The degradation in American political discourse has been obvious since the early 90s. Spurred by the first influx of extremists into the Republican party and Congress, led by Newt Gingrich and Tom Delay, the rise of fascism and anti-American behavior has become more evident each year since. Intent on nothing less than the destruction of the federal government, as stated explicitly by Grover Norquist, the conservative movement ushered in the age of white rage and resentment that has finally blossomed today.
We've moved from Lee Atwater's dog whistles and Willie Horton ads to public pride in pathological lying and the promulgation of false news. We will soon have a government in thrall to the Russian Empire thanks to the treasonous and seditious behavior of the future president, the Senate Majority leader, and his allies. 62 million people either deliberately voted their bigotry or cared not a whit that they were electing a racist, sexist autocrat who took pride in his multiple criminal behaviors.
And what do they say to liberal, productive America? Stop being elitist. Stop looking down on the population that has become expert at taking and not producing. Stop being so smug behind your post-graduate degrees, and reach out to the poor white people of this country.
I don't remember poor white America every reaching out to diverse America to get to know us. I don't recall them demanding better education for their children so they could understand the theory of evolution, or learn skills they could use to start their own companies in a spirit of Republican entrepreneurship, rather than wasting away in a haze of narcotic addiction. I don't recall them demanding the FDA send nutrition experts to their towns and cities to teach them how to prevent diabetes and obesity, so they could lead healthy and productive lives.
All I can recall is their biannual voting for Republicans who stole from them to redistribute to their own pockets, and then shut down the government so it was incapable of responding to their needs. They elected arch-conservative state legislatures which piled on, conning them repeatedly, but apparently not placating that seething resentment towards "librals," which kept them enthralled to their leaders, both religious and secular, preaching hate.
And after calling Obama all the slurs in the book, demonizing and dehumanizing him when he provided tens of millions of them with health insurance and saved their damn jobs while preventing a great depression, they unleashed the "Whitelash" and voted for a real kleptocratic demagogue, a man who has never done anything of value in his entire seventy years. Congratulations, America, your resentment reached its peak and now you own it.
I will add that rage and resentment isn't isolated to white men who happen to be uneducated. There is plenty within the progressive community, too, which is threatening to tear it apart. After years of apathy and limited involvement, the Occupy crowd found themselves a candidate, and when he lost, many lost their minds in conspiracy theories long the province of right-wing lunatics. Maybe enough to throw the election.
Even within the LGBT community there is resentment over the privileging of white men and women with the focus on marriage equality, and the subsequent drop-off in funding and energy since the Supreme Court decision last year. And even within my tiny trans community there are women who are still embittered and enraged that they weren't hired or given leadership positions over the past fifteen years, and young trans persons who know nothing of the community's history or their current situation in an aggressive world targeting them. We're in a crisis, and there is no room anymore for petty personal politics.
Today, as every day, matters continue to worsen. Friday night the CIA reported, as part of an intelligence investigation covering all the agencies but obviously timed so that the headline got out before the Electoral College votes on December 19, that the Russians effectively intervened to throw the election to Trump. We know Trump was at least a useful fool to the Russians, but it's clear to anyone with a brain that he was complicit as well. We see all his advisers on the Putin payroll, many of his cabinet picks the same, his call for them to hack the DNC (a bit of a slip during the campaign, it looks like now), and his response to the CIA report consisting of an attack on the CIA rather than the Russians.
I'm glad I studied Russian in high school and college. We are clearly through the Looking Glass as Il Duce is defending the Russian dictator while undermining his country's intelligence agencies. Unless, of course, we're already a colony of the Russian Empire.
November 8, 2016 - the day the Confederacy finally won the Civil War, and the Soviet Union won the Cold War.
I've never seen a film or HBO series with this plot line, and if it didn't mean the end of America it might be an interesting viewing experience. But it's real, at least for people who live in a fact-based reality.
As of now, there are only a few Republicans willing to stand up to the treason of Mitch McConnell and the Trump team. That's what it is - treason - and we need to repeat it ad nauseum. Just as we need to repeat that everything out of Der Fuhrer's mouth are lies. Give no quarter. Obstruct. Resist.
We can overcome the destruction of the United States if patriotic Republicans take a stand. If, indeed, the patriotism they flaunted and flogged for the past forty years was real and not a faux put-on to shame Democrats, then it is possible to stop this transition in its tracks. There is no constitutional road map, because no one could have written a script where 62 million Americans burn their house down and then turn the keys over to the Russians. With Machiavellian conspirators like Karl Rove and Ben Ginsberg, who managed to shut down the Florida recount in 2000, changing sides and willing to stand up for freedom, it may be possible to succeed.
There was an interesting story recently in The Washington Post showing that the media has had an impossible time finding columnists willing to support the Republicans. We know all newspapers supported Hillary, except for a Sheldon Adelson dishrag, and that efforts at resistance continue with the trashy USA Today the only paper able to coax the dregs of bloggers to write something so they can call themselves even-handed. They even found a crackpot Harvard physicist, which is not surprising considering that physicists' minds can become so distorted to be able to conceive of quantum reality that when it comes to politics they lose their grasp entirely. William Shockley, one of the inventors of the transistor, comes to mind.
We will now see if true patriots step up to save the Union, for if they do not, the only viable response to the upcoming United Soviet States of America will be something like the Disunion I discussed recently. Steven Pearlstein at The Washington Post appears to be moving in that direction. Dire times require dire solutions. We are not one country, and we have never been one country. This is not a simulation where a tweak of the software gets the game back on track. This is real, and decent Americans must be willing to sacrifice, to put their lives on the line, to ensure they have a future.
If not, rage and resentment will win the day, and the West will die.