We Hold These Truths to be Self Evident

I think many Americans have come to view their political party as they view their religion or sports teams, essentially immutable choices that they can never change. But it’s really a choice like buying milk that you can change whenever you want. And to extend this analogy to the two US political parties, if you want white milk and only white milk, then the Republican party is your party. If you can’t stand any other types of “woke” milk existing, like oat or almond, then you have one choice. And the big thing is, they are doing everything they can to make you think that you have no other choices but white milk by reducing the number of stores that sell milk and the times that they are open. The Democratic party on the other hand doesn’t tell you what type of milk to drink, they let you drink whatever milk you want. And they keep the milk store open and stocked for all your milk needs. And if you want a type of milk they don’t carry, then you can request the type you like and they’ll try to get it in stock. Don’t even think about asking for chocolate milk at the GOP milk store, and GOD FORBID you ask for oat milk because that’s socialism. And let’s face it, the Republicans can’t run a store with any more ability than they run Congress, so if you actually want the milk store open at all, then there’s only one party to vote for.

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2021/10/texas-removes-suicide-hotline-lgbtq-site-hurt-gop-governors-reputation/ It would be easy to lay this at the feet of a political party where “the cruelty is the point”, but we all know where these “Texas values” come from– the religious communities that mark children as young as 6,7,8 years old as “sinners” and ostracize and shame them.

This week, one of Tennessee’s two senators had some exceedingly dumb words to say in relation to Taylor Swift, one of the state’s residents who she lost the support of. But this Senator, as we might say in Mississippi, a neighbor of Tennessee, is dumb as a box of rocks. She claims that “Marxist, socialist societies, they do not allow women to dress, or sing, or be on stage, or to entertain”. For starters, she conflates Marxism/Communism and Socialism which are not even remotely the same system. America and other western countries are all socialist, because capitalism doesn’t maintain and build roads and bridges. Capitalism doesn’t enforce the law. Capitalism doesn’t keep your water and food and safe nor does it give money to Grandma and Grandpa when they get too old to work so they don’t suffer in the final years of their lives. All of those things are socialist. Even China isn’t completely communist, as there is some level of autonomy throughout the economy and there isn’t forced sharing of resources or many of the other features of pure communist systems. But putting aside all of that which should have been learned in 8th grade government class, the idea that any regime of any type in the last 100 years has actually stopped singers from singing is preposterous and just, honestly, a flat-out lie. Even at the height of the Russian version of communism, they had female singing stars. China has singing stars RIGHT NOW. Even though I know what Republican politics looks like these days, bereft of solutions, delivering only outrage and fear to their constituents, every once in a while something like this still stands out as being exceptionally stupid and mendacious. The new GOP–blurring the line between ignorance and lying. What a time to be alive!

Which was it? Surely both of these can’t be true. The first quote was, of course, the original statement from the police spokesperson, and this is the reason that I feel absolutely no satisfaction or joy at the verdict just handed down. Nor do I feel that any fundamental changes have taken place in police departments across the nation after this conviction. I think everyone knows in their hearts that if video hadn’t surfaced of Floyd’s murder, the “medical incident” lie would have stood and there would be no justice today. During the final days of the trial itself, yet another unarmed black man was killed in the Minneapolis area, and that’s in one state, in one metro area. In 2020, there were over 1,000 people killed by police. And until bad cops like Chauvin are removed from the system, and as long as police departments and their fellow officers cover up for criminal activity, this will continue on forever. So even though right now, before appeal, in this case, justice seems to have been served, I feel absolutely nothing.

After the second mass shooting in only a week, this one (at last count) claiming the lives of 10 people, it becomes clearer by the day that the GOP is far, far beyond being a political party. With their opposition to masks, vaccines, and support of guns, they make it clear that there is no one they won’t kill or let die (including themselves) to advance whatever their current goals are. Were it not for abortion, guns, religious discrimination of the LGBT community, and white supremacy, there wouldn’t even be a Republican party. I challenge anyone to state clearly what the current GOP’s policy goals are. “Cancel culture”, the cause du jour for the current right wing, is not only not an issue, but not an issue where legislation would be constitutional and effective. But while claiming to be pro-life, the GOP absolutely love murder, if not in practice, at least the idea of it. For example, they support endless wars with non-state enemies, murder by gun owner, cop killings, the death penalty, and murder by attempted coup, and that’s only the direct murders. They also believe the government has no role in preventing the indirect deaths caused by businesses killing you with bad food, pollution, or opioids, by allowing people and in fact encouraging people to not wear masks and take vaccines. and by allowing hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths each year through lack of health coverage. And yet, they carve out one tiny exception to their death urge for embryos, while ignoring the life of the person carrying it. (Abortion of viable fetuses is already illegal, so any claim that this is happening and that’s what they’re trying to prevent is a lie.) They really seem to embrace the Hobbesian view that life in civilization, as opposed to the state of nature where civilization has collapsed, should be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” For everything that’s not an embryo, that is.

The newly elected Senator from Georgia has been killing the GOP (with words) lately. For the people he is talking to and about, words are ineffective, since their whole idea of power is about the pure exercise of it without consequence, and that power in the south and in the rural areas is always, always aimed at non-whites and non-christians, or anyone who opposes their shared delusions, even if those people are in the majority. Senator Warnock had this to say about the filibuster, which is currently standing in the way of most major federal legislation: “The filibuster, at the end of the day, is about minority rights in the Senate. How are you going to insist on protecting minority rights in the Senate, while refusing to protect minority rights in the society?” And on the topic of guns in Georgia after a brutal killing spree: “This shooter was able to kill all of these folks the same day he purchased a firearm but right now what is our legislature doing? … [Preventing] people from being able to vote the same day they register.” He is finding a truth that is unassailable, and then lambasting them with it, with no defense available.

Governor Kemp, who likely stole the governorship through similar underhanded tactics, signed the latest voting “rights” bill in Georgia, which criminalizes handing out water to people waiting in line to vote, amongst other penalties and barriers for people simply trying to exercise one of their most basic constitutional rights–the right to vote. The beauty of how evil this is is that the GOP is the one causing the long voting lines in the first place. And their voters, who cannot see the danger that these fascist tactics pose, continue to vote for the GOP for one of two reasons…guns or abortion or both. I cannot see another reason people would support their party, except for the white supremacy thing that their party is unable to purge. The Republicans are so lost now that they can’t even vote for popular legislation at the national level, which is why they all voted against the COVID stimulus bill.

And Senator Warnock is correct–no other issue will be important if Republicans are successfully able to steal democracy away from the majority. If they’re willing to do something this blatant, citing a vague non-reason of “election security” while failing to adequately define what that is and why it is necessary, then it will be hard to imagine what they would do when their fascistic takeover of democracy is finished.

Yesterday, both houses of Congress passed an historic 1.9 trillion Covid relief bill that seeks to alleviate some of the pain that Americans have been enduring throughout the pandemic of the last year. It’s popularity among Americans is about 70%, which in America means it’s incredibly popular. And yet, not a single Republican in either chamber voted in favor of it. That means that they voted against a bill that, based on the percentages, their constituents actually want and need. And yet, all I could think of was, how long would it be before Republicans start taking credit for what’s in the bill? The answer: immediately. One of the senators from my own state, Mississippi, helped write an amendment called the RESTAURANTS Act, which was intended to help struggling restaurants. Then, he voted against HIS OWN AMENDMENT and against the bill altogether. But he touted the bill as a positive, while failing to mention that he voted against it. The smart thing to do from a political perspective is to make each of these GOPers pay a political price whenever any of their constituents receive aid from the package by pointing out that their senators and representatives voted against it. Hammer it home. Run advertisements on TV and the web. Campaign on it. And as the benefits continue on for the next 6 months or more, continue to point it out. This is what you call a meatball in baseball–a middle-middle fastball that is begging to be hit for a home run. Let’s hope the Dems are ready to hit.

This week, after Governor Greg Abbott blamed Antifa BLM the green new deal (which doesn’t even exist, and especially doesn’t exist in Texas) for their power outages, and Ted Cruz blamed his daughters for why he was in Cancun at the time, it’s clear the modern GOP does not take accountability for anything. The reason is, taking care of their constituents is far down their list of priorities, and way WAY far down from their actual priorities..maintaining power so they can rule by fiat without consequence and generating money from the donor class. Everything else appears to be ancillary concerns. This is why taking money out of politics would be such a great idea…if the Republicans were forced to run on ideas alone, they would lose in landslides all over the country.

First prediction. The main argument the Senate Republicans are using (the ones who voted no to continue the proceeding) is that the impeachment is unconstitutional because the official is out of office. That means that as soon as / if the GOP ever gains control of the House of Representatives, they will immediately start impeaching Democrats who are out of office. That’s who they are now, just ask Amy Coney Barrett, the Justice they swore they would never confirm when they stole Obama’s Supreme Court choice.

Second prediction. If the Senate Republicans fail to join the Democratic majority in convicting Trump, they and/or their families will, at some point in the fairly near future, be on the receiving end of one of Trump’s violent mobs. Liberals/Democrats make ReTrumplicans angry, but nothing makes them angrier than supposedly disloyal Republicans (RINOs). That’s why they wanted to hang Mike Pence, because he dared break with right-wing hegemony which called for unlawfully overturning the election results. There was practically no one more loyal than Pence, and look how they treated him, from the President to his mob. At yesterday’s impeachment trial, what the former president knew about Mike Pence being in danger was called into question. The article states that his lawyers “were not able to say exactly when Trump knew a mob had overtaken the Capitol as Congress met to certify the electoral results, while denying that he knew Pence was in danger” even though multiple reports *from Republicans* indicated he knew what was happening, and chose to do nothing.

A country artist was recorded using a racial slur, and just like they did with Kyle Rittenhouse, the guy who murdered protesters in Wisconsin, they virtue signaled to him with their pocketbooks that he is their guy. And the right wing / trump world love cancel culture just as much as anyone else, just look at what Fox News did to their highest-rated show as soon as there was a whiff of culpability involved. The whole narrative that “cancel culture” and “virtue signaling” is a left-wing phenomenon is bogus; the right wing likes it and does it as much as the left. The only thing is, when they do it, it’s the opposite of virtuous.