Symptoms of a Sick Society

 

Pundits have been claiming for years that Donald J. Trump is not the cause of the insanity which is MAGA; he is but a symptom. The same is said for Tucker Carlson, Ron DeSantis and a host of other MAGA-mutts.

That’s a decent assertion to make; all of the racism, bigotry, greed, authoritarianism and disdain for education witnessed in the writings, bleating and clamoring of the alt/right can be traced to earlier times in the noble, yet flawed, American experiment. 

Much of the fault and many of the tragic missteps could be accounted for by the on-going changes in social mores. As Martin Luther King, Jr. reminded us; “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” The sins of the past – slavery, disenfranchisement, etc – are rectified and addressed by the newer generation with a more ‘modern’ sense of justice and righteousness. 

One can, furthermore, understand the desire to mitigate the corrosive effects of psychotic personalities by claiming that political actors such as Trump, Hannity, Cotton, Gaetz, MTG, Cawthorn and Boebert are not truly indicative of inherent political and social rot but, rather, are merely symptoms which can be handily dealt with by level-headed care-givers and the application of analgesics. 

However, Trump and his MAGA-cult cannot and must not be dismissed simply as ‘symptoms’ of sickness in the body politic. To do so would be a monumental error. It would be akin to dismissing the inability to breathe as just a symptom of COVID-19 or pneumonia. Indeed, shortness of breath is a symptom but it is a life-threatening one; one that indicates the need for drastic action; hospitalization, intensive care, a prescribed regimen of pharmacological treatments.

That is where we find the democratic republic known as the United States of America; gasping for life. The symptoms are dire and life-threatening. (Think January 6^th) They must be handled with thoughtful aplomb and rational action.

As the pandemic tightens its strangle-hold on society with increasingly infectious and fatal variants, the metaphor could not be clearer; we must, as a nation, as a society, bite the bullet and take the bitter pill which will alleviate and ultimately eliminate the diseases of racism and economic inequality and thereby remove the symptoms such as Donald Trump from our body politic. 

My Dumb Over Your Smarts

‘My ignorance is better than your expertise.’

‘My lack of information trumps your encyclopedic knowledge.’

Hence, the MAGA disdain for education.

Critical thinking? Feggetabodit.

Go with your gut. If a primal emotion is triggered, then that’s what we imprint.

Needles bad! Vaccine Bad! Fauci BAD!

“My inability to grasp basic facts of the real world is the truth that I live by.’

My dumb is better than your smarts.

An indignant and cretinous woman at a public hearing on June 8^th, tried to testify to Ohio Republican lawmakers, that she had been ‘magnetized’ by the COVID vaccine. She claimed that she had just learned this new ‘truth’ over lunch. She then proceeded to demonstrate her newly gotten magnetic qualities. She placed a small metal object (a key?) on her nervously perspiring chest. The object adhered to her skin for a moment. This is a trick learned by children and demonstrated by adults at drunken parties. This woman, though, offered the sticky nature of human skin in warm conditions as ‘PROOF’ that she had been harmed by the vaccine; she had been magnetized!

The late night shows had a field day with her hysterical query to the room; "Any questions?"

‘Actually, quite a few...’ was a typical retort.

Questions such as; ‘What planet are you from?’ and ‘Did you sleep through all of your school years?’

(It would also be very tempting to ask how being magnetized caused harm and was undesirable. Sounds more like a low-level super power.)

Magnet Girl’s nonsense was preceded by testimony from Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, an Ohio osteopath who wrote a book called ‘Saying No to Vaccines’. Dr Tenpenny (I flash on Dickens every time) claimed that the vaccines made you magnetic because there was a ‘metal’ in the serum.
She stated (ahem...)

"I’m sure you’ve seen the pictures all over the internet of people who’ve had these shots, and now they’re magnetized. They can put a key on their forehead, it sticks. They can put spoons and forks all over them, and they can stick. Because now we think that there’s a metal piece to that."

To be clear, this is utter and absolute rubbish. Also, clearly, Dr Tenpenny and I go to very different parties.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had to address this preposterous non-issue on its website because they’d gotten so many questions on this bunkum.

“COVID-19 vaccines do not contain ingredients that can produce an electromagnetic field...”

The plague is not COVID-19 and its variants. The plague is brain-deadedness. 

Stay safe. Get your jabs.

Father, Son and Holy Warrior

 

My very good friend recently went to visit his folks in Florida; the peninsula that time forgot. His folks are in the mid-90s and are staunch Eisenhower Republicans. His parents are also my dear friends and have been since time immemorial. How does a progressive maintain a friendly relationship with a GOP devotee?

You match ignorance with obliviousness. For the sake of courtesy and despair that they will never change their minds. 

My friend, a Marine Corp vet, ignores all news and commentary during his visits. He enters the Cone of Silence, the Bubble of Isolation. His parents oblige his apostasy from their political faith by remaining silent on the subject. However, on occasion, someone in earshot blurts out a talking point which is a signal for a litany of talking points, barbs, rhetorical questions and excoriations of socialism.

In my friend’s presence, the Fox News (sic) scripted list of exclamations ends abruptly. He takes that moment of silent discomfort to muse on the appropriate retort. Often he remains silent both from a spirit of goodwill and to avoid the pain of beating one’s head against a wall.

During dinner one evening, the image of Trump appeared on the ubiquitous TV tuned to Faux Gnus, as is all too common in Florida.

(Nota bene: Televisions showing Fox Noose are ubiquitous in Florida, perhaps there’s a local ordinance...)

In response (ding-ding!) an elderly male diner proclaimed that ‘Trump was a warrior!’ and lamented that Biden was not up to the task of meeting Putin. With the name of Trump being invoked, ripples of approving mutters spread round the table.

My friend was gobsmacked that these people actually and truly believed that Trump, the draft-dodging, bone-spur claiming twat-waffle was a ‘warrior’. My friend was a warrior (Semper Fi!) He fought the fight that Trump wimped out of by getting his rich-daddy to pay a doctor to falsify the Donald’s medical records.

This is what we’re up against; a segment of the population who believe - heart and soul – that Trump is a savior, sent by ‘god’... or is part of the ‘godhead’.

Father, Son and Holy Trump, the Warrior POTUS.

 

WTF GQP?

 

What gives with the Republican obstructionism? They refuse to compromise. Coming close to middle-ground is for them equal to utter defeat. So, if they are not willing to make a deal that will improve the security of the nation and directly benefit the lives of many of their constituents, what is their motivation?

Apparently taking a cue from Mrs Reagan, ‘Just say ‘No!’ say the GOP to basically anything and everything proposed in the House and the Senate. COVID relief? NO! Infrastructure? NO! Insurrection Commission? NO! For the People Act? NO!

How can they be against everything and for nothing apart from over-turning the 2020 election, undermining the election system and with it the foundations of the

Constitutional system?

For some, like Mitch, it appears to be a straight power-play.The appointments to the SCOTUS was a huge power-play.

So, sure, a power-play for some. For others, it’s the revelation of a personal sociopathic proclivity. It’s narcissism inspired by the Orange narcissist, for a good many of the GQP/MAGA cultists. However, there must be a common ground where all these various groups can cohabit. Right?

That over-lap on the GOP Venn diagram is labeled ‘Socialism!’ (cue: SFX scary noises) 

The GOP can somehow sell their voters on the notion that by saying ‘No!’, they’re saving the nation from ‘Socialism!’. (cue: SFX scary noises)

All that stuff in the infrastructure bill about up-grading WiFi, bringing the USA up to cyber-code, (so to speak) and coming abreast with the rest of the world, can be decried by the GQP as ‘Big Brother’ Bill Gates coming to micro-chip your soul and sell it to George Soros.

The MAGA-mutts believe that hokum. They believe to their souls that Stalinist Gulags run by the Finns (or Al-Qaeda) are right around the corner. Commies coming out of the woodwork to make you FaceBook and TikTok against your will. Vegan Lesbians will ban red meat and force feed you quinoa after your mandated yoga session.

A Socialist hell on earth. (cue: SFX scary noises)

And only ‘god’ or his Orange Persona on earth can save the nation from 5G damnation. To the rescue come the GQP; brandishing their Trump flags and giving fisted salutes. They stand as bulwarks to the scourge of ‘Socialism!’ (cue: SFX scary noises)

Gaetz, Taylor-Greene, Johnson, Kennedy (no, not that one...) Ted Cruz, McConnell, McCarthy, Cotton, Rubio, Boebert, and all, stand shoulder to shoulder, maskless and...

Gack!

What a ghastly team of bottom-feeders and mouth-breathers. What the feck gives with the GOP?

To borrow a phrase, ‘Just say, No!’

Say ‘No!’ to the GOP.

 

GOP Lunacy

 

Remember when the GOP trotted out craziness like ‘cancelling Dr Suess’ and tore their hair over Mr Potatohead’s plastic penis to cover the fact that they had nothing in the policy cupboard?

Remember when Marjorie Taylor-Greene went out on the proverbial limb with a chain-saw, spouting utter lunacy about ‘Jewish Space Lasers’ a line that has become a staple of Late-night comedians and meme-makers on FaceBook?

Remember Fruity Rudy Ghouliani booking a landscaping company in a run-down strip mall, then leaking motor-oil from his temples while screaming to the heavens about voter fraud?

Strolls through the memory garden like this are delightful as a counter-weight to, say, the senseless recalcitrance of Joe Manchin.

It was gratifying to smirk at the prideful stupidity on display by the GOP, especially after four years of Mr Drumpf’s Wild Ride.

Well, the wild, drunken ride goes on and we’re locked in the trunk; insurrection attempts, grand juries, leaked, incriminating phone calls, attempts to thwart justice by the Attorney General and gag orders about digging dirt on political opponents, to name but a few.

And the cancerous clown show which is the GOP has not failed to deliver with even more outrageous shenanigans and displays of laughable ignorance and whimsy.

To wit: ‘Screwy’ Louie Gohmert, often cited as Congress’s most notable ignoramus, returned to re-establish himself as the lead clown after being over-shadowed by the Pennywise of the House, MJT. Louie asked the U.S. Forest Service, whether they or BLM can "change the course of the moon's orbit or the Earth's orbit around the sun" to counter Climate Change (!). 

Yes, he did. Some advised that Louie was trying to be ironic, though irony is not remotely in Louie’s wheelhouse. Louie had trial-ballooned his lunacy on Faux Gnus and had gotten the obligatory approving nod which indicates the interviewer wasn't listening to Louie spew his imbecilic nonsense. Louie was trying to establish that Global Climate Change was an inevitability, perhaps? A mysterious plan of 'god', perhaps? Ineffable and unknowable and thus out of our control short of altering planetary orbits.

Louie has certainly done Senator Inhofe's snowball one better.  

Treasure these ludicrous faux pas by the GOP and keep them in mind in 2022.

 

 

What is Joe Manchin's Game?

 

A basic rule of thumb with politicians is that when they start blabbering from a soap box about ‘principles’, you can bet that they’re basically talking through their anus.

‘Follow the money!’ should be the SOP whenever a pol starts soap-boxing. Case in point is Joe Manchin, who has been stamping like a child on the soap box labeled ‘filibuster’. He’s gone so far as to state, "I'm not willing to destroy our government," by ending the filibuster. 

WTF? As if the filibuster was the lynch-pin by which the entirety of our Constitutional Republic hinged.

So, what is Joe doing? Playing political games, of course, as the Palmer Report has explained. Yes, Joe is playing a power game by holding off from voting with the other Dem Senators. But what is he actually hoping to gain from such faux recalcitrance? It must be for more than some marker for a favor to be done at a later date.

Let’s be clear; curtailing the filibuster will in no way end the government. The filibuster was not present at the beginning of the Republic and has gone through several variations since. It’s also clear that Joe Manchin is not trying to preserve and protect the cinematic heroism portrayed in ‘Mr Smith Goes to Washington’. 

It must be admitted that the filibuster is a functional tool. Yet, it is a tool that has been over-used inappropriately; akin to the maxim that to a hammer every problem looks like a nail. In this case, Mitch McConnell – the self-styled ‘Grim Reaper’ -  has used the hammer to bash in the brains of bills presented in the Senate.

So, what is Joe Manchin’s game? He’s certainly playing hard-ball politics but for what end? What personal gain does Manchin see as the outcome for his soap-boxing?

Whatever  Joe's angle might be, it will become known sooner or later. As adroit Joe Biden is at playing the senatorial game, I'd bet on sooner, rather than later. I'd also wager that Joe Manchin will rue the day he chose to play hard-ball with Biden.

 

S.E. Cupp, Republican whisperer

 

S.E. Cupp, Republican whisperer, proclaimed on CNN that “It’s not a lie if you believe it.”

Wrong!

It’s a lie; whether you believe it or not is immaterial. You might not feel like a liar when you re-iterate the lie, but it’s still a falsehood. It is still a lie.

Goebbels’ assessment “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it…” remains accurate but believe does not alter the falsity of the lie. A lie remains a lie.

That goes as much for the ‘Big Lie’ as it does for the smallest, whitest lie about your age or whether you truly like your mother’s new dress.

The topic in which Ms Cupp declared her misapprehension concerning the promulgation of falsehood was regarding Drumpf’s ‘Big Lie – or one of them.

A query was made speculating whether or not the Lard of Mar-A-Lardo actually believed that he was still president despite losing the popular vote by seven million votes. Speculation was shared that he did not – could not - believe his own lie. That dubious appraisal was accepted as consensus.

 The reasoning (?) went like this: ‘How could the Former Guy actually believe that he was still the president?’ The answer to that rhetorical question was not considered or voiced.

 The answer is obvious; The Donald believes the Big Lie – that he is still president – for the simple reason that the Orange Buffoon is insane. 

(see my previous post: 'Donald is Nuts')

Not being a mental health care professional, the word of one who holds a PhD in clinical psychology and, moreover, knows the subject intimately can be taken as gospel. Mary Trump has declared, “He's the only person I've ever met who can gaslight himself.”

BTW, Elwood P. Dowd believed in Harvey, a 6-foot rabbit.  Nice. Elwood P. Dowd was still a nut lying to himself.

Donald J. Trump believes he can be 'reinstated'. Not so nice. Donald J. Trump is still a nut lying to himself.