- How Republicans cheer mass deportation;
- How JD Vance’s comments reflect conservative values that prioritize children over adults;
- Two pieces about how Republican values have been abandoned their traditional core values, in the service of a tyrant;
- Items about the deliberate misunderstanding of the Olympics Opening Ceremony, white supremacists, Elon Musk’s video lies;
- An essay by Peter Wehner, another disillusioned Republican, about what’s happened to his party.
Tribal moralists know: Outsiders are *bad*.
The Guardian, Jeff Yang, 29 Jul 2024: Republicans cheer for ‘mass deportation’ – a dark new chapter in America’s history of othering ‘them’, subtitled “The convention celebrated Trump’s vision of immigration as a disease. The GOP idea of a cure would mean I, and millions of others, would not exist”
The Republican party has made it clear it doesn’t like pronouns. But two in particular have become the seething core of the worldview it holds: “they” and “them”.
Just hours after the former president was shot at on 13 July, Cory Mills, a Republican US representative from Florida, posted on X: “First they tried to silence him. Then they tried to imprison him. Now they try to kill him.”
Mills didn’t need to explain what he meant by “they”, because for his fellow Republicans, it was obvious. Never mind that the actual shooter was soon thereafter revealed to be a 20-year-old white, native-born American male and a registered Republican. Regardless of who pulled the trigger, the actual enemy was always going to be “they” and “them” – the woke, the left, the mainstream media, the consortium of vengeful losers and thwarted despoilers of the American way of life that Trump, in all of his muscular patriotism, claimed to stand defiantly against.
Yes, outsiders are evil. Never mind America’s history of immigrants, including — of course — the ancestors of all those white people in that photo. They’ve got theirs.
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AlterNet, Roxanne Cooper, 29 Jul 2024: What JD Vance really thinks of women and children — in his own words
Childless cat ladies, and so on. And this:
In a 2021 speech, Vance argued against women leaving violent marriages, suggesting that the sexual revolution’s emphasis on personal happiness had negative consequences for children.
I’ve seen this attitude my entire life. Children are more important than adults. Adult happiness is irrelevant. Children are more important, because they expand the tribe.
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Once again, Republicans have devolved into a cult. (Because a cult is the essence of tribal morality.)
Salon, Karyn Amira, 29 Jul 2024: Expert: JD Vance’s selection as Trump’s running mate marks the end of Republican conservatism, subtitled “The Republican Party has abandoned conservative values to serve a single man”
I am a political scientist whose research and political analysis focuses on the relationship between Trump, the Republican Party and conservatism. Everyday citizens define conservatism in different ways, but at its root it is a philosophy that supports smaller and less-centralized government because consolidated power could be used to silence political competition and deny citizens their liberties.
Since 2015, Trump has tightened his grip on the Republican Party, moving it further away from its professed conservative ideology. The choice of Vance as Trump’s running mate – and the competition that preceded it – are the latest steps in this process.
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Vox, Zack Beachamp, 29 Jul 2024: Trump proposed bombing Mexico and it somehow wasn’t a big story, subtitled “Trump’s extremist policy agenda is flying under the radar — and that’s a problem.”
Trump’s outrageous statements, which would be highlighted on the news if they came from any other politician, are ignored by the mass media. He’s become normalized.
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More about conservative outrage over their misunderstanding of the Olympics Opening Ceremony.
JMG, via email, 29 Jul 2024: Brian Brown: Protest Olympics By Sending Me Money
They insist on misunderstanding. And they beg for money. And there are people who believe them.
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JMG, from USA Today, 29 Jul 2024: White Supremacists Are Among Project 2025 Authors
No surprise.
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More lying. And the perfidy of Elon Musk.
Salon, Nicholas Liu, 29 Jul 2024: “Manipulated lies”: Elon Musk intentionally shares fake video of Kamala Harris, violating own rules, subtitled “Musk posted a video in which a fake Harris claims to be ‘the ultimate diversity hire'”
Why is it Republicans and their supporters always need to lie?
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Finally for today, a more substantial piece by Peter Wehner.
NY Times, Opinion, Peter Wehner, 29 Jul 2024: What Has Happened to My Party Haunts Me
During the time I served in three Republican administrations (Reagan and both Bushes), the party was hawkish and unrelentingly critical of the Soviet Union and then Russia. It was supportive of NATO. It condemned anti-American dictators and authoritarian leaders. It was deeply committed to “the common task of strengthening democracy throughout the world,” as Reagan said in 1982. And it argued that it was in America’s interest to provide global leadership.
The Republican Party championed free trade and fiscal discipline, though in practice it often fell short. It was welcoming of legal immigrants and refugees. Republicans argued that reforming entitlement programs was vital. Many of its leading figures insisted that moral character was an essential trait for political leaders and especially for presidents. Republicans warned, too, that a cruel, squalid political culture undermined a decent society.
Today, the Republican Party has jettisoned every one of these commitments.
Part of this piece is a discussion with Jonathan Rauch, whose book I reviewed over three posts ending here.
Wehner concludes,
It’s hard and haunting to know that the political party to which I devoted a significant part of my life has become the greatest political threat to the country I love.
