Map of life expectancy at birth from Global Education Project.

Saturday, February 05, 2022

I got your legitimate political discourse right here

I will not worry about the feelings of the people I am about to insult. If they constitute 30% or 35% of the U.S. population, so be it. The Republican party is now, unequivocally, a fascist death cult. The party -- as defined by its congressional leadership and most of its membership, most governors, state legislative delegations, local school boards and city governments, and its national committee -- is a white supremacist, fascist organization that exists for the express purpose of overthrowing democratic governance and installing a white Christian ethno-nationalist authoritarian state. That is what they openly declare.


The cult demands adherence to a set of false beliefs, many of which are dangerous to human life, many utterly ridiculous. It also demands unquestioning, slavish obedience to one of the most vile, repulsive humans imaginable -- a malignant narcissist, a pathological liar, a sadistic psychopath, and an ignorant idiot. The cult exalts violence and the threat of violence. It demands ignorance of science and denial of history. It is bankrolled by evil people who know it is all deception but whose unbounded greed drives them relentlessly to power. 


You may want to argue that some people are duped by the cult, and we should have sympathy for them. I disagree. To be duped by this evil movement, you have to be evil.

3 comments:

mojrim said...

No you don't, Cervantes. You just have to want belonging more than life. That such people exist in large numbers is a symptom (not the cause) of societal collapse.

Cervantes said...

Well, you get to choose what to belong to. There are other choices.

mojrim said...

Not really. Choices are 50% pre-determined, 50% illusory, and 50% random.

More seriously, one must be able to perceive alternatives to have meaningful choices and able to abandon one's existing tribe to make them. That's not something well socialized people want to do in the first place; existential scarcity makes it almost impossible. What you're not seeing is that most of the vax-and-mask scolds on the left are not fundamentally different, they just belong to a tribe that still accepts traditional social authority.

I am only able to perceive and choose radical paths because, as the product of a high-stress pregnancy and borderline criminal neglect, I'm practically feral.