All Democrats, progressives, Independents and libertarians should cross party lines and vote for honest anti-Trump Republicans in the districts that the deplorables control.
"We are going to take power after this next election. When we do, it's not going to be the days of Paul Ryan, and Trey Gowdy, and no real oversight, and no real subpoenas. It's going to be the days of Jim Jordan, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Dr. Gosar, and myself."
These were the words of Rep. Matt Gaetz as he envisioned an extremist Republican takeover of House oversight. He pledged that he and his like-minded colleagues — hate filled, conspiracy believing, gun loving, violence threatening distorters of the truth — will do everything they can to “expose the FBI’s false flag operation where federal agents incited the Jan. 6 Capitol riots in order to ensnare American citizens who supported the former President.”
Along with his like-minded colleagues, Gaetz has been repeatedly reminding Trump supporting gun owners that the Second Amendment is about waging “an armed rebellion against the government” and that “we have an obligation to use it” (his words). Gaetz says he hopes “we” would never “have” to use it but, of course, if those people make us, well just don’t say he didn’t warn you.
Who are these people who would give Gaetz and his gun loving Trump fanatics no other choice but to take up arms against their fellow Americans? Well, that would be a long list indeed. It encompasses about 54% of the American population — plus the “millions” of people who are here “illegally”.
Now, we know that both the right and the left have their extreme radical, irrational, unreasonable and violence prone fringes. The right has its white supremacist, nationalist, separatist, Neo-Nazi, KKK anti-government, heavily armed militias and 2nd Amendment nutbags who love their guns more than they love 6 year old children (Sandy Hook) — and the left has… hmm, let me think… Antifa? Also, I guess some violent types have infiltrated and co-opted, to an extent, the Black Lives Matter movement? Hmm… looks a bit lopsided, doesn’t it?
The main difference between the right and the left’s violence prone fringes — besides the depth, breadth and level of violence — is the fact that the right’s violent fringe now have people serving in Congress who are their intellectual allies: Gaetz. Madison “raise your sons to be monsters” Cawthorn. Paul “depicting murder of AOC via anime” Gosar. Mo “storm the Capitol and kick ass” Brooks. Andy “pals around with terrorists” Biggs. Right wing gun menacing superstars Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene. All the gun loving pervert politicians who pose with their young children holding assault rifles. Then there’s good old Louie “you got to go to the streets and be as violent as Antifa and [Black Lives Matter]” Gohmert. To name a few. The rest of the Republicons in Congress (with very few exceptions) are too cowardly to stand up for truth and decency. They are the enablers.
I’m sure that the thought of these deranged terrorists taking control of the House of Representatives and possibly even the Senate would cause any decent, thoughtful, civilized person — conservative, liberal, moderate, libertarian, Black, White, other — to be filled with a flood of negative emotions.
So what should all decent, thoughtful, civilized people do about this? Are we going to let an unhinged, extremist, violence threatening minority — who conjure conspiracy theories every time their crimes are exposed — take over this country?
In raw numbers, as far as Republicans and Democrats go, the country is pretty evenly divided with the Democrats holding an edge. But with their gerrymandered districts and state control of elections in swing states taken from honest Republicans and given to maniac MAGA henchmen, the Republicons have a huge advantage. And with their massive, multi-billion dollar right wing media hate machine pumping out the kind of rhetoric that has been honed and time tested to arouse outrage and anger in their audience, MAGA demagogue politicians have been handed a very motivated electorate and the playbook to read from.
How can we (the decent, thoughtful, civilized people — conservative, liberal, moderate, libertarian, Black, White, other) possibly overcome those unfair advantages listed above?
I recently heard the leftist Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek give this answer to the question above: Democrats and the left should join forces with honest Republicans. I had already been thinking along these lines when I heard Zizek say this, which inspired me to write this post. How do we join forces? All Democrats, progressives, Independents and libertarians should cross party lines and vote for honest anti-Trump Republicans in the districts that the deplorables control.
If we unite — Dems, progressives, independents, libertarians and honest anti-Trump Republicans — that’s 54% of the population (the % of people who did not vote for Trump last time). If there was an honest, decent, civilized Republican running against Matt Gaetz, some of Trump’s voters from last election would no doubt prefer the honest Republican. So add that to the united total.
Trump is and always has been a menace. He first connected with this radical, violent right-wing fringe over ten years ago by lighting a fire under the Birther movement and stoking their irrational hatred of Obama. He further endeared himself to them when he suggested someone could use a “Second Amendment” remedy if Hillary got elected. He encouraged and incited violence at his rallies. He continued to encourage, condone and incite violence numerous other times as president. He rhapsodized about street battles between his side — the cops, the military, the bikers — and “skinny armed” Antifa. He gloated about how well his side would do. He warned Dems, libs and any others who opposed him that they wouldn’t fare any better against his side if they continued to piss his people off. He has openly courted this fringe from the beginning, always siding with them, repeating their rhetoric, never disavowing them unless he’s been forced to under tremendous pressure from his fellow Republicons. And then he offers only a minimal and obviously insincere condemnation. How do we know it’s insincere? He goes right back to the same pattern of behavior the very next day — or even the very next sentence! And this has happened time after time.
Before Trump brought his toxic personality to the national political stage, Republicons kept a distance from this extremist fringe. They were always quick to disavow people like David Duke. But not Trump. David who? Never heard of him. I know nothing about him. Trump didn’t know who these people were, he just repeated their rhetoric, re-tweeted their tweets and blew that White nationalist/ supremacist dog whistle. And the deplorables absolutely loved him for it. He opened the door to the most hateful, delusional and violent among them and invited them into the Republicon party.
By recruiting honest anti-Trump Republicans to run against the MAGA Deplorables and crossing party lines to vote for them, we can not only keep the violence-inciting extremists out of office but we can rehabilitate the Republican Party!