Equality, anywhere, is a threat to inequality everywhere

Which explains why so many conservative are terrified of equality. The more equality there is, the less security that the rich, the white, the male, etc. will stay securely atop the social hierarchy. If democracy has to die to preserve their power, so be it. If that means America has to become “a country where a city of more than 160,000 residents recently had no safe drinking water for weeks? A country where life expectancy has dropped for the second year in a row and poor people sell their blood plasma in order to make ends meet? A country where the maternal mortality rate of black women in the capital is nearly twice as high as for women in Syria?” — well, so be it again. The rich and powerful probably figure they’ll come out fine.

So for example, Ohio Senate candidate JD Vance — who believes women should stay with violent husbands, andthe next Republican president should purge the government of any employees who aren’t party loyalists — portrays himself as an edgy rebel pushing back against liberal tyranny (as shown in a recent Mother Jones article) rather than a cliched authoritarian who wants to cut off everyone who disagrees with him (and presumably his backer, Peter Thiel) from access to power.

Over in Georgia, any voter can challenge anyone’s voter registration, so unsurprisingly theocratic fascist Michael Flynn’s America Project is engaging in mass challenges. I’m sure with no intention of tilting the race in Republican’s favor, he said sarcastically. The Wall Street Journal thinks the only problem with Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake being a Stop the Steal acolyte is that it might hurt her chances.

The US Chamber of Commerce is shocked -— shocked — that the CFPB might oppose discrimination in banking. In Pennsylvania, Dr. Oz is likewise shocked that John Fetterman would hire wrongfully convicted ex-cons, because that’s bad for … reasons? Kellyanne Conway pretends she’s shocked that Fetterman is pro-marijuana legalization when (according to her) drug overdose deaths are rising (none of them pot-related).

Rigging elections is okay. Lies are okay. All that matters is that they win.