Conservatives Are Abject Cowards
Wretched, miserable cowards.
I’ve written previously about the national GOP’S “platform” in the 2020 election. It was—essentially—whatever Benedict Donald wanted. I’m not sure they even put out an actual platform for public consumption.
That was concerning. It was something Benedict Donald’s pen pal, Kim Jung-il would have approved. Along with every other dictator of the last several centuries.
Have you heard about the Texas GOP’s platform? Passed during their convention over the past weekend.
Thanks to Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters From an American, I didn’t have to venture far to find a copy of the most vile components for your perusal:
…delegates to a convention of the Texas Republican Party today approved platform planks rejecting “the certified results of the 2020 Presidential election, and [holding] that acting President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was not legitimately elected by the people of the United States”; requiring students “to learn about the dignity of the preborn human,” including that life begins at fertilization; treating homosexuality as “an abnormal lifestyle choice”; locking the number of Supreme Court justices at 9; getting rid of the constitutional power to levy income taxes; abolishing the Federal Reserve; rejecting the Equal Rights Amendment; returning Christianity to schools and government; ending all gun safety measures; abolishing the Department of Education; arming teachers; requiring colleges to teach “free-market liberty principles”; defending capital punishment; dictating the ways in which the events at the Alamo are remembered; protecting Confederate monuments; ending gay marriage; withdrawing from the United Nations and the World Health Organization; and calling for a vote “for the people of Texas to determine whether or not the State of Texas should reassert its status as an independent nation.”
The radical left has nothing on the radical right.
In fact, the radical right has taken over the party of Lincoln, while the radical left continues to beg for breadcrumbs from the centrists who control the party of FDR.
In 2016, conservatives held their noses and cast their lot with a man they knew was completely unworthy of being in charge of the richest nation on earth. Maybe they thought capitalism would be their safety net. Maybe they were making a Mephistophelean bargain in exchange for a Supreme Court full of arch-conservative judges. Maybe they thought the trappings of the office would soften the man’s rough edges. Maybe they thought America would be better off rudderless. Maybe they couldn’t stand the idea of losing and they would prefer to play Russian roulette with everything America stands for than allow an ‘uppity’ woman follow the ‘uppity’ Black fellow into the White House.
Maybe they didn’t care.
These are the people responsible for the insurrection on January 6th, 2021. The ones who looked away from the horror show that was the 2016 Republican campaign. They chose party over country in 2016 and they are poised to make the same bargain in 2022 and 2024.
Rational people who call themselves conservatives have enabled fascists, white supremacists, bigots, domestic terrorists, flim flam artists, smarmy nepotists and corporate thugs to run roughshod over every sector of American life. We would not be slouching toward theocracy without their indifference.
We would not be forty feet from one party rule. The minority party.
I will never understand why real conservatives didn’t throw Benedict Donald under the bus at their first opportunity and installed a man who would have happily taken up the torch for the American Taliban, Vice President and ultra religious zealot Mike Pence. I know Benedict Donald was a useful idiot to the Kremlin but Mike Pence would have just as readily toed the Putin line in order to be in charge. Mike Pence would have served their purpose—three Supreme Court picks—and would not have turned the Republican Party into the Leopards Eat My Face Party.
Too late for all of that now.
The Leopards are loose and centrist conservatives have fucked around. Hopefully, they will reach the “finding out” part. The radical right is emboldened enough to make political ads suggesting it is open season to hunt Republicans in Name Only (RINOs). The radical right—encouraged by the twice-impeached, perpetually filing for bankruptcy former president—are choosing to ‘primary’ just-not-radical-enough politicians like Liz Cheney. The radical right sends death threats to their own radical-but-not-hysterically-radical politicians because no one has suffered any significant consequences for having done so.
I hope you’re watching the January 6th hearings. They are far from over. They will continue into July and—at some point—we will have the pleasure of watching a documentary made during the waning days (including January 6th) of the treasonous president’s administration. It’s a documentary filmed by a British film maker named Alex Holder and, as I understand it, many of the participants were unaware of its production. In addition, the crime family masquerading as the American government had zero editorial control.
It is my fervent hope we will, at the very least, get to witness their behavior before and during the vicious, bloody, coordinated attack on the Capitol. Raising toasts and dancing while almost every person in the presidential line of succession is under siege, their lives threatened and being chased into the bowels of the Capitol building is not—I dare to say—a good look.
I further hope those indifferent conservatives who knowingly chose chaos over order in the 2016 elections will react a little like a swooner who has whiffed smelling salts.
All we need is for 1 to 2 per cent of them to come to their senses by the midterm elections. It’s not out of the question. The January 6th committee has been hurling a no hitter.
When all is said and done, their insipid cowardice might play into the hands of those of us who want to preserve democracy because, as much as they fear the wrath of MAGA, they also don’t want to lose their freedoms.
Texas Paul shared this video of some poor Former Guy supporter who threw away his life’s savings.
Oh, how sad! Another mark duped. But I will happily welcome him back to reality.
This looks cool! Or should I be distressed by the energy use?
Ah, well. Where are we going and why am I in this hand basket?!
Sensorio Paso Robles light art installation.
I am new to hard alcoholic cocktails. So, I just throw some combinations together and give them my own names. Everything starts with ‘dirty’ because I’m not following a playbook.
Dirty Sock, Dirty Mind, Dirty Rotten Scoundrel, etc. Some of them are actually pretty tasty!
Now you know! - JLM
Huh?
Send us your recipes!