Last week I blogged about how the Felon demanding the Washington Commanders become the Redskins again revealed a lot about Republican thinking. One thing I left out is that it also touches on one of their standard lies: they’re the party of small government.
According to Republicans, the scariest thing to hear is that the government wants to help you (another lie). We’re better off if government gets out of the way and lets churches or the free market or whoever do the job. Small government that does nothing but the minimum (law enforcement — somehow that’s never covered by “government helping you is scary” — and the military). And government definitely shouldn’t tell Americans what to do. Americans hate being told what do do. That’s why they hate liberals who are always in their grill.
Riiiight. But a president telling a sports team to change their name doesn’t count. Nor do the examples I listed last year: restrictions on lab-grown meat, restrictions on black hairstyles, banning employers from vaccine mandates. Banning drag shows. Supporting parental rights but not to take kids to drag shows or to support them transitioning. And in general, imposing laws on gays.
A new law in Tennessee allows doctors to refuse to treat patients for not only religious concerns but “ethical and moral” ones — which are not covered by the First Amendment — as a result of which some pregnant single women are being denied care. Meanwhile Trump and Epstein attorney Alan Dershowitz is shrieking because a pierogi vendor had ethical and moral objections to serving him He’s threatening to sue. Admittedly these are two separate things — Dershowitz has not, as far as I know, supported the Tennessee bill — but I’m sure anyone who exercised their rights in Tennessee would scream in outrage if they were on the receiving end.
Conservatives get to dish it out; government should protect them from taking it. If religious conservatives who support the right to refuse doing business with gays were denied service or a marriage license (“Reverend Small, I know you and Helen hooked up when you were both married — I can’t stomach adultery.”) we’d hear fury about the judgy liberals interfering in personal decisions.
Similarly I’m sure the Felon administration giving federal employees the right to “persuade others of the correctness of their own religious views, provided that such efforts are not harassing in nature” will be interpreted to give right-wing Christians the freedom to harass and bully as much as they like; a liberal Christian arguing politely in favor of gay rights or women’s rights will be classed as harassing (similarly, I’m sure the “bias monitor” CBS has agreed to set up as part of the Felon’s FCC supporting a merger will interpret anything other than “Little Donny is the bestest and cutest little baby in the whole world!” as biased against the Felon). The FCC decrees it’s now the Felon’s right to tell the media what works on TV.
It’s the same logic as when they claim criticizing them is oppression while them criticizing others is just free speech. Which is to say no logic at all other than, as I said, they want to dish it out and never have to take it.
“Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”
Yep, Wilhoit’s Law
The Republicans of the last 31 years are the most hypocritical, whiny, willfully ignorant, tyrannical bunch of *#@!(&^s to ever dominate our government at both the federal and too many state levels. It’s thoroughly depressing. The Secret Empire succeeded this time and took over the nation. If the current President was exposed as the leader of an evil cabal intent on imposing its will on the nation with no legal restraints at all, the dominant wings of Congress and the Supreme Court would cheer him on. Essentially, that’s already happened.
A depressingly accurate assessment.