- Again, one theme of this blog is the resurgence of tribal human nature and morality, at the expense of the achievements of the Enlightenment: Science and Democracy;
- With examples today beginning with “childless cat ladies” from the right;
- How Trump is saying if he wins in 2024, Christians will never need bother to vote again; what could he possibly mean by that?;
- How in the Olympics opening ceremonies, Christians see devils and perceive offense everywhere.
I try to connect daily links with some kind of bigger picture, and at the risk of repeating myself, I’m to say once again that the theme of this blog is about the big picture of life in the United States, perhaps the world, these past couple decades, in the resurgence of tribal human nature, to the detriment of the great achievements of humanity in the era of the Enlightenment, science and democracy, that increasingly are being challenged by the forces of religion and ignorance. Tribal mentality. The mentality and morality that drove the human race for hundreds of thousands, even millions of years, but which is not suitable for the modern, global world, facing global, existential problems. Humanity may never overcome this. There is no escaping tribal human nature except through education, and the tribalists go to great length to shield their children from education.
(Why is this happening? A topic for another post, though I’ve certainly discussed it before.)
Every day provides more examples. Picking up where we left off yesterday; so much is going on.
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More pieces about what conservatives/Republicans really think about people who are unlike themselves.
Media Matters, Matt Gertz, 28 Jul 2024: JD Vance’s “childless cat ladies” comment points to the GOP’s right-wing media problem, subtitled “Rising in Republican politics requires appealing to the party’s sadistic weirdos”
Nakedly misogynistic comments that Ohio Sen. JD Vance made during a 2021 Fox News appearance spurred a massive backlash after resurfacing this week. Vance’s description of Democratic leaders including Vice President Kamala Harris as “childless cat ladies” who “don’t really have a direct stake” in the country has been roundly condemned, drawing fire from across the political spectrum and fueling the argument that former President Donald Trump made a mistake by selecting Vance as his running mate.
But Vance’s “childless cat ladies” comments fit comfortably alongside the unbridled sexism that has infested that movement for years and has been unleashed by Harris’ ascension to presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.
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NY Times, Maureen Dowd, Opinion, 27 Jul 2024: JD Vance, Purr-fectly Dreadful
(Note that J.D. from a couple weeks ago, who’s gone through several variations of name over his life, has now lost the periods; now he’s JD.)
Suddenly, Donald Trump looks enlightened about women.
Sure, he’s in a 1959 time warp, like some spray-tanned, comb-over swinger in a Vegas lounge, talking about skirts and broads.
Sure, he filled the Supreme Court with religious zealots ending women’s rights.
Sure, he has been held liable for sexual abuse, accused of groping and caught talking about his right to grab women by their lady parts. He cheated on his first wife with the woman who became his second wife and then had flings when he was married to his third wife. He betrayed Melania with a porn star while she was home nursing their son and humiliated her again when the Stormy Daniels case went to trial. (See: Why Melania did not give a convention speech.)
Sure, his convention beatification was a dated homage to machismo, with Hulk Hogan tearing his shirt off and the U.F.C.’s Dana White introducing Trump as a fighter.
And yet, somehow, Trump managed to choose a vice-presidential pick whose views on women are even more draconian and meanspirited than his own.
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Paul Krugman, NY Times, 25 Jul 2024: JD Vance’s ‘Cat Ladies’ Riff Has Serious ‘Handmaid’s Tale’ Vibes
You may have heard about JD Vance’s “childless cat ladies” riff. But even if you have, it’s worth revisiting the full quote — and reminding yourself of what it says about the movement that may wind up in charge of this country after this year’s election.
In 2021, while running for the Senate, Vance explained what he saw as one of the biggest problems facing America: It’s being run “by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.” He name-checked, among others, Vice President Kamala Harris.
It’s a statement, as my colleague Jessica Grose writes, that shows the desperation of Republicans who are still “clinging to the tag line that the G.O.P. is the pro-family party.” But even for a red-meat, red-state Senate candidate, this was a remarkably harsh — and conspiracy-minded — insult to a large number of people: Around one-sixth of American women 40 to 44 have never had children. It’s the kind of comment that makes you wonder if Vance thinks that he has been nominated by the Republican Party to serve as the vice president of the Republic of Gilead.
Sorry — yes — Vance knows that our nation is still called the United States of America. But there’s a real “Handmaid’s Tale” vibe to a lot of what we’re hearing from the right.
And Krugman concludes:
As I see it, one of the great virtues of modern America is the freedom it offers its citizens to decide for themselves how to live their lives — a freedom, ironically, that Republicans used to tout all the time. And I see the increase in women’s freedom, including the protection of their right to decide whether to have children, as something that benefits all of us — men included.
But there are many people like Vance who want to limit or even take away that freedom.
“We are not going back” has already emerged as perhaps the key slogan of Harris’s presidential campaign. But depending on how this election turns out, we may indeed be going back — way, way back.
Yes again: conservatives have gone from the party of freedom and limited government, to the party of Christian control and restrictions on freedoms. And apparently most Republicans are just fine with that.
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Media Matters, Matt Gertz, 24 Jul 2024: Desperate right-wing pundits beg Trumpists to stop being so weird and racist about Kamala Harris, subtitled “It’s an exercise in futility”
The once- respectable political party is now run by the crazies, the racists and the misogynists, the conspiracy theorists. And winning just as many votes as ever.
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Multiple sources today. (Results of this linked Google search will vary…)
NY Times, 27 Jul 2024: Trump Tells Christians ‘You Won’t Have to Vote Anymore’ If He’s Elected, subtitled “Donald Trump, after lamenting that conservative Christians are not ‘big voters,’ urged the religious right to turn out for him ‘just this time.'”
In the closing minutes of his speech to a gathering of religious conservatives on Friday night, former President Donald J. Trump told Christians that if they voted him into office in November, they would never need to vote again.
What could he possibly mean by this? Are we naive to even ask this? Surely we’re not dimwitted children?
John Scalzi: Reminder: They Actually Are Planning a Dictatorship
The most charitable reading of that is that Trump is saying his next administration will be so popular that whomever succeeds him will win the vote in such an overwhelming landslide that Trump’s most fervent followers don’t have to rouse themselves to leave their couches. But inasmuch as his last administration was such a failure that he ended up being voted out, he then attempted sedition to overturn a fairly decided election, and he’s already admitted to planning to be a dictator “on day one” if he gets back in, if you buy into that most charitable reading you are, at best, a dimwitted child. Trump is monologuing his evil plans here, because he has no sense and can’t not. You can most assuredly believe he means it.
Also here at CNN.
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And now the Olympics are causing conservative Christians to clutch their pearls.
Salon, Kelly McClure, 27 Jul 2024: Speaker Mike Johnson and Elon Musk blast Olympics for being offensive to Christians, subtitled “From a ‘mockery of the Last Supper’ to a headless Marie Antoinette, the Olympics has conservatives clutching pearls”
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) issued a statement on Saturday, lashing out at the Olympics for being offensive to Christians, and he’s not the only one watching the festivities and coming away with the feeling that the production thus far has a Satanic vibe — in line with the conservative response to another major sporting event, the 2023 Super Bowl, when people like Donald Trump Jr. called Rihanna’s halftime show a work of the devil.
“Last night’s mockery of the Last Supper was shocking and insulting to Christian people around the world who watched the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games,” Johnson wrote in a post on X, in response to the very goth, very metal production crafted by opening ceremony director, Thomas Jolly.
It wasn’t the Last Supper, someone on Facebook pointed out; it was a Greek bacchanalia stylized in the manner of the famous da Vince painting. But Christians see the devil everywhere; they have such a narrow window of behavior they find acceptable, even among people who are not Christians. They so easily take offense.
