Doughface Donny is an existential threat to the republic, anyone who doubts that after all the chaos of this administration is part of the problem. Not necessarily evil, but there is a big lie that something called conservatism is the grownup thing to do, and the doughface and all of his cronies call themselves conservatives therefore if we don't show up to vote for them, then those awful liberals might get into power and something, something socialism. There is nothing normal about these times, there is nothing normal about republicans, but that party is made up of a coalition and that is actually normal albeit malicious. The Democratic Party is a coalition as well, one that for a long time was conflicted and often working at cross-purposes. But each plank of that coalition was generally working toward and believed in the betterment of society. The republicans have devolved into a completely anti-American force of chaos and evil.
Doughface Donny is simply the end result thus far. Conservative ideology today is that of small children having a temper tantrum. If you have small children or the pleasure of being around them this should be self-evident. They want what they want when they want it and will fly into an absolute rage if they don't get it RIGHT NOW! Except instead of a cookie or the 'right' color sippy cup, these large children want white supremacy RIGHT NOW! In kids this can be ridiculous, the impotent flailing and noise that can be ignored in most cases. Kids do not know what is good for them and the same goes with conservatives, most are just stupid but their rage can be more of a problem. There is none of the cute innocence that clothes the inevitable toddler tantrums, the natural response is to walk away because why bother? There is nothing you can do to convince them that they are wrong and stupid. You can't give a fox news zombie a time out when they scream about illegals, and liberals, etc. We have placated them for far too long. The founders of this country were steeped in the Enlightenment and all of the beliefs that came with it, rationalism, progress, the advancement of civilization, and the firm belief that given a chance all people will take the opportunity to better themselves through education.
We now have more than a century of evidence that this is not reality any more than the free market fantasies and race purity peddled to the toddlers by their exploiters. America missed out on the great backwards leap from progress to totalitarianism in the 1930s so we are making up for it today. Education is not enough, the white working class men who turned out in droves to vote for the game show host have probably watched innumerable documentaries on World War II. And for the most part they were part of the generations who benefited from the best public education system we've ever had. The brain is part of our bodies as much as muscles or the immune system, and like those latter components our intellect will atrophy without challenge.
Education is great, and our education system still works despite all the vandalism from the right inflicted on it. Relentless budget-cutting, abuse of teachers by politicians, and teaching to the test enforced by law has nevertheless produced a generation of young voters who still did not fall for the orange con man and his merry band of thieves and vandals. Nor did the majority of non-whites fall for the snake oil bill of goods. African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, naturalized immigrants, and others who are constantly forced to justify their existence to the corporate feudal world order and grumpy white guys were intellectually challenged enough to recognize that their best interests do not lie with fascists.
It seems that all the white republican toddlers learned from those documentaries, and from living under the Cold War threat of nuclear war with the Soviet Union, is that fascism, national socialism, and communism were bad because they were foreign. Out there, among the out groups that white republicans want to hate anyway and are always trying to ascribe to their political enemies here. Nothing ever challenged them to recognize how precious and fragile democracy and a beneficial social contract are. White, working-class republicans drone on and on about how they want their manufacturing or mining jobs back because they were so great and people could live a decent life on the compensation of those good jobs without ever realizing that those jobs existed prior to the New Deal and they weren't good jobs then. Nothing connects the dots for them that it was government action and unions that made those good jobs. The owners and elites who the WWC side with against government and unions have sold them a bill of goods that somehow shrouds the real culprits. "Those things are socialism!" they cry. And socialism is communism and nazism because they are, and those bad things are out there in foreign lands. Foreign lands are where immigrants come from, therefore they are all bad. If we could just get socialism and immigrants out of my country then those jobs would be good again and I would have hope again.
Who is at fault for not shattering their delusions? Mostly themselves and the leaders in corporate right-wing media, you can't get away from the fact that people have agency and are responsible for their own beliefs. But we all share in the blame, fascism is a virus, once it gets into a body politic it can replicate and expand if allowed to fester. If WWC republicans are intellectually like toddlers but have parental figures who have no responsibility for them, like the right wing media and politicians who simply want to manipulate them, then all of us bear responsibility for the very real and dangerous tantrums that they keep throwing. There have been many other think pieces claiming that donald trump has the attention span and intellectual curiosity of a preschooler but where did that come from? He simply behaved like one his whole life and no one was able to successfully challenge his narcissism and laziness or cruelty, he got away with it every time. You see endless reports from mainstream media now as they interview trump voters about just what the fuck is wrong with them, and it gets right to this, republican trump voters supported him because he is just like them. Trump is free from the constraints that inhibit white working class authoritarian assholes but instead of being embarrassed by identifying with the crass, chauvinistic behavior of their leader, they revel in it.
This applies to so many white republican baby boomers. They voted for Reagan when it was time for them to be "grown-ups" so they could smash and grab everything that their parents built. The authoritarianism that masquerades as conservatism will never fail in their eyes, it can only be failed by leaders not pure enough like George W. Bush, and they will eventually decide that doughface donny has failed them too. "Wait a minute, I thought getting rid of all the immigrants and taking food stamps away from everyone was going to bring back the golden age? Why do I now have to pay even more for health insurance and still can't get a good job?" The only thing to do will be to double down, next time business taxes will have to be slashed even further and we'll have to build labor camps, etc. Bob Altemeyer found in so much of his research on authoritarianism that the followers have belief a mile wide and a thousand denials deep. Therefore reaching out to trump republicans now is beyond pointless, they are irredeemable.
The only thing to do now is overpower them by activating and motivating the half of Americans who remain politically inert. It won't be easy. The easy thing to do would have been to start challenging the Archie Bunker boomers before Fox News brainwashed them. Or hire enough Hillary Clinton type technocratic Democrats through elections to restrain them for us. But we can't go back, the mass of Americans who don't believe in fascism are on their own. Including you and me. And if smart people aren't able to challenge this young generation they will fall prey to demagogues and social dominators they same way that their parents did. Challenge people not yet in the clutches of the right wing machine. Non-authoritarians cannot simply fall back on the Enlightenment thinking that all people naturally want to learn more, understand better, find out things, and make the world a better place because that is simply not human nature. I hate to sound elitist for saying these things but the time for politeness is over, the fascists are in charge now because too many smart people let them fester unchallenged for too long.
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