Sunday, May 16, 2021

Extremism: How/Why?

 Simple observation of the current events of each day reveals increasing examples of extremism in action. Perhaps the January 6th insurrection, led by our former president through words if not actions, is the simplest example. Republicans, including sitting Congresspeople, who used to just go about their daily business, thought it was ok to storm the Capitol, break windows, steal stuff inside, and even act to kill those defending the building. And then they wanted to just go home and watch a little Telly with a nice cold beer, or perhaps a glass of wine.

And then I read about the growing mess in Israel and Gaza. Hamas fires rockets into Israel, and then acts shocked that Israel beats the crap out of them. I mean this has been happening for over 70 years. And they haven’t learned yet??  And what I observe is that Israel, including especially its leaders are beginning to resemble that crowd in Germany 80+ years ago. Yeah, and Bibi acts in ways similar to that Adolph dude.  What are you saying??? That Israeli’s now resemble Nazi’s???  Well, maybe not in so many words, but Israel has been moved to the hard right by the Arabs' insistence on throwing rockets at them, and attempting actually to eliminate them from the planet. And despite the 70+ years of hard evidence, the Arabs seem still not to understand that if they begin tossing rockets at Israel, then Israel will beat the living crap out of them. You would think the 1948 mess and that Six-Day War thing might have given them caution. But no, apparently Arabs don’t learn well, if at all.  And so the gunners on both sides keep it up, despite the horrid toll on innocents in their respective lands.  Jared, I thought you fixed all that crap. So, that’s a No, huh??

And then we return home, where the idiots to the right of the old Republican Party have taken charge, and are busily throwing out all remnants of civilized behavior.  How did that happen? Well, enter Donald Trump. Now Donald Trump was and remains a clown, all due apologies to real clowns. He’s ignorant of most subjects, he lies all the time, even when everybody knows he’s lying and he knows they know.  He is fully corrupt to the core. He will cheat you even if it is only marginally to his benefit.  He’s a classic racist, seems to love Nazi’s, and obviously has zero respect for women.  Some of us think he never made it much beyond the 4th grade in the education arena—maybe Daddy paid to have someone sit in his chair.

And so this idiot-malenfant decides he isn’t having enough fun working the TV crowds on that idiot show The Apprentice.  No, he needs a bigger venue for his ever-needy ego.  And so he runs for President. So, what, you say, idiots decide to run for President all the time. I mean, Ronald Reagan???

So, how could Trump win? Well, we grossly underestimated the gigantic American crowd of folks who were just pissed off at almost everything.  There is in the world, and certainly in America, a desperate need to hate someone, or some group. People who feel they are insufficiently appreciated as humans, have a compelling need to find other humans to disregard. In the case of White Americans, people of color, but even moreso, people from that desperate land known as the Hispanic lands south of us are there to be despised.  These desperate Whities need folks on whom they can look down.

And then along comes this clownish figure who serves up daily dishes of “Folks to Hate”.  He says it’s ok to hate people of color, or just people who are different.  And he lies to them about almost everything, but apparently they don’t care, so long as he says it’s ok to hate again.  And after a while, they begin to think, “well if this leader-dude lies all the time, then lying must be ok again”.  And so, they begin to applaud his lies, even when they know he is lying. Cuz lying is now officially OK.

Now to be fair, there were a lot of people in America who for their own reasons decided they did not like anyone named Clinton, and certainly not Hillary Clinton.  And so The Donald, to the bafflement of most observers, won that 2016 election. And then the real parade of idiots and liars came onto our screens on a daily base.   Trump seemed to fire more folks than most president hired.  And he engaged in even bigger lies, on a daily basis.  He lied to the point that observers began keeping score. From Wikipedia:

“By October 9, 2019, The Washington Post's fact-checking team documented that Trump had "made 13,435 false or misleading claims over 993 days". On October 18, 2019, the Washington Post Fact Checker newsletter described the situation:

A thousand days of Trump.
We often hear from readers wondering how President Trump's penchant for falsehoods stacks up in comparison to previous presidents. But there is no comparison: Trump exists in a league of his own. Deception, misdirection, gaslighting, revisionism, absurd boasts, and in some cases, provable lies, are core to his politics.

After departing the White House on the final day of his presidency, January 20, 2021, Trump gave a farewell address at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland prior to departing on Air Force One for his residence in Palm Beach, Florida.  The Associated Press fact-checked his speech, and reported that it included a number of false statements about his presidency and his administration's accomplishments. These included the statements that he passed the largest tax cuts in history; that the U.S. economy during his tenure was the greatest in U.S. history; that he achieved record job creation; that his administration rebuilt both the U.S. military and the American manufacturing industry; that he destroyed the ISIS caliphate; and a reiteration of his previously repeated falsehood that he, and not former President Barack Obama, had passed the Veterans Choice Act. These falsehoods added to the 30,573 falsehoods that The Washington Post's fact-checker had tallied by the end of Trump's presidency, an average of 21 falsehoods a day."

And so lying was officially OK. Therefore it was equally OK for people not named Trump to lie.  Enter Mitch McConnell, and Kevin McCarthy, and Lindsey Graham, and Teddy Cruz. And then enter QAnon, and others of that ilk—people who exist to create false conspiracy theories that can be peddled to the crowd of folks who now see that it is ok to lie and ok to Hate.

But then Trump loses to a reasonable human being. Yeah, Biden and Kamala Harris actually got more votes than Trump, many millions more votes.  But of course, Trump’s ego cannot stand losing, and, since he lies for a living, he engages in lying absurdities, and fully embraces the false notion, yet another conspiracy, that thousands, millions even, of votes were shipped into the country to destroy his chances of winning.  And even after multiple court challenges, and multiple tests at the state level proved beyond any reasonable doubt that Biden won honestly, Trump and his minions refuse to concede.

And now, the lying machines are operating full blast, focusing on notions of a fake election, and, more recently, on false notions about the COVID pandemic. Most recently, the gaslighters are shouting that Anthony Fauci actually caused the pandemic by funding the Chinese to carry out research on COVID, and then release it into the wild.

And we’re off to the races. Lying is now accepted by our opposing leaders, and that party formerly known as the Grand Old Party has now died a natural death, replaced by the Trumpian KKKNeoNazicultische clan. Any opposition within the ranks is no longer accepted, and so we have the Liz Cheney ouster, the official act of suicide by that old party.

But now, where do we go? We have an absurdist right wing party of liars catering to the apparent needs of 70+ million voters who still need someone to hate.  They still love The Donald, amazingly. And the leadership of this new KKKNeoNazicultische clan, the Kevin McCarthy-Mitch McConnell-Teddy Cruz—Lindsey Graham-Marjorie Taylor Greene-Josh Hawley’s of the world still need to cater to the Hate crowd. And so, I await with some interest where the Liz Cheney’s, the George W. Bush’s, and the other more rational old-timey GOPers will go. Will they reinvent their party, forging a new moderate right wing party to counter their old, now dead party of extremist liars? Stay tuned.  And whatever happened to the George Will’s of the world, you know those old dudes who used to comment from the right wing of responsible journalism, but who are now very, very quiet?  And is America in its final stage of Senescence? Again, stay tuned.