- Several items about Jim Jordan;
- How the Bible disproves climate change; how people in wheelchairs lack faith in God; how Trump claims (falsely) that flypaper is illegal because cruelty to animals; how tap water is birth control;
- More seriously: Items from Salon about Trump’s narcissism; from LA Times by a former Republican calling out his party as descending into autocracy.
Without dwelling on them too much, the wackadoodles. And before some of them leave the stage. The situation with Republicans in Congress is likely only to get worse. As the world watches.
Salon, Heather Digby Parton, 18 Oct 2023: Jim Jordan’s no outlier: He fits right into the GOP’s post-Gingrich history of ruthless trolling, subtitled “Every Republican speaker since the rise of Newt has been an incompetent troll — or a felon. Jordan’s no big change”
Going back to the Reagan 1980s. Is the really big picture here the gradual discomfort of conservatives with the modern world, ever since Republicans drew them to their side after Civil Rights legislation passed in the 1960s? And southern states switched from being Democratic to being Republican? It’s become clearer over the years what MAGA means: go back to the 1950s, when everybody but white Christians knew their place, which was out of sight.
The writer here, aka Digby, has this blog. Another Heather with three names.
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Similarly, Robert Reich, 17 Oct 2023: Update: Do you have to be a thug to be speaker or president?, subtitled “Jim Jordan is following in the footsteps of his mentor, Donald Trump”
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Right Wing Watch, Peter Montgomery, 18 Oct 2023: Why Insurrectionist and ‘Legislative Terrorist’ Jim Jordan Should Never Be Speaker of the House—and What His Rise Says about the MAGA Republican Party
The eight reasons: he’s an insurrectionist; he’s Trump’s lapdog; he undermines the rules of law; he’s an anti-freedom extremist; he is about ideological warfare, not governing; he’s the far right’s candidate; he promotes damaging right-wing conspiracy theories; he’s untrustworthy.
But what more could MAGA conservatives want?
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The New Republic, Matt Ford, 17 Oct 2023: Jim Jordan Is the Nihilist That House Republicans Deserve, subtitled “The Ohioian, who combines an extreme lack of interest in governing with a governing interest in extremism, would be the perfect leader of this lapsed party.”
A Jordan speakership would be the logical end point of the House GOP’s decline. Most Republican lawmakers have given up on trying to actually do the basic job of passing legislation, either because the House rules make it so difficult for rank-and-file members or because they have little interest in it to begin with. Elevating Jordan would be a triumph for show over substance, for extremism over common sense, and for election denial over democracy.
As I’ve said, Republicans have no interest in solving problems; they deny problems that exist (e.g. climate change) in favor of imaginary ones that rile up their base (drag shows and books about gays).
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Has the most popular science fiction writer from Ohio checked in on this matter? A month ago.
Whatever, John Scalzi, 7 Sep 2023: Fani Willis Says “Bless Your Heart” To Jim Jordan
Ending,
Jim Jordan is well known for being a corrupt dimwitted opportunist bully with even fewer principles than brain cells, so it’s nice to see him get taken to the woodshed by someone both smarter and more principled than he. I’m sure Jordan will bluff and bluster and make noise about it, because he’s not smart enough (nor otherwise sees any advantage) to be ashamed of himself, so the rest of us will just have to be ashamed for him. As a citizen of Ohio, I sure am! Please stop electing him, OH-4! You can do better, in so many ways.
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Quick ones.
Hemant Mehta, Friendly Atheist, 18 Oct 2023: Pennsylvania lawmaker cites Genesis 8 as proof that climate change is fake, subtitled “State Rep. Stephanie Borowicz, a Christian Nationalist, was justifying her vote against a symbolic resolution”
Think of how many modern problems we could dismiss if only we could find the right Biblical passage to make them go away! This person is not only a wackadoodle, but *dangerous.* Alas, she and her ilk have always been with us.
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From a site that collects these kinds of thing. First, the item above.
Joe.My.God, 17 Oct 2023: PA State Rep: The Bible Says Climate Change Is Fake
Then these tid-bits.
Joe.My.God, 17 Oct 2023: Hate Pastor: People In Wheelchairs Lack Faith In God
Joe.My.God, 17 Oct 2023: Trump: Flypaper Is Now Banned As “Cruelty To Animals” (It isn’t, of course; just Trump lying, again, to rile up his dimwitted base.)
Joe.My.God, 17 Oct 2023: Fox Host: “Tap Water Is Effectively Birth Control”
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Trump the narcissist. We’ve seen this over and over.
Salon, Chauncey DeVega, 13 Oct 2023: From MAGA to Gaza: Trump’s disorder engine has global consequences, subtitled “Donald Trump claims the Gaza war is all about him — and at this point, that staggering narcissism is no surprise”
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LA Times, Stuart Stevens, 8 Oct 2023: Opinion: Here’s how we know the Republican Party has become an autocratic movement
It’s often said that Donald Trump has a cultlike following. But that’s far too benign.
“Star Wars” has a cultlike following. Taylor Swift has her cult of “Swifties.” A political organization that has no platform other than loyalty to the leader is not a cult, it’s an autocratic movement.
The tragicomic chaos in the House in the last week is the natural result of a political party that has lived under Trump’s thumb. It should end any pretense that the current Republican Party is a serious governing party.
As Hannah Arendt wrote in “The Origins of Totalitarianism”: “Total loyalty is possible only when fidelity is emptied of all concrete content, from which changes of mind might naturally arise. The totalitarian movements, each in its own way, have done their utmost to get rid of the party programs which specified concrete content and which they inherited from earlier, non‑totalitarian stages of development.”
The writer is a former Republican strategist, author of The Conspiracy to End America: Five Ways My Old Party Is Driving Our Democracy to Autocracy, just published October 10th.
