Tag Archives: right-wing grift

Shasta County in California has been increasingly angry in recent years with right-wig militia making threats against the county supervisors. The result of a recall election is that the militia now run things. I’m sure that will work out well. Carlos Zapata, one of the militia leaders, did the usual protests that he didn’t want to get violent, but you know, if the county doesn’t get with the anti-vax position … It sounds rather like a spousal abuser rationalizing his action (“She disrespected me! I had to hit her!”) or a protection racket (“If you don’t buy my ‘insurance’ you’re really going to be sorry.”).

Supervisor Partrick Jones, who’s on the extremists’ side (the alternative side was right-wing bu still sane) offers another bit of bullshit: “We’ve been demonized as radicals and various things like this. We are not. We are just simply business owners. We’re mothers, we’re fathers, we’re grandmothers, we’re grandfathers – and we want to return to a county where we grew up: a safe, prosperous county that we can be proud of.” Guess what, radicals can be parents, grandparents and business owners. Parents, grandparents and business owners lynched black Americans, joined the KKK, hurled epithets at black kids going to school. The Duggars covered up their son molesting girls. Of course, lots of business owners, parents and grandparents are perfectly decent people, but it’s not something I assume automatically.

The article at the link mentioned that businessman Revenge Anselmo contributed $400,000 to the recall effort that put the new guys in charge. It turns out his motive is less pure politics than personal ambition: the previous administration rejected Anselmo’s planned restaurant as violating the zoning code.

For self-delusion, there’s a QAnon claim that the National Butterfly Center, which is awesome (I visited, long ago), is a center for trafficking. Evidence? None. They still had to close the center for a while because of threats.

It will get worse, for a while at least. A Republican Tennessee lawmaker wants to reprimand the Associated Press for saying there’s racism in the military. An Oklahoma lawmaker proposes firing teachers who offend students’ religious beliefs (goodbye evolutionary theory and an accurate history of this country).

Then there’s Michelle Evans, a new right-wing hack running for the Texas house. She’s latched onto an urban legend and claims some schools are catering to furries by having tables low enough they can eat as if from a trough. It is, of course, bullshit and I’m sure Evans knows it; she subsequently said that it’s just something a concerned parent told her and it wouldn’t surprise her if it was too — in short, trying to weasel out of it. Republican voters may choose to believe it, as noted at the link, because it feeds their desire for outrage.

We can be so much better than we are, but too many of us don’t try.

“At no point in his political career — not a single day — has Mr. Trump enjoyed the support of the majority of the country he governed for four years.” Which, Osita Nwanevu says, is part of the reason he and some Republicans can’t believe he lost: the anti-democratic features of the Constitution so favor Republicans, it seems natural they should rule. As Michelle Goldberg says, “What’s terrifying is that even if Democrats win back public confidence, they can win more votes than Republicans and still lose.”

But the truth is, Trump lost the election. Not because of fraud or hinky election machines (which somehow failed o unseat enough Republicans in Congress to give Democrats a filibuster proof majority). Every attempt to prove otherwise has failed. The attack on Congress Jan. 6 2021 was a blatant attempt to overthrow the legally elected president and install the loser. Any claims that, for example, Mike Pence as Veep had the authority to decide the election are lies. If they weren’t lies then Kamala Harris has the same authority and I guarantee, no right-winger believes that.  They won’t be troubled by that inconsistency, just as they can swing from the mob were patriots to the mob were antifa without batting an eye.

Despite which, Republicans have embraced Trump as the real president and 40 percent of them think violence against government is justifiable. Republicans in public office have rebounding from saying how much they disapproved to kissing Trump’s ass again. As NMMNB notes, we should also be skeptical of Republicans who were wringing their hands when it looked like Trump would give a rabble-rousing speech on the anniversary of his attempted coup (plans have changed)

This is why, as WaPo says, we can’t let Republican lies stand. The media are reporting on Republican plans for the next coup, but they need to do even more. And in other ways do less: how about not presenting Trump supporter JD Vance, who’s outraged by Twitter suspending Marjorie Taylor Greene’s account (“These companies need to be crushed.“) for her anti-vax lies as some kind of sensible, salt-of-the Earth Repubiclan who’s critical of business (more thoughts here) and outraged by liberals and elites (as a millionaire venture capitalist, he’s plenty elite).

725 individuals have been charged with sedition day crimes. Unfortunately Republican politicians are hoping that by jamming the gears of the 1/6 investigating committee, they can block it from investigating their own crimes until they gain enough seats this November to shut it down. As noted in the first link, that’s really odd behavior if they believe the mob were actually BLM/Antifa revolutionaries from the left. But “belief” is irrelevant in a lot of ways these days — they “believe” whatever will get them re-elected.

Jan. 6 supposed martyr Ashli Babbitt was shot attempting a coup against the lawfully elected president, Joe Biden. Turns out she has a lot of violence in her past. Her adultery isn’t relevant, though it kind of amuses me to see a white person shot by police get the “she was no angel” treatment.

“To help cover their legal bills, the factions have set up online merchandise shops targeting their most loyal followers. Fans of Powell’s bogus conspiracy theory can, for instance, buy a four-pack set of “Release the Kraken: Defending the Republic” drink tumblers from her website for $80” It’s always grift with them.

There was some speculation last year that the rich would pull the reins on the Republicans rather than see us slide into whatever lies ahead. Instead, they’re giving heavily — as noted at the link, they presumably think that a permanent Republican dictatorship won’t hurt their bottom line much.

The Capitol Police are still struggling to rebuild after 1/6. Some civil servants are also too shaken to go on.

I don’t think I could sum up the right better than this: “They will proudly recite the pledge of allegiance while demonizing Black Lives Matter protesters, reform-seekers or any movement that promotes liberty and justice for all. ” — Michael Harriott on how un-patriotic the American right wing has become. “They detest democracy and loathe any prospect of a more perfect union. They have pledged their allegiance to the flag, but not the republic for which it stands. Patriotism as performance is their only protection because a country that provides liberty and justice for all is too unbearable a thought.”

As I’ve said before, Republicans hate the real America. They love the fantasy America in their heads where women stay home pregnant, white men run everything, black people are invisible except as servants and gay people disappear into the closet.  As Harriott says, they would sooner tear the real America apart than give up on that dream.

I don’t know if their anti-American party can be stopped, but I’ll spend this year doing what I can to help fight.

As I mentioned a couple of weeks back, there’s always a push from centrists, moderates and “sensible” people in the Democratic Party to push against the left. Just compromise on abortion. Or stop worrying about the special problems of blacks, gays, Hispanics and women. That’s how to win!

The current incarnation of this theory, Jamelle Bouie writes, is that the moderates in the party are complaining that the left winger such as A-OC are alienating moderate and conservative voters. As Bouie points out, though, moderate politicians such as Biden and Pelosi currently dominate the party. They’re setting the policies; if they’re not connecting, they should take the blame.

Of course, as NMMNB pointed out recently, it doesn’t matter how moderate Democrats hew. Republicans will always paint them as ultra-extremists, as in all the claims I’ve seen that Biden is converting America into a communist state or that sure, Biden’s fine but Kamala Harris is his evil commie puppet-master! She pulls the strings! Moderation won’t change that (more discussion in this thread).

Case in point: after 9/11 Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, both major players in Republican politics, said God let it happen to punish America for something or other (I don’t remember which hobbyhorse they were riding that day). So did Sen. James Inhofe. On the Democratic side, the Republicans had to dig up Ward Churchill, a professor at a Colorado university who thought the attack was a reaction to America’s Mideast policies. Conservative voices held him up as proof of how liberals hated America and he wound up getting much more attention than Falwell, Robertson and Inhofe did (IIRC at least).

Similarly, although liberal cancel culture is a blatant right-wing lie,millions of mainstream voters have bought into the myth of woke political correctness ruining careers and suppressing discussion (more here). Typhoid Ron DeSantis has just announced, a la Texas’ abortion laws, allowing private citizens to sue schools for teaching critical race theory (presumably anything short of “white people are god’s favorite” will qualify) but that won’t get the same outrage. Nor will Louisiana anti-vax attorney general Jeff Landry demanding LSU punish a professor for calling Landry’s assistant a flunkie.

For another example, Clinton ran as a centrist and adopted a variety of centrist policies (as Bouie points out). Welfare reform. NAFTA. Tough on crime laws. Said abortion should be safe, legal … and rare. He was still the ultra-liberal, pot-smoking, draft-dodging president (at the time a lot of Republicans pretended they couldn’t stomach a draft dodger, but they were fine with W, and with Trump mocking the military). His sensible welfare reforms, cutting back most federal programs if you weren’t working, were supposed to end welfare as an issue — nobody could complain now about welfare queens getting handouts! The results were people wound up worse off but the right-wing remained adamant that nobody but them should receive any government help.

I don’t mean that if the Democrats support left-wing policies they’ll win over Republican voters, let alone win office. I support them because in many cases (“left-wing policies” is obviously a very broad label) they’re the right policies. As one former congressman said recently, only a small fraction of America will ever have the power the members of Congress do — use it for more than winning re-election. Former Stockton mayor Michael Tubbs offers an example.

Watching the march of Republican Stalinism is certainly depressing. In Michigan, Republican activist Nancy Tiseo wanted Trump to declare martial law in 2020. She’s now an election canvasser. I have a strange feeling she may not be impartial in her work.

It’s tempting to just assume Republican totalitarianism is inevitable, but that’s partly because Republicans work to make it a self-fulfilling prophecy. Matt Gaetz, for example, claiming that the far right will take over the House in 2022. But the truth is, except for 2004 Democrats have won the popular vote in every election of the past 30 years. That doesn’t count for as much as it should in our messed up electoral system but it’s not inconsequential. Whether it will be enough to overcome Republican fascism is unknown — but it’s worth trying. I’ve started reading up on ways to encourage turnout and do other things to contribute. More than I contribute by blogging.

I think No More Mr. Nice Blog is right about this: Republicans and their right-wing media machine work to make any liberal with a bad opinion the embodiment of all liberals and Democratic policies, everywhere. Democrats don’t make the counter-argument that everyone still in the Republican Party supports Trump and the coup. “The result is that the Republican Party is a party that’s run by extremists but is perceived as moderate, while the Democratic Party is run by moderates but is perceived as extremist.” Similarly they’re an anti-American party that successfully paints Democrats as opposing American values. That’s something I can push back against, though obviously I have a very small platform. But I’ve always believed pointing out the right-wing emperor has no clothes is worth doing, just to put an alternative view out there.

Another problem, WaPo‘s Dana Milbank says, is that press coverage of Biden is as negative or worse than Trump got in the middle of the pandemic. LGM adds commentary. LGM also cites the Afghanistan withdrawal as an example: the coverage was negative despite the lack of any alternative beyond “stay there forever.” Just as the media’s take is often “the economy is tanking” when jobless claims are at record lows. And now we’re having complaints — not at all influenced by sexism, I’m sure — that Kamala Harris doesn’t use bluetooth enough. This kind of thing can definitely affect the election so it’s one more hurdle to keeping our democracy.

Now, some links:

Republicans remain committed to no gun control measures of any sort, which is damn extremist. But it seems Sen. Chuck Grassley considers school shootings like the recent one in Michigan less horrifying than inconveniencing gun owners. So we teach kids active shooter drills or close the schools. But never mind, Fox News’ Jeanine Pirro explains that the teachers not stopping the kid is because they’re liberals (see what I mean about blaming our side for everything?).

It is of course bad to prosecute political adversaries purely out of politics. The people involved in the Jan. 6 coup attempt deserve prosecution but Merrick Garland ain’t having it.

An ICE program to enlist sheriffs across America to report dangerous immigrants unsurprisingly generated racism, profiling and abuse.

Two lawyers who filed Stop The Steal lawsuits will have to pay more than $100,000 to cover the legal fees of people they sued. Even outside Stopping the Steal Sidney “the Kraken” Powell remains an incompetent grifter. However she’s very successful at raising cash from suckers.

A right-winger criticized his school and got coddled by the legislature. Minority students got much less sympathy.

“How can you detain an enemy combatant when there’s no war going on?”

Cop shows have obsessed for years about guilty suspects getting off through legal technicalities. What happens when innocent people stay in jail because of technicalities?

“Corruption is bipartisan. Support for anti-corruption measures is less so.” — a look at a new Biden administration paper on fighting corruption.

Florida’s Education Department has removed an anti-bullying page with links to LGBTQ resources. No surprise: the right-wing has a history of opposing anti-bullying efforts because then they can’t push around gays.

Starting in the 1980s, the right-wing has been screaming “political correctness” every time they got criticized. It’s fine for them to tell gays and trans people they’re disgusting but it’s PC thought policing to punch back up at them. More recently it’s cancel culture — never mind that very few people are actually canceled over saying something politically incorrect, it’s an effective rallying cry.

It works for pouty right-wingers who feel they should be able to scream racist insults without any blowback, but it also works with a lot of mainstream people. Somehow the fact that the right-wing are the ones currently banning books doesn’t register. I don’t know why. Is it that, as Ta-Nehisi Coates once said, white grievance is automatically assumed to be valid? Or that the left are supposed to be tolerant so it disturbs people more when we do it? But either way it’s annoying as hell that we can’t seem to rouse the same reaction against the right.

Bari Weiss has built her brand on fighting cancel culture. She coined the phrase intellectual dark web to pretend that unremarkable right-wing ideas — identity politics are bad, men and women are fundamentally different — as stuff nobody can say in the mainstream without getting canceled. Of course people say that stuff all the time, but apparently the shtick works well for her. She signed the briefly notorious Harper’s letter and complaining that people are being terrified into self-censorship. Which even if true, is meaningless without context. If they’re terrified of saying the N-word or discussing how Biden’s cabinet has too many Jews, I’m fine with them not wanting to say that crap aloud.

Now Weiss has found a new angle, trying to launch a new university because academic freedom! Except as noted at the link, she’s recruiting founders who oppose academic freedom (more discussion here). One of them is a conservative Catholic who specifically says freedom of speech and freedom of inquiry are NOT the highest goals of  college education. Weiss’s response is that she knows — that’s why she wants him on board! I presume the point is, unlike liberals she embraces FREEDOM so much, she even supports people who oppose FREEDOM! Except when they’re liberals; she’s not making any attempt to find anyone on the left who doesn’t like free speech (admittedly there’s a lot fewer) just as their mission statement doesn’t discuss Republican attacks on said freedom.Weiss is, as usual, full of shit. Here’s more about one of the grift organizers.