Doug's Darkworld

Well, I guess it had to happen sooner or later. The Republican Party has been pedaling falsehoods as gospel for decades, it was inevitable that they’d cut to the chase so to speak and decide not to believe the results of an election. We’re talking about people who have no trouble denying the overwhelming evidence for human caused global warming, who even think human caused global warming is a hoax created by a conspiracy of global scientists. People who thought a global pandemic, the worst global health crisis in a century, is some sort of hoax. So yeah, not really a stretch for them to think Biden winning the election is a hoax. This fellow goes into this line of thinking in more detail: Opinion | Republicans Can’t Handle the Truth.

That’s the falsehood part. Then the fear part. So so many things they are afraid of, one hardly knows where to start. Immigrants, protesters, communists, socialists. Marriage equality, Muslims, atheists, and kneeling people. The GOP has turned into a party that defines anything but Evangelical Trumpism as some sort of dire threat to them. It’s not a new phenomena, scaremongering has been a solid part of the right wing identity for a century or more, with periodic waves of paranoia.

Now though, that seems to be all they are. TheGOP used to be a party with a platform, this is from the GOP’s 1956 platform:

“We are proud of and shall continue our far-reaching and sound advances in matters of basic human needs—expansion of social security—broadened coverage in unemployment insurance —improved housing—and better health protection for all our people. We are determined that our government remain warmly responsive to the urgent social and economic problems of our people.”

Yeah, not in the current GOP’s platform. Hell all Trump did was spend four years dismantling whatever he could of Obama’s legacy and enriching his rich “friends.” I say “friends” because I think the chances the upper crust of society will ever consider Trump one of their own is zero. Hell though, what do I know, he’s certainly made them richer.

And Trump was the perfect person to capitalize on the base the GOP created. He validated their fears to the hilt, by reinforcing “everything was great in America until the libtards, blacks, socialists, feminazis and their ilk hollowed America out from inside!” Trump was a man of no compromise, he was on their side and he was going to fix America! Easy enough to believe if you’ve been raised on a diet of GOP paranoia and fantasy fears. Better yet, talking heads like Alex Jones and Rush Limbaugh have so mainstreamed logical fallacies instead of reasoned debate, that it’s easy to reinforce people’s deep seated fantasy grievances.

So most Republicans believe Trump was cheated out of victory. And today the Supreme Court shut down what was pretty much Trump’s last gasp effort to overturn the results of the election in the courts: Supreme Court rejects Pennsylvania Republicans’ attempt to block Biden victory. On top of that today is the safe harbor deadline, a day set by federal law by which the states have to certify their elections by. All but Wisconsin made the deadline, so the election results are legally finalized at this point and can no longer be challenged by Congress or in court.

So who the hell knows what happens now. Crazy times. OK, my internet was just down for hours. I don’t know how long it will last. In the interests of continuing my unbroken string of daily blogs, I’m just going to give this a quick review and post. Stay safe and sane everyone. Tomorrow, 40,000 year old frozen birds for a change of pace. #StaytheFHome #WearaDamnMask #FelesRegula

Copyright © 2020 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.

(Image: Communist fear mongering from 1947. Credit: “Catechetical Guild Educational Society” in St. Paul, MN. To the best of my knowledge public domain under US copyright law.)