans aren’t really doing anything to help the country, but are repeatedly trying to tear it down.
A baffling situation to me when a large crowd of people won’t believe their own eyes and ears. And make up horrible shit to just gain points with a small, racist, and ignorant base:

Santorum is an asshole (Newsweek):

“We birthed a nation from nothing. I mean, there was nothing here,” Santorum said.
“I mean, yes we have Native Americans, but candidly there isn’t much Native American culture in American culture.”

He continued, “It was born of the people who came here pursuing religious liberty to practice their faith, to live as they ought to live and have the freedom to do so. Religious liberty. Those are the two bulwarks of America. Faith and freedom.”

Although Santorum got burnt for this shit — even Meghan McCain popped back: “Rick Santorum has always been an absolute a**hole – this is so ignorant and dangerous” — yet that is the norm for Republicans right now. Culture war is all they have, from Dr. Seuss to the current fright over Joe Biden’s climate policy requiring no more hamburgers.
Crazy is the GQP platform, and it’s a danger:

And some pops from The Bulwark piece:

The GOP’s pathologies run too deep to temporize. Their most glaring manifestation is but a symptom: the party’s enthrallment to a dangerous, unstable, bigoted, and nihilistic narcissist possessed by autocratic cravings, a contempt for law, and a poisonous disdain for all other human beings — epitomized by his murderous neglect of a deadly pandemic which needlessly killed over half a million Americans and, thereafter, by his incitement of, and pleasure in, a deadly attack on our Capitol by extremists inflamed by his lies and determined keep him in power.

Here’s the crux: All that is toxic in Trump, and more, defines the GOP’s essence — and would if he disappeared tomorrow.

Today’s Republican party is addicted to racism, sexism, nativism, cultural revanchism, fundamentalism, extremism, and authoritarianism.
It scorns science; subverts governance; and reinvents reality. Its leaders traffic in ostentatious mendacity.

Go read the whole thing, more of the same, and continually saying it better.

Peter Wehner at The Atlantic this morning also delves into why GQPers are a grave threat to American democracy, and in a lengthy piece examines the bubbling rot — with this the key ingredient:

The radicalization manifests in myriad ways, most notably in Trump’s enduring popularity among Republicans.
Trump’s loyalists have launched ferocious attacks against Republican lawmakers who voted to impeach him for his role in the insurrection, even as national Republicans eagerly position themselves as his heir.
Right-wing media display growing fanaticism, while public-opinion polls show GOP voters embracing Trump’s lie that the election was stolen from him.
The Republican Party’s illiberalism, its barely disguised nativism, and its white identity politics are resonating with extremist groups.
Slate’s Will Saletan, in an article cataloging recent developments, summarized things this way: “The Republican base is thoroughly infected with sympathies for the insurrection.”

In contrast, Joe Biden is a way-welcome embracing change of pace:

Eugene Robinson at The Washington Post this afternoon looks at possibly losing the doomscrolling addiction:

During his first 100 days in office, President Biden has overseen the distribution of covid-19 vaccines faster than anyone could have anticipated, won approval of a massive $1.9 trillion pandemic relief program and rejoined the battle against the existential threat of climate change.
But his biggest accomplishment has less to do with policy than psychology: After the insanity of the Donald Trump era, he has made almost everything less crazy.

For four long years, we were forced to live in a constant state of anxiety that rarely dipped below the where’s-my-Xanax level.
We went through multiple news cycles every day, as the morning’s outrageous presidential tweet was followed by the afternoon’s off-the-wall presidential claim — and then overtaken by the evening’s presidential recap of whatever he’d just seen on Fox News.

It was brutalizing, and Biden ended the stream of lunacy pouring from the White House. There are days now when the administration is so radically normal that it’s actually kind of boring. Thank you, Mr. President, from a grateful nation.
…
Biden’s press secretary, Jen Psaki, holds daily, fact-filled briefings for White House reporters. That should not be worth noting — Barack Obama’s White House did the same thing, as did George W. Bush’s, Bill Clinton’s, George H.W. Bush’s, Ronald Reagan’s, Jimmy Carter’s — and the list goes on.
But Trump’s White House first abandoned the “fact-filled” aspect of that tradition.
At first, what his spokespeople said from the podium simply could not be trusted — then they mostly gave up on daily briefings altogether.
We learned about what the administration was doing mainly from Trump’s Twitter feed, condemning me and many others to a life of constant doomscrolling.
…
And sometimes we overlook the obvious: When Biden stands before a joint session of Congress on Wednesday night, behind him — for the first time — will sit two women: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Vice President Harris. Biden’s first 100 days have seen relatively little commentary about Harris’s groundbreaking achievement. Historians will not make the same omission.

Biden goes to church regularly. He loves spending time with his family. He pays attention to his briefings about national security. He loves dogs, although one of his dogs doesn’t love strangers. He is comfortable being the center of attention, but he doesn’t need to be.

Politically, the nation remains bitterly divided. But thanks to Biden, we can all breathe a collective sigh of relief.

I hear that…

“Only one course of action — total commitment…”

(Image by illustrator and portrait painter, Tim O’Brien, and can be found here).

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.