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It's the Religion, Stupid! [1]
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Date: 2022-11-26
As dust from the not-quite-apocalyptic midterms settles like ash from a burning rainforest, perhaps we can thank heaven while licking our wounds. Don’t look now, but the cult that launched the 1/6/21 raid/search-and-destroy mission won control of the US House. Legally, yes. But with help from extreme gerrymandering- and from media megaphoning of smears that blamed Dems for inflation, disunity, crime, and just about everything this side of the Lindbergh kidnapping.
Don’t look now, but our not-so-liberal newsies have normalized the propaganda platoons and putsch-pushers who call 1/6 “legitimate political discourse” (and who thereby augur more of the same, if not worse). That is to say, the personality cult whose role models include such ogres as Viktor Orban. Vladimir Putin. And even Kim Jong-un (with whom Donald Trump admits to having fallen “in love”).
A proverb cited by at least two Shakespearean characters advises “He who sups with the devil should have a long spoon.” You might say today’s Republicans (who decamped to Hungary to honor Orban) lick the cutlery of democracy’s foes (and, yes, their jackboots as well).
Meanwhile (and for decades prior), the GOP has painted itself ‘God’s Own Party.’ Under George “I Trust God Speaks Through Me” Bush, it went full-on theocratic. Pliant, conflict-averse wonky donkeys barely said “boo.”
Pity. Under Trump, the cabals who’d slut-shamed Bill Clinton fell at the feet of the prolific adulterer who, on tape, had gleefully confessed to a long-time history of habitual carnal assault. And who, by a wide spectrum (ranging from acclaimed writer E. Jean Carroll to an unnamed woman who has said she was 13 years old at the time), has been credibly accused of rape.
Holier-than-thou? Perhaps not so much.
In fact, in thrall to Trump, the once-proud “Party of Lincoln” has gone all-out antinomian (‘my way or the highway to hell, never mind I can sin like there’s no tomorrow because God’s on my side’). Not to mention risibly and blasphemously idolatrous. While touting the Old Testament’s Commandments as rule of law’s be-all-and-end-all (which Jesus Himself does NOT do), the party of white-hot hypocrisy has kowtowed to what some have called a latter-day “golden calf.”
Search the images as you wish. Here’s what happened. At a Conservative Political Action Conference just seven weeks after 1/6/21, Republican grandees unveiled and bowed to not just some young bovine, but to a political animal writ large. That is, to a gilded, huge-headed idol of Big Blonder Rex.
In 2019, that King from Queens, NY had anointed himself “The Chosen One.” To his image (which waved a wand as if to conjure Harry Potter’s evil twin), his faithful bowed and scraped like soused pagans. And yet- with alarmingly scant blowback- they seek to Lord it over our country.
That is (all the more in light of 1/6) by fighting. Igniting. And perhaps biting. Here, alas, there’s nothing new under the sun. In the 1960 film “Elmer Gantry,” a huckster evangelist inflames a crowd by howling about how he’ll foil the enemies of the Lord with fists. Feet. Teeth.
And, when they’ve knocked out the latter, he vows to get his second wind and “gum ‘em to death!” (Onward, Christian molars.)
Segue alert. Both Trump and President Biden are long in the tooth. Accordingly, each belongs to the demographic (old, White, male) commonly identified with the Man Upstairs.
So here’s the thing. The last time either party saw a high-level youth movement, a fresh-faced US Senator at the 2004 Democratic National Convention eagerly and ebulliently reminded us that blue staters (aka Dems) worshipped “an awesome God.” Implicit was the fact that donkeys did not weaponize the Lord in search of divine right to rule.
Four years later, Barack Obama (D-IL) gained the party’s nomination. With Biden at his side, he won the White House. Plainly enough, he believed (wrongly) that his ascent boded long-term change.
Enter the backlash that, tepidly opposed, has nearly sunk our ship of state. Now hear this. With the fate of the nation up for grabs, Dems, indies, and decent tuskers need to tell Trump to vacate Biden’s bully pulpit. Shut his own blowhole. Admit defeat. Go home or to prison. And, on bended knee, beg forgiveness from a higher, better power.
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https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/11/26/2138468/-It-s-the-Religion-Stupid
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