The Grand Illusion
The Republicans who voted to impeach Bill Clinton because he once lied about screwing around with an intern can’t be bothered to even consider impeaching a President who spouted lies about non-existent voting fraud for over two months and then topped it off by inciting a mob attack on the Capitol to stop the certification of those votes… and apparently followed that up by plotting to remove the acting attorney general in order to allow a junior political appointee to try to void the election. Nor do Republicans appear to consider that Trump has had lawsuits filed against him for rape.
Even AFTER the attack on the Capitol, most Congressional Republicans still voted against certifying the results of a free and fair election.
They complain about non-existent election fraud after spending decades supporting various voter suppression schemes all across the nation.
These same Republicans insist on the right to carry firearms everywhere, but won’t allow women the freedom to determine what goes on with their own body.
They also cite the need for fiscal restraint and decry welfare to poor people, many of whom can’t get jobs or who work full-time and still make wages below the poverty level while enacting tax cuts for the wealthiest of Americans and supporting massive subsidies to American big business… and while refusing to support a living minimum wage.
They suppress largely peaceful marches and demonstrations by people seeking equal treatment under law with massive arrests and tear gas, but fail to use the same level of suppression and arrests against white supremacist mobs… and they support a former President who calls white supremacists “good people” and who has said he “loves” them.
For years, the FBI has warned that the highest levels of violence and greatest danger comes from the far-right, but Republicans continue to ignore that danger and blame the far left for all forms of violence, even falsely claiming in some cases that the far-left was behind far-right violence.
The question isn’t just how craven, ignorant, unethical and self-centered these Republicans are; it’s also about how ignorant, unethical, and self-centered those who elect them are as well.
The Republican legislators are using the same playbook that they’ve used for decades. “Dog whistles” and fear. The Cold War, the Red Menace, desegregation, immigrants, and all the other scare tactics that work well for them. The electioneering that they’ve done for decades continues to pay off.
“… The question isn’t just how craven, ignorant, unethical and self-centered these Republicans are; it’s also about how ignorant, unethical, and self-centered those who elect them are as well.”
We have had 4 years of authoritarianism with no effect on our elected representatives nor our voters. We have had insurrection and it has made no difference to anyone in Congress. Do we need to experience anarchy to understand the real freedom of democracy?
We are who we are. Do we have any ism or other tool to improve ourselves: in fact do we really want to improve ourselves? Of course it will require effort to accept personal responsibility … so probably not.
Money, education, religion seem to make no positive difference to us.
I ask not whether there are “patriots” out there but do we have any “Americans” left in the USA?
An emotional statement and wrong.
Of course there are real “Americans” in our US at this time.
They are who kept this nation going during four years of incompetent and willful destruction as well as a pandemic. They kept our water and our streets clean: power to our homes and food and other basic supplies in our stores.
They are the people who our elected governing representatives should seek out and hear, and indeed emulate; rather than the superficial citizens of the “Me First” on the political right and the political left. Our politicians should recall and paraphrase Cassius – “The fault is not in our stars but in ourselves that we are who we are”!
I have to disagree. Politicians, for better of worse, generally tend to represent the feelings of their constituents. They may carry those feelings to a greater extreme, but very few politicians survive by going against the feelings of those constituents. The feelings represented in the current political situation aren’t “superficial.” A huge number of those on both left and right feel strongly, so strongly, especially on the far right, that at least twenty-five percent of the electorate believes that the election was “stolen,” despite all facts to the contrary. This isn’t a superficial feeling or a small minority.
But, strong feelings or not, I draw the line at politicians who want to hold on to their seats so badly that they pander to their constituents to the point of supporting what was an illegal coup attempt, and any citizen who supports such an action, regardless of how angry they are, is, in fact, either ignorant or excessively self-centered. And, if you look at the demographics of the people who kept things going for the past four years, most of them don’t fall into the twenty-five to thirty percent that support the excesses of Trump and Congressional Republicans.
I acknowledge your experience and appreciate your imparting lessons your have learned.
… “And, if you look at the demographics of the people who kept things going for the past four years, most of them don’t fall into the twenty-five to thirty percent that support the excesses of Trump and Congressional Republicans…. ”
If the people who kept things going do not fall into the group who supported Trump through his administration then I plead that our elected representatives seek their opinion of how to govern the US. Some have already appeared before Congressional committees. I do understand that they might at best represent 1% of the population and 0.6% of the usually employed population. However, every little bit helps.
Change is inevitable. Perhaps some factor will appear that will convince/force the Congress to create a small government of a size to govern efficiently. If not, then what can we citizens do to improve our nation apart from voting at the next election? Write to our representatives and attend their public appearances to ask them to be true to the Constitution?