The horrific and gutless attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul is a chilling reminder of how our politics has been churning toward violence as a means to an end.
Fueled by lies, conspiracy theories, and unfounded fears, ignited by the glorification and support of violence and a gleeful embrace of cruelty, and unfettered by any human decency or moral compass, Republicans seem bent on turning our political landscape into not a place for rational discussion of ideas, but instead into a war zone – both verbally and physically.
While this dangerous trend picks up steam as we head toward next week’s midterm election, it’s jaw-dropping to hear the naïve pleas of some pundits imploring GOP leadership to call for a stop to this destructive behavior that has grown exponentially worse since former President/unindicted criminal/spawn of the Devil himself Donald Trump became the party’s official cult leader.
Are you kidding me? Do you really expect a political monster like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to lash out at the violent segment of his base when he needs their votes to regain control of that chamber for his party and its top leadership position for himself?
Who in their right mind thinks the historically spineless House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy would do likewise when his dream of being speaker relies on that same base lifting his party into power?
The rank-and-file GOP politicians and pundits? Have you taken a look at this bunch lately?
The talking heads and Democrats can wax indignation about the Right-wing-conspiracy-theories-induced attack on the Paul Pelosi all they want, but on the other side of the aisle the message flowing out to the dupes in the GOP base is that this is no big deal, that it’s probably a big lie to begin with, and listen to this funny joke I just thought up about an 82-year-old man slammed in the head with a hammer during a plot to kidnap and ultimately kneecap his wife.
In other words, if you’re looking for a political party devoid of character to exhibit some now, you’re wasting your time. You can take a dump in a toilet, or in your front yard, or on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera, and it’s still shit. It isn’t going to change.
These bitches and bastards in the Republican Party, where violence and cruelty have become a measure of manhood and party loyalty and an accepted method to cull votes from stooges who don’t benefit from its policies, aren’t going to change, either.
So, how does it stop? Or will it ever stop? Will we just move on to the next logical step in this progression: more violence, more injuries, more deaths. All, of course, incurred by common citizens while the politicians and their rich corporate and individual donors sit above the fray and collect the rewards as the rest of us battle like pawns in a game that’s rigged against us from the start.
The Republican Party as it’s constituted today isn’t going to change on its own. It will only change when the circumstances dictate to its individual politicians that a new course is needed for – first and foremost – their own personal benefit. The party itself, its mission, its place in history, our country, our democracy, those are all meaningless factors for a group that has gone this far overboard.
What would cause this change of heart? For starters, if it starts losing elections. Lots of elections.
Everything GOP politicians do is predicated on the goal of personal gain and party success, which go hand-in-hand. If they saw that their adherence to the divisive, racist, and violent approach Trump inspired them to is leading only to defeat, then they’ll do what they think they need to do to start winning elections again.
If that day comes, the party could be reborn, only with new, more moderate voices. Whether it reaches that point remains to be seen. You can’t convince me that someone like Liz Chaney doesn’t envision a more appealing GOP, still putting the rich above the poor and middle class only with a gentler venire, with her as one of its leaders.
Another push for change could come if enough of the party’s donors withheld their support until it cleaned up its act. I don’t know the chance of this happening because these people don’t give their money away for fun. They give it because they think Republican policies will benefit them, even if it’s at the expense of everyone else.
And if we continue to have a campaign finance system that’s nothing more than legalized bribery and allows big donors to hide their identities by funneling their contributions through “dark money” groups, those not wanting their names associated with certain candidates or causes will be able to remain anonymous while still reaping the benefits of their largess.
One last thing that would give pause to those pushing the domestic terrorists in their base toward violence would be if they thought that they might in turn be the targets of violence themselves.
When you see a GOP asshole firing up the base with no regard to what it will do, he or she thinks they’re safe. That nothing will happen to them. I can’t help but think that if they understood that retaliation for Right-wing violence would be directed at them and their families, they’d shut up pretty quick.
This, of course, is the nightmare scenario. A country gone amuck. It’s national security greatly endangered because of a civil war going on between its two major political parties. The hope has to be that this never happens.
But something has to happen to stem this tide The best place would be at the ballot box, when we as a country stand up and say we don’t want extremism, violence, and cruelty to be part of our nature political discourse. We don’t want those who promote it to be anywhere near the levels of power, or the free microphone that their position provides.
You get what you vote for. We’re about to take the next step in a journey that’s become unexpectedly treacherous. We’re no more ensured success and greatness than the next guy. If we want to continue to try to fulfill the promise of a country that’s dangerously close to losing its way, that’s up to us.
We need to take our country back.
And we need to take it back now.
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Thank you for reading my post. You can see more of my writings on my blog; Musings of a Nobody.