by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls
We live in interesting times. One of the two major political parties in the United State has completely, totally lost its fucking mind. It no longer believes in liberal democracy, it no longer cares about civil society and its entire existence serves to enable the whims of one man — Donald J. Fucking Trump.
There’s a lot to unpack here, to say the least.
It used to be that go-to crazytrain thing to say was this or that Obama “scandal” was “bigger than Watergate.” This was useful in two ways. One ti signaled to the base that this was, to their thought leaders, important. Second, it made it so when people like, say, ME, started talking about something being “bigger than Watergate” on the Republican side, the average Fox News Boomer Viewer would lulz it.
Now, we have the impeachment clusterfuck. Trump did Big Boy crimes. A lot of MAGA people willfully conflate a general lack of political will to do anything about Trump’s many, many, many crimes with some sort of “innocence” on his part. At least, that’s what they say to themselves to let them sleep at night.
Republican thought leaders have a new tactic. They try to impress upon the base how absolutely serious this situation is by ranting about “civil war,”and “a coup.” This is a multi-layered strategy. On one hand it conveys how serious this is and makes old people take notice. It also is kind of FUD against the opposition — if you don’t stop fucking with Der Fuhrer, we’re going to start killing people. It also, in a down low way, opens the door to actual violence that they can both dismiss as just a crazy person’s mental instability and use as a potential messaging bludgeon to end the impeachment process full stop.
I generally feel this is a very dangerous game to play. It might make them feel good to “own the libs” this way, but when actual human beings die because of insane Republican talking points, the reaction on the part of the otherwise apathetic American populace may not be optimal for Trump’s long-term political future.
The sooner we understand that Republicans are old-school fascists and treat them as such, the sooner we take the stakes of the impeachment process as serious as they deserve. The long term prospects for liberal democracy in America are pretty dark. But for the sake of history, I’d at least like us to go down fighting on a political level.
About 240 years of freedom at least deserve that much.
