- Why are many Americans thirsty for authoritarianism?;
- Why well-intentioned campus speech codes should be abolished;
- Several items on why the GOP is pursing a Biden impeachment inquiry, despite lack of evidence;
- How Trump is now conflating himself with God;
- MAGA: guilty until proven innocent;
- Conservative junk science organizations to oppose trans equality.
NY Times, Charles M. Blow, 13 Dec 2023: America’s Thirst for Authoritarianism.
So why would this be? There’s less to this piece than I had hoped, but then as I’ve said I keep raising my expectations, as I keep searching for a big-picture answer to the political trends of recent years. It doesn’t solve anything to blame conservatives, or people who are subject to following authoritarian leaders; surely there have always been such people. But what brought them out now, i.e. this past decade? Their repulsion at suffering a black president? An accumulation of grievances over ever changing social norms? Those are my go-to theories, more-or-less, and this piece doesn’t suggest any substantial new angle. A couple quotes though. Opening:
Around the world, authoritarianism is ascendant and democracy is in decline.
A 2022 report from the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance found that “over the past six years, the number of countries moving toward authoritarianism is more than double the number moving toward democracy” and that nearly half of the 173 countries assessed were “experiencing declines” in at least one metric of democracy.
The United States wasn’t impervious to this trend. The report found that America was “moderately backsliding” on its democracy.
But I fear that we’re now on the precipice of fully turning away from democracy and toward a full embrace of authoritarianism. The country seems thirsty for it; many Americans appear to be inviting it.
Confidence in many of our major institutions — including schools, big business, the news media — is at or near its lowest point in the past half-century, in part because of the Donald Trump-led right-wing project to depress it. Indeed, according to a July Gallup report, Republicans’ confidence in 10 of the 16 institutions measured was lower than Democrats’. Three institutions in which Republicans’ confidence exceeded Democrats’ were the Supreme Court, organized religion and the police.
And this:
In Tim Alberta’s new book, “The Kingdom, the Power and the Glory,” he explains that many evangelical Christians have developed, in the words of the rightist Southern Baptist pastor Robert Jeffress, an “under siege” mentality that has allowed them to embrace Trump, whose decadent curriculum vitae runs counter to many of their stated values. It allows them to employ Trump as muscle in their battle against a changing America.
This kind of thinking gives license — or turns a blind eye — to Trump’s authoritarian impulses.
Here it is again: “their battle against a changing America.” (Here’s a link to the book mentioned.)
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Here’s a piece that aligns with the trend in thought that “DEI” policies on university campuses, while well intentioned, are doing more harm than good.
NY Times, guest essay by James Kirchick, 13 Dec 2023: Campus Speech Codes Should Be Abolished
If the problem with campus speech codes is the selectivity with which universities penalize various forms of bigotry, the solution is not to expand the university’s power to punish expression. It’s to abolish speech codes entirely.
And the piece goes on with a nuanced discussion of examples and the nature of free speech and censorship.
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LA Times, Editorial, 7 Dec 2023: No evidence for Biden impeachment inquiry? No problem. The House GOP doesn’t seem to care
The politically inspired impeachment inquiry into President Biden has failed to produce any convincing evidence that Biden has committed the “high crimes and misdemeanors” required by the U.S. Constitution for the conviction and removal of a chief executive. So naturally Speaker Mike Johnson is proposing a floor vote, likely next week, to authorize the inquiry as a “necessary step.”
This is the very definition of partisan politics. And a further example of how Republicans seem only to be interested in playing politics, in the pursuit of power, rather than attempting to solve any real-world problems.
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To wit. This is what they’re focused on.
Joe.My.God, 14 Dec 2023: Missouri Republicans File Over 20 Anti-LGBTQ Bills (via a St. Louis Post-Dispatch link only allowed to subscribers).
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Vox, 13 Dec 2023: Why Republicans are pursuing an unfounded impeachment inquiry into Biden, subtitled “House Republicans voted to launch an inquiry despite no evidence of Biden’s wrongdoing.”
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AlterNet, David Badash, 14 Dec 2023: Comer reveals his most ‘damning evidence’ against Biden is a long-debunked conspiracy theory
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Even Fox News pans the GOP “impeachment investigation” against Biden.
Salon, 13 Dec 2023: “A mistake”: Fox News panel pans GOP’s “botched” Biden impeachment rollout, subtitled “Hunter Biden skipped a closed-door deposition on Capitol Hill on Wednesday”
We already understand that conservatives aren’t concerned about evidence, only with making assertions, or accusations. They think this is some kind of “revenge” for actions taken against Trump, oblivious to the differences between both sides’ supposed cases. But there’s more to it, as Robert Reich explains.
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Robert Reich, 12 Dec 2023: Who’s really behind the drive to impeach Joe Biden?, subtitled “The same person who sought Zelensky’s help in digging up dirt on Hunter and Joe.”
That is, Trump. The key point is here:
Although there’s not a scintilla of evidence linking President Biden to any high crime or misdemeanor, Trump and his allies know that the mere fact of an ongoing impeachment inquiry will generate enough media stories to confuse a portion of the public about whether Biden is guilty of something.
Because Trump is brilliant in a way. He knows that simply keeping suspicion about Biden in the news will confuse voters who don’t follow the news closely — which I think must be something like 95% of the population — to promote a false equivalence between Trump and Biden. Both accused! Both under investigation! It’s a kind of…. propaganda.
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Boing Boing, 14 Dec 2023: Trump rally warns that God will punish those who don’t worship Dictator Trump (video)
The Donald Trump campaign is now conflating Trump and God, warning a MAGA crowd at a rally in Iowa last night that if you go against the Republican frontrunner, you are rebelling against God. And, as the headlining pastor put it, “there will be retribution against all” who “rebel against the authority.”
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Conservative thinking.
Boing Boing, 13 Dec 2023: You are guilty until proven innocent says MAGA lawmaker on House floor (video)
Finally, the mystery has been solved as to why House Republicans okayed a vote for an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden: in MAGA land, where up means down and nonsense makes sense, you are guilty until proven innocent, as shared by stable genius Rep. Ralph Norman on the floor today.
“You cannot just … say you are innocent and not have to prove it,” explained the befuddled South Carolina MAGA man, who, like the rest of his cohorts, needs a crash course in Civics 101.
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One more.
LGBTQNation, 14 Dec 2023: Conservatives have built a vast network of junk science organizations to oppose trans equality, subtitled “A new report identifies 60 organizations spreading false claims to undermine support for trans people.”
Ideology over reality. There have always been gays, there have always been people who identify with the gender they were not born with. It’s society that determines whether such people are allowed to live their preferred lives, or suppressed into conformity. And many past cultures have done better at it than 21st century America.
