The Transparent Mask
The Transparent Mask
NOW Republicans want to "turn the page"?
Truth matters. Character matters.
If you are a Decent American, you share at least two values with your fellow citizens. First, you believe that truth matters. Second, you believe that character matters.
The midterm election was a practical demonstration that these two values are correct. For the past decade, Republicans have been revealing the truth about their destructive aims. And in the process they have exposed the vicious content of their character.
Last week, decent Americans showed that they understand the truth of Republican goals and the baseness of their character. After giving them the benefit of the doubt repeatedly, we finally rebuked them decisively.
Turning the page?
Now some Republicans want to “turn the page” on Trump. Now, after they embraced everything evil aboutTrump and Trumpism?
Yesterday, Larry Hogan, the outgoing Republican governor of Maryland, was on the Sunday shows wishing that the Republican party could construct a more positive message for itself.
A more positive message? Does he think people can unsee a truth once they have seen it?
An illustrative story
Suppose you know a good guy who invites you into his home for a beer. While you are sitting around, he grabs at his face and pulls off a skin-tight mask. Underneath he’s really Hannibal Lechter! You clock him with your beer bottle, run out of the house, and call the police. By the time the authorities get there, however, Lechter is long gone. At least, you think, you escaped a close call.
But the very next day, who do you meet on the street but the same good guy, wearing his mask and pretending that nothing had happened?
Can you forget that this guy is really Hannibal Lechter wearing a mask? Anyone who does is a complete fool.
The Republican pose was always a mask
Republicanism was always a ludicrous mask. They patched it together from slogans like “states rights,” “free enterprise,” “small government,” “law and order,” “tough on crime,” “traditional values,” “religious values,” “family values,” and the like.
But the Trump phenonenon gave them the temerity to rip off their masks in public. Trump created the false impression that truth and character were unimportant, that nothing Republicans said or did mattered, that they could reveal themselves without consequence.
And sure enough, underneath the mask was the political equivalent of Hannibal Lechter—a party of racists, white supremacists, economic nihilists, vicious bullies, irreligious Pharisees, women-fearing men, opportunistic women, antidemocratic tyrants, power-hungry thugs, insurrectionists, and a horde of timorous souls who were happy to go along with all that to feather their own nests.
Once revealed, the mask is laughable
Decent America has seen what Republicans really are. Are we going to be fooled again by any “positive message,” any reconstituted mask that Hogan and the rest of them try to concoct?
More than 80% of Republicans were thrilled by the MAGA agenda or happy to go along with it. The real MAGA types have thoroughly rotten character, while the MAGA-adjacent are too ambitious and ethically vacant to be trusted.
Look through the transparent mask and destroy them
There is only one solution to the problem of Republican viciousness. We have to vote them down in every election from now on, keeping in mind that they will be wearing masks again.
We have to keep removing them from every office of power until they are no force at all in American politics. We have to carry on rebuking them in election after election until their party is gone.
American political parties have died before. We need to put a stake in this one for good.
And for the future of America’s historic mission—to bring democracy and true freedom to all the world’s people.
You are absolutely right about the fear of Communism. The fifties and sixties were absolutely batshit crazy that that the Commies might conquer American democracy. (Amazingly, Tocqueville saw the confrontation between Russia and the US coming even in the first half of the 1800s!) But when the Commies came a cropper, Republicans turned to their domestic enemies and started to rail against them.
Without the Commie enemy, it has become increasingly clear that they never were concerned about communism or any other ideology. They are just fearful people who hate all change because they think it means they have to give something up. And they especially fear giving up the perks they have won by power, force, greed, and white privilege.
"Conservatism" always was a smokescreen dreamed up by Russell Kirk and William F. Buckley and Irving Krystol and the like. Liberalism was winning in the first half of the 20th century because it had geniuses providing a solid philosophical grounding for rationalism, scientific problem-solving, and democratic governance, whereas "conservatism" had only fear and grievance. So the smarter "conservatives" came up with things that looked like ideas to compete with the real ideas of Liberals. That's where "states rights" and "free enterprise" and "small government" come from. (Ironically, most of their "ideas" were borrowed from the Anti-federalists who lost the campaign against the Constitution in 1787.)
Anyway, you are probably right about all the evil-doing that has run through the Republican party for many, many decades. We have to hope that it will die when we finally extinguish that party, because even Congressional investigations can't seem to nail the evildoers behind the scenes.
Thanks so much!
Howdy! I have thumbed through both Corn's book and Kendzior's, but I haven't given them the time they deserve. I think they don't go back quite far enough. The Republican rot was already in place while FDR was president, and it festered all through the post-war period right up to Kennedy, where Corn gets started. And you can trace the FDR-haters back to the KKK, and that came right out of the Lost Cause. So the whole Republican sh•tfest really goes back to the Civil War. Decent America has always been up against a huge crowd of horribles hiding just below the surface of the swamp. They stick their heads up every now and then, forcing us to push them back under water until the next time. It would be nice if they would drown under there, but the seem to be water monsters. Have a great day!