Monday, November 23, 2020

Words They Avoid

 

The far Right and its conservative Trump Republicans, being conservative Trump Republicans, are easily identified by their rhetoric. Their words of resentment, anger, blame, and hatred loudly convey lies, racism, and outright delusional extremism. 

Conversely they are also identifiable by their avoidance of certain words, terms and phrases.

There are some significant words that are nearly totally absent from their vocabulary. Many are clearly excluded from Trump’s boast, “I have the best words”. I’m trying in vain to recall the times I’ve seen or heard certain words and terms from the far Right.

We’ve certainly seen their reactions when others mention their forbidden words.

Let’s review some of the least mentioned words, terms, and phrases from the far Right conservative Trump Republicans.

~~~~~

Democracy: The first to spring up is democracy. “Democracy” is the unspoken name of their most feared demon and mortal enemy. They show us every day how little use they have for that word. “America isn’t a democracy! The Founders said it was dangerous!” 

Equality: Equality is the second rarest word in the cult bubble of the radical Right. They want none of that. “Who sez them gays, Mexicans, Muslims, and urban Blacks are EQUAL to us rural whites?? Not in MY Amerka!”

Progress. “Can’t have that. Sounds too progressive.”

Community. “Nope, because Communism.”

Social Security. (Mentioned only to dismantle or privatize.)

Social Justice. “More Communism. Look! Rioters!”

Social Responsibility. “That’s as commie as social justice. Socialist losers wear masks.”

Personal Responsibility. (Pre-covid self-righteousness.) “Masks violate our rights! Let’s party at the bar, gather at church the next day, and take the whole family to Grandma’s for Thanksgiving.”

Society. “No such thing. Another commie notion.”

Unity: “Unity is for losers, not tough loners who built America all by themselves.”

Pollution/Polluters. “Quick, look over there! Antifa!”

Truth. “Alternative facts” are preferred. As Giuliani said “Truth isn’t truth”.

Evidence. “Schmevidence.”

Documentation. “Fake news!”

Journalism. “Enemy of the people”.

Global Warming. “Sunspots. Fake science. Not MY problem.”

Scientific Consensus. “Non-existent.” "Needs more study." (Or whatever fossil energy corporations pay for.)

White Collar Crime. “Look over there! BLM Looters!”

The Right to Vote. “A threat to our power. Our duty is to obstruct and deny this for minorities.”

Police Brutality. “Extremely rare.” And, “Bad cops are always punished fairly.”

Institutional Racism. “BLM are the real racists.”

White Nationalism. “No such thing!" "I am a Western Chauvinist, and I refuse to apologize for creating the modern world.”*

American Bar Association Qualified Judges. “Corporate-friendly, political and theocratic correctness only. Ideological purity is all that matters”.

Higher Education. “Marxist indoctrination!”

Medicare. “Commie free stuff.”

The Right to Public Healthcare: “Insurance company profits matter more than the people’s health.”

The Right to Public Education: “More commie brainwashing. Corporate charter schools or religious education only.”

Everything Jesus said about the rich, paying taxes, loving your neighbor, and giving to the poor. “Jesus sent Trump to save America! If you don’t vote for Trump, you’re not a Christain!”

Constitutional taxes, regulation of commerce, and provision for the general welfare. “It’s all Communism! Not in MY Second Amendment Only Constitution.”

Last but not least, Compassion. This is a theme that is obviously connected to too many of those other words to be avoided above. 

* White Nationalist “Proud Boys” initiation oath.

~~~~~

Good faith dialogue and compromise are shut down because these terms are ignored. When not ignored, they are arrogantly re-defined to conform to their radical Right bias.

They bought the Big Lie and believed their Big MAGAt when he said, “Just remember, what you are seeing and what you are reading is not what's happening.” 

The Big MAGAt became Big Brother, as predicted by George Orwell in “1984”:  “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command...And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth.”

How could anyone possibly reason with them? Are we under an Orwellian curse? “The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history.”

Can a semblance of conservative ethics and honesty ever be restored? Or have these values been permanently sacrificed at the altar of the Trump Cult?

Orwell grimly concluded, "A generation of the unteachable is hanging upon us like a necklace of corpses."

He understood the destruction of language is a powerful propaganda tactic and method of control by a dictatorship. In 1984, O’Brien of the Thought Police explains to Winston Smith between torture sessions, “It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words...Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought?”

“Narrow the range of thought.” 

This seems to summarize the creed and operating principle of the far Right and its conservative Trump Republicans.

Credit is due. A vast gullible cult proves they have succeeded beyond their wildest expectations.

Sunday, November 22, 2020

Fed Up

 The Republican Party is the greatest threat to the Republic. 

The Trump Reich hates the same people and principles Hitler's Third Reich hated.

I can't stand intolerance.

I despise hatred.

I'm biased against bigots.

Angry people piss me off.


Anybody got a problem with that?

Monday, November 16, 2020

The Party of Trump

The loser of the presidential election tweeted: “I WON THE ELECTION!”

No, he didn’t. This is just another fascist Big Lie. 

This deluge of extremist lies started decades ago with angry accusations of "liberal media", that soon morphed into, "Liberals hate America" and racist birtherism.

And speaking of jackboot-style fascism, we recall “Second Amendment remedies” were invoked by Republicans when Obama was president.

Then came the rallies, with hateful chants of, "Lock her up!"

In 2016 Trump suggested,"Second Amendment people" could "do" something about Hillary Clinton.

Last year Trump boasted, "I can tell you I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump – I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough — until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad."

After Trump tweeted, “LIBERATE MICHIGAN”, MAGA terrorists plotted to kidnap and kill the governor of Michigan.

Sunday night, in response to Governor Whitmer’s new covid safety protocols, Trump’s pandemic “advisor” Scott Atlas tweeted: “The only way this stops is if people rise up. You get what you accept. #FreedomMatters #StepUp” 

Dr. Mengele wasn't the last evil medical doctor. 

They are now reptilian Republicans.

Let's be clear. All of these Republicans are instigating terrorism, and party leadership will not condemn these remarks.

The term Stochastic Terrorism best describes the far Right/Republican incitement of political violence:

Stochastic Terrorism was first noted here: 1. The use of mass communication to incite random actors to carry out violent or terrorist acts that are statistically predictable but individually unpredictable. 2. Remote-control murder by lone wolf.

And Dictionary.com says Stochastic Terrorism is: the public demonization of a person or group resulting in the incitement of a violent act, which is statistically probable but whose specifics cannot be predicted:The lone-wolf attack was apparently influenced by the rhetoric of stochastic terrorism.

Lest anyone assume I’m exaggerating the threat of Trump’s stochastic terrorism, ABC News found 54 cases invoking Trump in connection with violence, threats, and alleged assaults.

This is the American Right today.

The Party of Trump:

 

No bar too low.

No lie too big.

No heart too cold.

No mind too small.

No hate too intense.

 

Every elected Republican is an enemy of truth, democracy and equality. Fascism is the only possible endgame behind their authoritarian contempt for these values.


Saturday, November 7, 2020

A Beautiful Day


It's a beautiful day for democracy! Corporate media, including FOX(R), have finally made the call for Biden.

Remember the MAGAts gloating, "Make them cry again"?

Who's crying now?

The jury of American voters is finally having its final impeachment votes counted. We the People “hereby claim” Trump as the LOSER. He will be removed from office.

Let’s celebrate our limited victory, but be clear in this perspective.

We need to understand the Right will never stop their voter suppression. They will never surrender in their war on democracy. Fascism is always lurking in the resentments and anger of white nationalism. Corporate interests will always try to dominate our government. Hatred and division will always be stoked by Republicans and the far Right. As long as the Senate is controlled by Republicans we will have nothing close to a representative republic.

"Consent of the governed" is in the Declaration of Independence. The founders blew it with their compromise with slave states that produced the electoral college. Alexander Hamilton was prophetically correct in the Federalist Papers #22 when he condemned the inequality of the Senate:

The right of equal suffrage among the States is another exceptionable part of the Confederation. Every idea of proportion and every rule of fair representation conspire to condemn a principle, which gives to Rhode Island an equal weight in the scale of power with Massachusetts, or Connecticut, or New York; and to Delaware an equal voice in the national deliberations with Pennsylvania, or Virginia, or North Carolina. Its operation contradicts the fundamental maxim of republican government, which requires that the sense of the majority should prevail.

American democracy was hobbled from the beginning by a template for minority rule.

Yes, the Declaration of Independence called for "consent of the governed", but that "went south" from the get-go. The founders assured we wouldn't have an equitable, representative democratic republic when they imposed the undemocratic electoral college and the highly unrepresentative and imbalanced Senate.

Those ill-conceived notions along with slavery have become a long time curse on our nation that haunts us to this day.

The enemies of democracy are not defeated. Economic royalists with their corruption and reactionary politics will not disappear after Trump moves from the White House to prison or Moscow.

The warning about Hitler from Bertold Brecht still applies: "Don't yet rejoice in his defeat, you men! Although the world stood up and stopped the bastard, the bitch that bore him is in heat again.”

We need to be as unrelenting in defense of democracy as the Right is in dismantling it.

Our struggle against the enemies of democracy, domestic fascism, and radical Right terrorism will be our longest war.