It used to be a respectable party. But even some inside it are questioning its extremists.
Three groups of items today.
- Moms of Liberty, Republican appeals to famous dictators, and their take that apologizing, for anything, is a weakness;
- DeSantis as gay-basher, those who criticize him, and those who support him;
- The Republican trend of making up quotes to justify Christian nationalism.
Slate, 5 Jul 2023: Inside the Weekend’s Gathering of America’s Most Unhinged Right-Wing Moms, subtitled “Trump got 19 standing O’s. DeSantis got three.”
PHILADELPHIA—If you’re going to celebrate yourself as “Moms Rocking the Cradle of Liberty” on your swag, it’s fair to expect a fight.
That’s especially true if you are Moms for Liberty—the conservative group known for anti-LGBTQ+ attacks and efforts to ban books, challenge curricula, and gain control of school boards—gathering in a city that visibly embraces diversity.
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Salon, Heather Digby Parton, 5 Jul 2023: Moms for Liberty are in for a rude awakening, subtitled “Moms for Liberty doesn’t speak for parents of school kids who aren’t on board with book banning and bullying”
I won’t try to summarize; I’ll just note that the group was found to have quoted Hitler on their newsletter cover a few weeks ago, and apologized. Then:
Christian Ziegler, chairman of the Florida Republican Party, conducted a session for leaders of Moms for Liberty on how to spin the media. It’s important, he advised, never to apologize for anything. “I think apologizing makes you weak.”
Certainly that’s been Trump’s policy since forever. Ziegler comments got this response from one Ron Filipkowski:
No. Apologizing when you screw up means you are just a decent human being. Decency = Weakness is pretty on brand for today’s Republican Party.
I noted this two days ago, in the item from NBC News. Never apologize; never admit that you might change your mind.
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As if doubling down, today there’s this item:
Salon, 5 Jul 2023: North Carolina lieutenant governor tells Moms for Liberty “it’s time” to start reading Hitler quotes, subtitled “‘It is time for us to get back and start reading some of those quotes,’ Mark Robinson said at the group’s summit”
“And here’s the thing: Whether you’re talking about Adolf Hitler; whether you’re talking about Chairman Mao; whether you’re talking about Stalin; whether you’re talking about Pol Pot; whether you’re talking about Castro in Cuba; or whether you’re talking about a dozen other despots all around the globe; it is time for us to get back and start reading some of those quotes”…
This is the modern Republican party.
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But wait, there’s more! DeSantis has gone full homophobic gay-basher.
NPR, 3 Jul 2023: Critics slam DeSantis campaign for sharing an anti-Trump ad targeting LGBTQ rights
Then the tone of the video changes dramatically. There’s a photo of DeSantis, edited to show lasers shooting out of his eyes, accompanied by the word “no.” The music shifts to a thumping bass beat as a montage of headlines, memes and movie snippets begins.
It features headlines about DeSantis’ policies, like “DeSantis Signs ‘Most Extreme Slate of Anti-Trans Laws in Modern History'” and “Pride event in St. Cloud canceled after DeSantis signs ‘Protection of Children Act’ into law.”
There are brief clips of Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman in “American Psycho,” Leonardo DiCaprio as Jordan Belfort in “Wolf of Wall Street” and Brad Pitt as Achilles in “Troy.” There are flashes of bodybuilders and the chiseled figure known online as “Gigachad,” interspersed with clips of DeSantis walking purposefully, signing legislation and riding in a helicopter.
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Thus
LGBTQNation, 5 Jul 2023: Gay Republicans finally turn on Ron DeSantis for his outlandish ad attacking LGBTQ+ people, subtitled “George Santos said that he once thought DeSantis was “a great governor” but now wonders if he’s homophobic.”
While others in the extreme-right-wing-media praise DeSantis.
Media Matters, 5 Jul 2023: Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles attacks “squishes on the right” who criticized an anti-LGBTQ ad by the DeSantis campaign, subtitled “Knowles praises DeSantis’ ad: ‘We’re gonna roll back the pride movement … It gives the Republican base a justification for abandoning Trump and embracing the DeSantis'”
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Meanwhile, reasonable people are wondering what DeSantis is up to. Who he is trying to help?
NBC News, 2 Jul 2023: Pete Buttigieg mocks Ron DeSantis for trying to ‘prove’ his ‘manhood’, subtitled “The transportation secretary, who is openly gay, criticized a video reposted by DeSantis’ team that goes after Trump on LGBTQ issues and features images of ‘shirtless bodybuilders.'”
“I’m going to choose my words carefully, partly because I’m appearing as secretary, so I can’t talk about campaigns,” Buttigieg, the first openly gay Cabinet member to be confirmed by the Senate, said in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“I’m going to leave aside the strangeness of trying to prove your manhood by putting up a video that splices images of you in between oiled-up, shirtless bodybuilders,” he added. “And just get to the bigger issue that is on my mind whenever I see this stuff in the policy space, which is, again: Who are you trying to help? Who are you trying to make better off? And what public policy problems do you get up in the morning thinking about how to solve?”
After he noted his recent travels to places around the country that are using funds from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that President Joe Biden signed in 2021, Buttigieg said: “I just don’t understand the mentality of somebody who gets up in the morning thinking that he’s going to prove his worth by competing over who can make life hardest for a hard-hit community that is already so vulnerable in America.”
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As I’ve often noted, Republicans aren’t interested in solving problems. They’re interested in maintaining power by vilifying people (immigrants, gays) their base is frightened of and feels threatened by. Nothing about freedom or liberty, except for themselves. An appeal to base, tribal human nature.
This is the modern Republican Party.
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But wait, there’s more! Conservatives, the religious ones, are always cherry-picking the writings of the Founding Fathers (who are regarded as some kind of gods whose wisdom cannot be questioned), or simply making things up, to justify their claim that the United States was founded as a Christian Nation, despite all the clear language that they were not.
Salon, 5 Jul 2023: “You will be unsurprised to hear that Patrick Henry never said this”: Hawley mocked for fake quote, subtitled “Hawley attributed a magazine quote from 1956 to one of the Founding Fathers”
Hawley claimed that Patrick Henry said “It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason, peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.” Which Patrick Henry didn’t say. It was a quote from a 1956 right-wing magazine.
Later Hawley claimed he was merely triggering the Libs, as if truth and honesty mean nothing. He then used a quote from John Quincy Adams, to which that same Ron Filipkowski as above replied:
No, we weren’t triggered, we were mocking you for using a fake Patrick Henry quote. Now you are using a quote from John QUINCY Adams, who was NINE years old at the time of the Declaration.
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This is the modern Republican Party. I’m pretty sure a vast segment of the US population, who’ve always voted Republican, keep voting Republican, without realizing how extreme its leaders are. Where else, they would think, is there to go?
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The big picture is, there is a huge audience out there for politicians, including Trump and Hawley, who lie all the time, and tell people what they want to hear, because those lies make them feel safe and secure, and confirms their suspicions that everyone unlike themselves are evil outsiders.
The core issue, as I referred to it two days ago.
In very broad terms, the expansion of globalism is freaking conservatives out, around the globe, who want to tighten their bonds and reject everything that they think threatens their survival. Pure evolutionary thinking. No rational thought behind it.
