Cavalcade of Chaos

Apparently, a huge percentage of the country is nostalgic for pandemics, riots, and economic collapse. 

The GOP — long a bastion of gaslighting and swift-boating — has reached a new pinnacle of triple reverse psychology by proclaiming, with straight faces all around, that Americans were better off four years ago than they are now.

That would be 2020, widely regarded as the most hellish year in modern American history.

However, Republican zealots are not alone in their assessment of the recent past. Lots of Americans misremember that horrific time as the good old days, mystifying the rest of us who wonder how any sane adult who lived through the Trump administration can say, “Let’s do all that again!”

Make no mistake — if that black-hearted neo-fascist wins the election, we can expect more than just a rerun of bigotry, fraud, incompetence, and rage. No, it will be a lot worse.

You see, the first time around, Trump “accomplished close to nothing because the people around him were either too inept to put his vision into practice or too skillful at blocking him to allow him to put his vision into practice.”

But if this jabbering sociopath gets another shot at the Oval Office, the “available supply of serious, qualified people willing to serve … has dwindled.” He will appoint lapdogs, cronies, lunatics, and losers whose only qualifications will be how much they hero-worship the orange messiah.

As such, we will get immigrant roundups, a national abortion ban, accelerated climate destruction, massive corruption, more right-wing judicial activism, the increased denigration of science, and economic calamity. And that is just on the domestic front. We’re not even getting into the Russia-Ukraine war, the Gaza war, North Korean belligerence, and China’s dominance. All that will get worse as well.

Consider that a second Trump term would mean the possible death of American democracy itself. The man is quite open about his desire to become president for life. It is not hyperbole to state that “there is a clear path to dictatorship in the United States, and it is getting shorter every day.” The presumed Republican nominee’s “threat to democratic institutions and the rule of law is not a matter of conjecture.”

His second-term policies would be based solely on revenge, cruelty, and self-aggrandizement. 

But hey, maybe eggs will cost a little less. So it will totally be worth it, right?

DEI DOA

Recently, America has endured many disasters: killer blizzards, innumerable mass shootings, governmental dysfunction, and a psychopathic bigot leading in the polls.

But conservatives have identified the culprit for all these and every other issue. They know the main bad guy vexing this nation and unleashing infinite misery upon our country. Yes, I’m talking about diversity.

You see, the Supreme Court’s decision to end affirmative action didn’t quite make America safe enough for white men. So now conservatives are unleashing their ire on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. These are the often half-assed attempts that institutions make to include ethnic minorities in their systems.

Conservatives see these programs as unconstitutional and immoral. I assure you that it is completely coincidental that these are among the only areas of American culture where white men are not in charge. Yup, conservatives are taking a completely principled stand… ahem.

In any case, when Boeing airplanes came apart in midair, most experts pointed to “the weakened regulations on Boeing thanks to more than $65 million in lobbying efforts.” 

But conservatives weren’t so easily hoodwinked. They shrieked that airplanes were disintegrating because that’s what happens “when you’re focused on DEI and maybe less focused on engineering and safety.” 

Now, I could point out that “this narrative has no basis in fact” and that Boeing is not “particularly diverse, either at the workforce level… or on the corporate ladder, where the overwhelming majority of executives are white men.” No matter, it must be the fault of the stray black executive or that Latino engineer who clearly didn’t belong there.

Now, commentators have pointed out that “right-wing media figures have also erroneously blamed last year’s train derailment in Ohio and the collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank on DEI initiatives,” despite the fact there is zero evidence for that. In truth, many of the catastrophes occurring in America are taking place under the leadership of white guys. But it’s impolite to point that out to conservatives.

So they will continue to blame ethnic minorities and eliminate even minimal attempts to increase diversity. As a result, attacks on diversity in education and within major corporations have intensified.

For example, the University of Florida has eliminated all its DEI positions and canceled its DEI-related contracts. And the accounting firm PwC has dropped its diversity targets. 

Across the country, DEI funding and staffing are plummeting, “after a two-year boom in the wake of the protests that followed the murder of George Floyd in 2020.”

You remember that whole George Floyd thing, don’t you? It’s like Covid or the collapse of the Trump economy — something that apparently never happened.

In any case, if conservatives get their way and vanquish diversity, we will get rid of all those undeserving ethnic minorities who are messing up everything and provoking every disaster that occurs. Sure, you might argue that many studies have shown that diverse teams perform better than racially homogeneous ones and that companies that embrace diversity get better results.

But I’m sure those studies are wrong. Yeah, they were probably created by some black guy.

Second-draft Blues

Hey, remember that book I was writing? Yeah, you remember.

On certain weeks, I had to skip posting because I was swamped working on the first draft. And then I would just post a rambling apology for not writing a full article and paste up a crazy AI-generated image to distract you.

Speaking of that, look at this:

Yeah, well… this is a little awkward. But I need to take another break this week.

I made my deadline and turned in my first draft (huzzah!). But my publisher got back to me with the inevitable rewrites, so now I need to tackle those. Therefore, I’m not writing a new post this week. Just another apology and crazy image:

I’ll be back next week. Thanks

Potato, Potato

“Embryos, to me, are babies.”

—A GOP moderate

“Crazy extremists, to me, are insane zealots.”

—Me

When not breathlessly discussing the theory that Joe Biden is 819 years old, the mainstream media insists on lecturing progressives about our disdain for the Republican Party.

We need to listen to the other side, we are told, even though the GOP’s agenda consists of throwing yet more money at billionaires, allowing companies to pollute our environment at will, and letting Putin destroy Europe. Oh, and they also “have promised to incarcerate and deport millions of immigrants and children of immigrants, send federal troops into Democratic cities, ban Muslims, silence LGBTQ+ Americans, prosecute journalists, and end abortion across the country.” The result would be “an autocracy in which a powerful leader and his chosen loyalists make the rules under which the rest of us must live.”

Clearly, it’s easy for progressives to find common ground with that worldview, right?

It should be obvious by now that the GOP is a quasi-religious cult. Their core constituency is made up of Christian nationalists, bigots, conspiracy nuts, authoritarian lovers, and people who flunked freshman history. Those conservatives who are none of these things are still willing to go along with the dogmatists because they are scared for their lives, scared of Democrats, or scared of admitting they have been wrong all along.

Moderate Republicans are running for the exits as if a swarm of killer bees is following them, and conservatives who once thoughtfully explained their ideas are now yelling right-wing hyperbole as loudly and rapidly as they can.

Never have “so many people in one party behaved with so little respect for themselves or the nation’s interests at one time.”

There will be no getting along. Hell, even conservatives are yelling, “No peace, bitch!” at one another. So why should progressives be expected to smile as they’re insulted and threatened?

Maybe we can talk if moderate Republicans ever return to take control of their party. Unless that unlikely scenario occurs, we will just endure the lecturing.

Ballots and Bullets

As I may have mentioned, this is an election year.

I also may have said something about how millions of Americans will vote this November for an aspiring despot who wants to crush dissent, abolish democracy, and catapult the nation into a hellhole of authoritarian chaos. But I mumble sometimes, so maybe you didn’t catch it.

In any case, people are taking the inevitable Biden-Trump rematch seriously. Researchers have found that “an overwhelming majority of Americans believe democracy is ‘at risk’ in the upcoming presidential election.” They are correct, of course, because if Republicans regain power, they will burn the country down rather than give it up again.

So it’s a good thing that experienced officials are running our electoral system and focused on making sure the election is fair, accurate, and efficient. Well, at the least the election officials who aren’t running for their lives are focused on that.

You see, “since the 2020 election, state and local officials have faced a surge of violent threats, harassment, and intimidation.” This hostility is primarily from Trump supporters, who accused election officials “of rigging that race and subsequently hounded many out of office.” 

Because so many officials have quit in fear for their lives, more than 20% of election administrators “will be doing the job for the first time in 2024.”

Yes, this is yet another way in which Trump has manhandled the nation, perhaps permanently. Before 2020, “threats against election workers were virtually nonexistent,” but now they are frequent. And the abuse has often been “more severewhen directed at officials who were women, people of color, religious minorities, or LGBTQ.”

Now, you may be saying, “This is all the fault of the woke mob,” or Antifa or whatever imaginary group of progressives that the GOP conjures up as the latest boogeyman.

Well, keep in mind that “support for political violence runs mostly along party lines.” About one-third of Republicanssupport violence as a means to get their way, compared to 13% of Democrats. More specifically, Republicans who like Trump are nearly three times as likely as other Republicans to support political violence.

So yeah, we can safely say it’s that guy’s fault.

In this golden age of political bedlam, America is “grappling with the biggest and most sustained increase in political violencesince the 1970s.”

And as bad as the 1970s were, American political violence back then was “perpetrated more often by radicals on the left and focused largely on destroying property.” But the contemporary version of the Symbionese Liberation Army isn’t interested in blowing up an empty bank. Today’s political violence “is aimed at people — and most of the deadly outbursts … have come from the right.”

Basically, you are far more likely to be shot by a neofascist than by an animal-rights activist.

How grim is the potential for carnage during this year’s election season? Well, many election offices have installed “bulletproof glass and security doors amid threats of violence.”

For all of you who thought voting was a dull obligation, that is certainly one way to spice things up.

Welcome to the new version of American democracy.