Stupid and mean. Not qualities that decent people want more of.
But judging from yesterday’s rollout of the Republican “agenda” for the next two years in the House of Representatives, that’s just what Decent America is going to get.
Stupid: Majorie Taylor Greene actually compared the Russian invasion of Ukraine to the “invasion” of brown people crossing the U.S. southern border.
Mean: Majorie Taylor Greene actually compared a fake, minimized number of Russians invading Ukraine to a fake, maximized number of immigrants to illustrate how much worse our immigration problem is than the daily Russian war crimes and attempted genocide in Ukraine. Next level mean, both to Ukrainians and to immigrants.
Check out her monumentally repellant remarks HERE.
So the GOP response to a historic beat-down in the election is to quintuple down on stupid and mean.
The good news?
First, that the the election showed there really are enough Decent Americans who can’t stand Republican stupidity, meanness, authoritarianism, thuggery, and tyranny.
Second, that the Republicans are incapable of learning anything. Being stupid and mean is much more important to them than having the power they desperately want. Instead of learning that stupid and mean is keeping them from power, they just keep multiplying the stupid and mean.
It’s like revving a car in neutral. It can’t go anywhere because it’s in the wrong gear. All you have to do is look down, see your mistake, and put it in the right gear.
But the monumentally stupid Republicans refuse to see their mistake. They just keep revving. Maybe, they think, if they just beat on the gas pedal hard enough, the car will take them where they want to go.
If you want to see this attitude in the post-election Republican base, check out this disgusting article.
That piece is too depraved for me to quote from here, but the bottom line is this: Republicans do not care about elections, about democracy, about the will of the people, or even about rationality itself. They are committed to tearing it all down in pursuit of a stupid and mean vision of white power and unassailable intolerance. However long it takes, whatever illegal and criminal actions they need to take, they will not stop.
And if their own stupidity and meanness stands in their way, then they will kill every last Decent American to stop suffering the natural consequences of their own vices.
The founders thought that the people are slow to rouse to any significant action. They thought that this would work in favor of the body politic, as some protection against constant revolutions and civil turmoil.
But it also works against the body politic. Decent America has been slow to rouse itself against the Republican threat. For forty years, we have allowed Republicans to pretend that they want to participate in legitimate government. During that whole time, they have been building fake institutions like the Federalist Society, standing up countless “conservative” thinks tanks, creating overt and covert election-manipulating organizations, and stoking paramilitary white-supremacist groups—all planning for the day when they would attack democracy and finally extinguish it in America.
They thought they could pull it off on January 6. They failed. After that, Decent America began at last to understand the treacherous viper in its midst. In the 2020 election, decant people got rid of the Republican figurehead, but couldn’t yet rouse themselves to kill the snake itself. In the 2022 elections, Decent America cut off the snake’s tail. But now the snake is really mad.
If the Republican snake keeps threatening Decent America with the stupid and mean of Marjorie Taylor Green, Jim Jordan, and the GOP chorus of nasty clowns, it could be a good thing.
Maybe Decent America will finally get fed up, go to the shed, take out the machete, and chop the Republican snake to bits in 2024.
And then the nation will finally be able have some peace and prosperity for a change.
God knows, Decent America certainly deserves it.
You are so on target Scott.
As usual, to the point of the GOP incapability to really govern forward. They go backwards non stop.