Friday, July 16, 2021

The GOP has become a 'death cult'

 

   Those are strong words.  What, in reality, is a 'death cult'? 

   Well, let's try to sort it out.  For starters, it is a group of people who have accepted the idea that some of its members...and most of its enemies....will have to die in order to achieve their goals.  A very good historical example exists in Hitler's SS.  The Shutzstaffle, translates as 'the protection squadron', but the reality was ever so much more than merely a bodyguard for Der Fuhrer.  There was a component of the SS intended for that purpose, the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler.  And, they were indeed a small but very elite--even in the SS--body of troops especially trained and detailed to keep Der Fuhrer, safe.  There was also an SS Panzer division that went by this name, but that was a component of the Waffen SS, the military branch of the SS.

   In terms of their overarching mission, the SS was responsible for eliminating any and all resistance to National Socialism.  It was, in essence, a private military answerable only to the Nazi hierarchy and to Hitler himself.  They committed murder with complete impunity and were the instrument of a terror program that really was terrifying to almost all Germans.

He wants to be president for life. He's said so.

    So, here comes Donald J. Idiot, with his grandiose pretentions of becoming a 'president for life' and a full-on dictator.  He needs people who will act as his agents in eliminating opposition to his agenda.  But, this is not Germany in the 20s and 30s.  That was a nutrient rich soup full of societal breakdowns....like, for instance, runaway inflation and unemployment...ripe for despotism.  The country was in such dire straits that it was just a petrie dish waiting for the right 'microbe' to come along.  And, the Austrian corporal was just perfect for the job.  He had the skills to communicate and his speeches were magnetic...unlike Donny Boy, who never gave a speech in which he didn't just dwell on his own complaints.

  What Donald J. Idiot needed to achieve his agenda was and remains very different.  He instinctively knew that he had no case for his leadership unless he could convince a large swath of the population that America is in deep trouble too.  But, to do this in a country where affluence is still very widespread--and legions of people drive SUVs that cost what a house used to cost--it was clearly necessary to weave a web of lies, to create an entire narrative that, while false, was somehow believable....at least by the throngs of gullible white people who feel terrified that they're losing their dominant status in America.  Donny Boy made them  believe that the 'Brown Wave' is coming, and they're going to take over and the country will be destroyed as they attempt to turn it into a Socialist--read 'Communist'--welfare state for the unwashed masses.

  And, if you connect the dots, you can begin to see how this path led to January 6th, the first attempted violent overthrow of the United States government in modern history.  Groups of angry and threatened white Americans have been proliferating at a record pace. You have the, by now, standard MAGA KoolAids, the OathKeepers, the Proud Boys, the various neo-Nazi identified cells, and then you begin to get into the really nutso groups, like QAnon.  The Southern Poverty Law Center catalogs such groups, under 'hate groups' and their list is swelling fast.

   We have already established how far off the deep-end Q is, but they are not alone.  And, now, because the Idiot has stuck to his Big Lie, that the election was stolen from him....despite mountains of evidence that prove it was not....more than a third of the American people believe it was.  They firmly believe that Joe Biden is an illegitimate president, and that the country is in dire straits, even as Uncle Joe does his level best to undo the extensive damage that the Idiot inflicted on it during his four years of mayhem. There was almost nothing that did not receive his destructive attention.  One of the last things he did was to okay the slaughter of wolves on federal lands.  You name it, he shat on it.  That's his style, eh.

  And, now, we are standing here looking over a cliff.  If we are unable to pull together and create enough resistance to prevent it....and that is a big question-mark at this point....we will watch as the GOPs steal and destroy our democracy.  The reams of voter suppression measures they are putting in place at the state level will work.  They will make it so difficult for poor and disadvantaged people to vote that many will quite likely just fail to make the added effort.  The GOPs know beyond any doubt that they cannot win a fair election in which all Americans have the opportunity to vote.  They turned out what they thought was a tsunami of voters....and the Dems topped it with a SEVEN MILLION vote margin.  They are screwed unless they cheat.

  And, cheat they will.  

  Of course, this doesn't really present any kind of moral or ethical challenge for them because they are so used to lying by now that it is like falling off a log.  True. The sites that check facts for a living, Snopes, Politifact, and others....all document that particularly Fox but also OANN and NewMax...lie their asses off.  Fox lies 87% of the time....nary a qualm of conscience about it.  Occasionally, however, somebody on Fox does get tired of all the lies and calls them out.  Notably Shepherd Smith (since left) and Chris Wallace have drawn a line.  But, most of them, even to the point of lying about vaccines and potentially killing people who listen, lie like a rug.  

  So, how can a political party take a position that will clearly result in getting some of its members killed and.....NOT be a 'Death Cult'?  

   

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