The sight of angry, pasty white whining and sometimes armed conservatives is getting really old. Whatever is asked of Americans for the betterment of the country as a whole, for health, for the common welfare and defense, for a more perfect Union, well, those folks just won’t have it. Especially if it means they can’t hire lawn services, get their hair dyed, go to their cult gatherings, hang out at Joe’s Tavern, or any of the truly onerous requirements of containing the spread of fatal viral infections, the Pasty White Whiner Party thinks you should die first.
The guy on the step of the stage capitol in Lansing, Michigan wearing his kid’s little army-guy vest, the crazy lady in Denver leaning out of her husband's pickup truck screaming about FRREEEDDUUMMM, man, those are just the people who exemplify the PWWP. No discomfort is too small, no risk too great to bring those lovelies out into the street and to threaten the great majority of patriots who serve the interests of neighbors and nation by displaying common sense and staying the heck away from each other.
Is it a bug or a feature that these people are morally ugly?
There are a couple schools of thought on how to deal with these morons in the press:
- Show them on TV because the freak show always attracts viewers.
- Diminish their numbers and importance because, jeez, there can’t be a lot of these types out there, can there?
- Give them air time because...ah, hell, who gives a damn
The reality is that these people are just the vocal, visible few representing millions of less energetic, but no less Pasty, White, Whiny and part of the Party. It’s tempting to show that the numbers are small, particularly when compared with truly patriotic demonstrations like those that followed the inauguration of the Orangutan. However, the numbers are quite large, just lazier. This IS the Republican Party in 2020, in the time of COVID-19. The TP-artiers, the John Birchers, the Fox Noisoids, the Limbots, the people who voted for Trump, all nearly 63 million of them are these people — they either support it actively or they assent silently if they are still with the party. A big bunch of PWWPs voted Trump because he was the Republican nominee That makes it the party’s fault — you break it, you own it.
A tactic, really, would be to paint the whole lot of the 63 million guilty as symbolized by Rotund Rollie, the Michigan gun guy, Loudmouth Lilly the pickup truck lady, the killer pastor in Virginia, the dead pastor in Louisiana, the Orangutan himself, jeez, the number of role models is huge for those clowns. This is the logic:
If you are a Republican, each one of those people is YOU. There is no hiding behind your “values”, your “small government” ethic, your desires to reduce regulations, your interests in expanding business, your enforcement of life for every fertilized human zygote, your desire to reduce tax burden, your attachment to free markets and capitalism, whatever. In reality, your values are simply death for anyone who is not you or aligned with you. In reality, these whiners don’t yet have enough to truly whine about — if you have time to whine about your little inconveniences, you just haven't been touched closely enough to invade your little sphere of identity and empathy. It’s only going to be bad if it happens to them — which it hasn’t in sufficient numbers, yet, to make an impression.
This phenomenon isn't new in that party — it is the bedrock that has always formed the critical portion of Republican votes. Were it not for the freak show, the button-down, church-going, white glove-wearing, fiscally conservative, low taxes-no welfare, gotta keep business confidence up, always-vote-R descendants of Hoover neighbors with the manicured lawn and the seat on the local bank board would amount to maybe 20-25% of the electorate. The rest of the Republican party is the freak show — the catch is that the polite part of the party has surrendered to or gone over to join the PWWP in full. If they voted for the orangutan, they own it and they need to be held accountable for it. It ain't just the Orangutan and it ain’t just the loonies — it’s the whole damn party that brought us here. To hell with Democrats that went along with the nonsense — “couldn’t vote for Hillary”, must be a Third Way, what could go wrong, maybe we need a shake-up — no way.
I don’t want any of them to get exposed, sick, be hospitalized, in ICU or to die. I won't even indulge myself to suspect how they might react if such circumstances would befall them.
I do want the country to be run by people who have the values that raised up America when it is at its greatest: compassionate, caring, elevating individuals, standing up for the least among us, a beacon for hope and freedom around the world, an example for the good that power can do, the beacon that democracy offers oppressed peoples everywhere.
I want the country led by people who share the values of the majority and those of the best notions of our founders and leaders over history.
The Pasty White Whiner Party has passed its peak, had its 15 minutes...or 40 years — it’s time for that crowd to be the human interest story on the local news, the geek show that causes viewers to snicker and shake their heads, and some of the guilty to deny ever being part of it.