Apr 5
The GOP Wants to Kill All of Us
The GOP isn't a viable political party anymore, it's an insane asylum.
President Joe Biden is down in the polls and I'm worried, because I've seen this horror movie before. As Aldous Huxley observed, "That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history."
Because I'm officially a Grumpy Old Blogger, when I want to listen to music, I don't turn on the radio anymore. I either get my phone or Chromebook, visit the YouTube channel and jump down that bottomless rabbit hole for a few hundred years to see who I find. (Remember when MTV used to play music videos?)
Anyway, during my last visit to YouTube, I rediscovered the amazing Mary Gauthier, a folk singer from Louisiana. In a husky growl sandpapered by shots of whisky and too many packs of Marlboros, Gauthier sings bleak, unsentimental tales shimmering with a haunting beauty. Drunks, losers, and abused wives live in her songs, and Gauthier's sorcery makes these broken people lost in America feel real to us. It's chillingly authentic, heartbreaking and tragic.
Mary Gauthier's song "Mercy Now" is the gem I found on YouTube this time. It's a grim soundtrack to a video directed by Demetria Kalodimos. It's about what happened in New Orleans after Katrina came and what the government didn't do ("You're doing a heckuva job, Brownie!") after the storm. The Bush Administration's incompetence was a disgrace.
However, a lot of Americans seem to have forgotten what a lousy President George "Dubya" Bush was. All it took to file the serial numbers off, change the license plates and slap a brand new paint job on Dubya's damaged reputation was Donald Trump. Trump was a horrible human being who was a catastrophic failure as President, so of course George Bush didn't look so bad in comparison.
Unfortunately, that's a big problem because when the only choices the GOP offers voters is Dumb or Dumber, good things never happen. It's as inevitable as a cigarette smoker getting lung cancer. And as far back as I can remember, whenever a Republican is elected President, the country goes to shit.
The first time I ever voted in a presidential election was for Jimmy Carter back in 1980, but he lost to Ronald Reagan. When Reagan took office, he had the solar panels Carter installed on the roof of the White House removed, an ominous sign of how his administration would respond to those Inconvenient Truths. And although I didn't realize it at the time, the GOP's War On Science officially began, and it never stopped.
When Reagan joked about "the most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help", he constructed the narrative that the United States was under no obligation, either morally or politically, to help its citizens. Reagan doubled down on that hateful philosophy throughout his presidency. It was cruelty masquerading as virtue, and the GOP has never deviated from that ideology.
All Donald Trump did was follow Ronald Reagan's playbook, he just wasn't as good an actor as the Gipper was.
And now? I'm worried about too many Americans hitting "rewind" in the President Biden isn't Green Lantern and fixed everything that's wrong in the country already.
What's depressing is realizing that in spite of all the good things Biden has done, all of that can be quickly taken away once a Republican is back in the White House. Over the years, I've repeatedly seen Democrats clean up the the mess the GOP left behind only to get voted out of office again. I feel like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day waking up every day in the town of Punxsutawney, PA. "History repeats itself because no one was listening the first time."
But there will be no happy ending in this time in Punxsutawney, especially if voters in America get amnesia and Do The Wrong Thing again.
My church and my country could use a little mercy now
As they sink into a poisoned pit it's going to take forever to climb out
They carry the weight of the faithful who follow them down
I love my church and country, they could use a little mercy now
Thank you for reading my essay. To knock down the paywall and get unlimited access to future essays, you can sign up to be a Medium member for $5. But wait, there's more! If you sign up using my link, your humble wordsmith will receive a small commission which will help subsidize my Netflix addiction so I can produce more content. Such a deal. Thanks again.
P.S.: My latest essay, "Sorry Hollywood, You Can't Make Good Art From Bad Stereotypes", can be found at Dismantle Magazine. Please check it out.
|
Agree with you 100. The problem is that establishment Democrats have taken up the mantle of Reaganism. Obama was a gushing fan boy of his. Trump just says the quiet part out loud. When we get a choice of Republican and Republican lite the Republicans will go for the real thing and Democrats will only get discouraged. Some Democrats will stay home on election day or vote third party. Not to say that there is no difference between the parties but the leadership of the party and its standard bearers seem to blur the line (Bill Clinton with mass incarceration and NAFTA, Hillary Clinton with her neoliberal economics and neoconservative foreign policies, Obama with his come out compromising positions). A choice between far from ideal vs really bad.
A suggestion I have is for the more progressive minded states like CA, MA, IL, MI, OR, NY, VT, HI, MN, Washington State and DC form some kind of interstate compact that share costs, resources, personnel and benefits. Most of the worst day to day right wing policies occur at the state level (anti choice laws, censorship in education, etc.). More net Federal Dollars leave the Blue States and end up in the Red States. Still will happen but the Blue States can do more together than they could alone. Fund education, give compact member students in state tuition, fund alternative energy, fund desalination plants, fund some kind of Compact funded Healthcare (or share medical infrastructure with each other), fund high speed rail (good for the Pacific coast) and high speed internet, etc. If the Red States wish to live in the 50s (19 and 1850s) let them. Success in Compact States can cause the yet to be brain washed to rethink thier government is the enemy ideology (unless it is trying to regulate women's rights and young minds). Just an idea. Maybe not just a whacky idea. The older generations will be dying out in the next five to ten years and the younger ones will be taking thier place. No one generation is a monolith but the younger generations by and large reject right wing ideology and is more diverse. This is why you see voter suppression and the January 6th coup attempt.
This is similar to my idea of an EU-like entity or loose confederation that states can join or not-join, but those who don't join will not reap the benefits of being part of this confederation.
1
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment