Conservatives At War

Update 9/12: With thanks to Infidel for linking this to his Sunday's weekly blog wrap-up!

I'm not talking about the Far Right's obsessions with putting the United States into war zones in Afghanistan or Iraq or other places in the Middle East or Central America that would make them feel good about regime changing the rest of the world into their puppet states.

I'm talking about how everybody in the Far Right is so driven to be in a state of spiritual, cultural, economic, and political war with everybody else (and even sometimes within their own ranks as they fight a purity campaign against perceived RINOs).

Just try reading Rude Pundit, who keeps track of these things, documenting how the craziness of the Far Right fringe is now the Republican mainstream. Watch how the Far Right goes charging into school board meetings to scream and intimidate the boards over the simplest of pandemic measures like masking their own kids for safety, as though every little particle of FREEEEEEEEDOM is threatened by a cloth mask that can prevent the spread of COVID.

The entire political fight this year over masking, and vaccines, and the mad push to take "alternative cures" that are toxic just to "own the libs" is all part of a Contrarian effort by the Far Right: Not against Liberals but against an entire world where facts and evidence and expert analysis are in opposition to the wingnuts' ignorance-driven faith (and not faith in God, but faith in their own value, their dominance over the rest of us as God's Chosen Ones. Listen to them sometime, you'll realize they're not praising God they're worshipping themselves and their own greedy success).

Republicans crow about being the friends to Big Business but the second a company or twelve steps out of line they'll be threatening those businesses with retaliatory regs and investigations. The power leadership of the conservative party willing to wage war against billionaires all the while pandering to those same billionaires about defending their almighty tax cuts.

The Far Right hatred of immigrants - railing against the reality that our nation was built, is built, will be built by immigrants - is now condemning us to a cycle of sadism and cruelty towards those who need the shelter we ought to provide to those who want to become Americans just like the rest of us. All driven by a racial Fear Of The Other that opposes the faces of Blacks, Latinos, Asians, Afghans, anyone else Not-White.

And the ongoing war against women - against their rights to live their lives and make their choices and be free of the chains that the Far Right would lock upon their bodies - turning darker and malevolent as Red states like Texas impose abortion restrictions so severe no woman could get a safe abortion, as well as threatening to unleash a bounty-snitching war between neighbors without oversight or control.

But this is where we are now, as a nation, isn't it? Even before trump forged deep rifts within the U.S. through his inept rage, even before the warmongering of Bush/Cheney, even before the Call to Culture War by the likes of Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh and Pat Buchanan in the 1990s, even before the callous shredding of social safety nets under Reagan, even before Nixon's paranoia, that conservative rage against the rest of the world was there. The Birchers and the anti-Fluoride nutcases may have been fringe, but they were patient, and let the rest of the conservative ideologies merge into their epistemic bubble of madness. Now it's all QAnon anti-vaxxing anti-immigrant anti-women anti-voting pro-insurrection madness, and it's all they live for.

It seems weird and sad and dangerous how one political faction in what's supposed to be a participatory democracy is driven to make sure there's no participation AND no democracy, only their hold on power. But this is where the Republicans and their rabid voting base are at now: fully aware of their own minority status in the demographic makeup of the United States, and terrified that they can't retain or at least share that power through concession or moderation.

So rather than redirect their energy, rather than come to terms with the reality that they should pander to the better angels of our nature: the Far Right would rather sink deeper into rage, and wallow in the delights of hurting others, and answer to their demons desperate to fight a war they can't win.

It must be tiring to be so angry and spiteful at the world every minute of the day, Republicans.

Then again, all that hate seems to keep you Republicans all warm at night.

And yet, all that hate is the kind of fire that will burn yourselves straight to Hell.

I'd pity you, wingnuts, but you honestly wouldn't understand why.