Yesterday, sixty-three house Republicans voted against a resolution expressing solidarity with Ukraine and condemnation of Vladimir Putin.
(Check out Jeff Bennet’s list of these sixty-three a**holes with contact information—in case you want to give them a piece of your mind.)
CPAC, the Trumpist right-wing convention of Republicans will meet in Hungary in May to make common cause with Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a well-known Putin supporter and illiberal autocrat.
Many talking heads in the media seem to be nonplussed when asked the obvious question about the affinity of Republicans for dictators—Why? It seems to be a mystery to them that the GOP has largely gone over to authoritarians like Putin, Orbán, and Trump.
It beats me how they can claim to be pundits if they can’t read signs that are flashing like meteors across the sky.
We are living in the end times. History will record that the next few years will mark either the end of “conservatism” or the end of the Enlightenment.
How does this connect with fascist Republicans and overseas dictators? Simple.
The Enlightenment set off about three and a half centuries of high-speed human progress. Science, politics, scholarship, philosophy, and the arts have made tremendous strides during that time—so much so that the world we live in today is nothing like what it was in 1600. Just imagine. Today we can actually mount an attack on a pandemic. In 1600, we could only fear its wrath and pray that it would pass by without killing us.
But the Enlightenment rested on a few essential tenets.
The first tenet is that humans are fallible. This should be obvious. Things would go a lot better for us if we were infallible.
The second tenet is that humans are perfectible. This does not mean that we can eventually become impeccable. It means that we can continually become better than we are.
The third tenet is that truth is the north star for our perfectibility. We will know what “better” means, and thus where to aim in perfecting ourselves, when we know the truth.
And the fourth tenet is that reason is the best guide for uncovering truth.
These tenets have always rubbed some people the wrong way. They have always been the same sort of people: the lazy, the self-satisfied, and the powerful. And all for the same reason: fear. The lazy fear the work they would have to do to change, so they bristle at the idea that they need to change. The self-satisfied fear the discomfort they would feel if they admitted that they do not deserve to be satisfied with themselves, so they bristle at the idea that they need to change. And the powerful fear the loss of advantage that would accompany real change, so they bristle at the idea that they need to change.
Thus the lazy, the self-satisfied, and the powerful banded to together to fight against the Enlightenment and the change it recommended for fallible and perfectible humans. This is the true origin of “conservatism.”
Through this origin story we understand why “conservatism” has always been reactionary, fearful, hostile to progress, and full of hate toward Enlightenment ideals—especially when Enlightenment ideals, usually when pushed to extremes by unbending and punishing “conservatism,” betrayed themselves—as happened in the French Revolution, the Labor Wars in America that have continued since the Industrial Revolution, the race riots that have been with America since the beginning, and other world-wide violent pushbacks against the “conservative” intransigence of lazy, self-satisfied, power-mongers.
Now we are coming to an inflection point. The Enlightenment’s political offspring, the world’s liberal democracies, have spread their wings so far that “conservatives” can no longer contain their hatred. They no longer pretend, like Reagan, that “conservatism” is an alternative form of optimism that can compete with the self-correcting ideals of the Enlightenment. They can no longer stand the fact that the modern world is dedicated to continual improvement in science, technology, democracy, human rights, and so on. They fear all the change and they hate the constant reminders that they are fallible and should be correcting their mistakes instead of making lazy, selfish, and unjust demands that everyone else should let them run everything and remain corrupt, self-satisfied a**holes.
Their smug self-righteousness is erupting in a world-wide federation of a**holes. They are insisting on a confrontation with the Enlightenment. That is what Trump’s January 6 insurrection was really about. That is what Orbán’s big election win in the face of his anti-democratic crackdowns over the past few years was really all about. And that is what Putin’s war on Ukraine is really all about.
All the a**holes have had it with being told that they need to change. They want to keep they lazy, selfish, privileged lives. They want it so much that they are willing to run roughshod over everyone else, even kill everyone else if they think they can get away with it. Forget the Enlightenment ideals about the “rights of man.” No one who isn’t an a**hole has any rights in a**hole world.
Smug self-righteousness is spanning the globe. Republicans, neo-fascists, and Putin-esque tyrants everywhere are flocking to the cause. They intend to confront the Enlightenment and crush it for good.
I say the heirs of the Enlightenment should give them the battle they want.
It may not turn out the way they imagine—just like Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.