Several years back, someone described the 21st century right-wing as the radical left of the 1960s: better to burn it all down than live in a world that doesn’t conform to their ideals! While I think there’s truth to that, I also think they’re very close to our old enemy, the USSR. Back during the Cold War, the Soviet Union expected everyone to tie the line and accept Communist Party doctrine. Businesses. Schools. Parents, who must bring up their children to conform. That sums up the modern right-wing.
In Texas, for example, if your bar hosts a drag show — politically incorrect under current party doctrine — you’ll pay higher taxes.
The Georgia state government wants tighter control over prosecutors, such as the one investigating Trump.
Florida isn’t the only state trying to stamp out non-Republican thought in schools.
Florida Man also wants to block removing Confederate monuments because history! Given the bill requires the state sign off on any placques or signs providing historical context, I suspect statements like “The Confederate Army killed more American soldiers than any foreign foe in our nation’s history” will not conform to party orthodoxy.
While Florida’s current leadership talks about how they want to give power to parents, that doesn’t apply to parents who support their trans kids. Even if the custodial parent doesn’t live in Florida. Small wonder: right-wing misogynist Matt Walsh says having a trans kid is a fate worse than death — though as you’ll see at the link, he claims there’s no such thing as trans kids so obviously he didn’t mean what he said! Of course this just shows how the right is recycling old anti-gay propaganda (one Christian book described its author losing one kid to a fatal drunk-driving incident, another to the “homosexual lifestyle”) now that they’ve lost the fight for public opinion on that one.
Texas Rep. Bryan Slaton wants to give a tax break to families — provided they’re not gay, neither partner has ever been divorced, and they didn’t have the kids before tying the knot. Slaton also wants a referendum on secession. At least that would get rid of Ted Cruz as a senator …
Missouri wants to ban any sort of LGBTQ education in K-12.
The FBI and Justice Department have investigated Trump, the right wing Messiah — so Matt Gaetz wants to defund law enforcement at the federal level.
Utah will probably ban abortion clinics, forcing all abortions to take place in hospitals.
Republican Iowa State Rep. Brad Sherman (no relation as far as I know) insists banning gay marriage doesn’t take away anyone’s rights — gays can still call their disgusting abomination a marriage if they want, so what’s the problem?
As Paul Campos says, a basic assumption of right-wing ideology is that their beliefs are not ideology: “Right wingers are against indoctrinating children, but they are very much in favor of forcing schools to teach children that America is God’s extra special favorite country, because that’s not indoctrination, that’s just a plain Biblical truth … A more general point here is that anybody who complains about indoctrinating children is talking nonsense, because up to a certain age educating children and indoctrinating them is simply the same thing. So arguing, for example, that schools shouldn’t indoctrinate children is oxymoronic. The question is always and everywhere which doctrines they will be taught, and again the key right wing belief is that authoritarian ethno-nationalism, with an infusion of balsamic Christianity, isn’t a set of doctrines, but rather an unquestionable collection of shared truths, that together make America the Greatest Country in the World.”
See also Vaclav Havel on the power of dissent.
Fraser Sherman's Blog 