by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
We’re now in an era where the America Right is so untethered from reality that not just reality but any sense of propriety that they are willing to say fucking anything in furtherance of their bonkers cause. The most recent example of this is Newt Gingrich saying that abortion rights advocates want to murder infants.
Suggesting such a thing is ridiculous in the extreme, and, yet, here we are. They keep blathering on about such something that simply is not true because it “feels true” to them. The Right is so consumed with their hatred of the “woke cancel culture mob” that they are willing to believe anything, say anything because it “feels” true.
This is very similar to the Christian persecution porn that occasionally pops up when some Christian claims they were accosted for praying in public. Even though this never fucking happens, the Christians in my life act like they “feel” like it could be true.
This is very disturbing for a number of reasons. It seems to me that it’s a short jaunt from proposing that liberals want to murder infants to accepting the Qanon conspiracies surrounding Hollywood stars.
Such bullshit from people like Gingrich is part of a broader macro trend on the part of the American Right to dehumanize the center-Left to the point that when the time comes, some pretty dark things may happen. It definitely seems within reason that either we slip peacefully into MAGA autocracy when Trump wins in 2024 and ICE starts murdering people like me or Trump loses and we have a National Divorce and civil war.
Or, put another way, a lot of macro trends look like they’re coming to a head in late 2024, early 2025, one way or another. We can’t keep punting all our problems down the road. We’ve reached the “put up or shut up” stage for both sides of the political equation.
Either Trump wins and Blues have to figure out if they’re going to do anything about it, or Trump loses and Reds have to figure out if they’re prepared to continue to stay in America since they don’t believe they can get a “fair shake” anymore.
But I am wrong all the time. I suppose it’s a least possible that somehow, someway we will, in fact, do a Third Way like we did in 2020. I have my doubts about that possibility, but I can’t predict the future.
