My Brain is Exploding!
Just like the events of the last week or so, this column is a bit chaotic
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Call your Congresscritters! Keep Calling!
Hello again!
Given that our current administration is continuing to purposely “flood the zone” with outrageously corrupt actions I have no idea what I’m going to write about today.
It’s a target rich environment.
Let’s start with a slightly edited quote from a recent Heather Cox Richardson essay:
…in 1884…voters angry that the Republicans had sold out to big business elected Democrat Grover Cleveland to the presidency…
…[Cleveland] promised to lower the tariffs that squeezed ordinary Americans…
Horrified at the growing opposition to a government that worked for those industrialists…Republicans began to circulate pamphlets as soon as Cleveland was elected, claiming that lowering the tariff would destroy the economy and warning that voters must return Republicans to power or face economic ruin.
Between November 1889 and July 1890 the Republicans added five new states to the Union. They added Washington, Idaho, and Montana. They also divided the huge Dakota Territory in two, creating North Dakota and South Dakota. The new states should give the Republicans ten new seats in the Senate, Harrison’s men noted happily.
Heather Cox Richardson
Does this sound at all familiar?
It turns out that the reason there are two Dakotas is that cynical Republicans split the Dakota Territory in half to get more House Representatives, Senators and Electoral College members who, they assumed, would vote Republican.
I.e. they have been cheating to win elections since around 1889. What the hell happened to the Party of Lincoln?
I don’t really know. I may write a column about that sometime.
What I do know is that in the late 19th century up until sometime in the 1970s or 1980s there were conservative and liberal Republicans and conservative and liberal Democrats.
During that period the conservative/liberal divide was mostly geographic. Southern whites were conservative Democrats because Lincoln was a Republican. By the same token, southern Blacks were Republicans because they saw Lincoln as their liberator.
Suffice it to say that, the way I remember it, as society evolved so that it was no longer okay to be openly racist conservative leaders started looking for a new wedge issue to replace their old standby, segregation.
They very cynically chose abortion.
Up until that time Protestants considered opposition to abortion to be a “Catholic thing.”
This and other societal factors caused most liberal Republicans to switch to the Democratic party, and as the party became more liberal, conservative Dems fled to the GOP.
Choosing abortion as their wedge issue awoke the Religious Right.
Up until the mid 70s and into the early 80s most devout Christians considered politics to be something to be avoided. But when Pat Robinson and other conservative “Christian” leaders started putting out propaganda about “killing unborn babies” they had a winner.
It wasn’t long before formerly staid protestant ministers were delivering thunderous sermons against abortion and abortion providers.
It was about this time Dad wrote a letter to the Republican Party resigning from the party unless and until they, “got rid of the religious nuts.”
Mom and the four of us kids were already Democrats, or at least liberals, so our nightly dinner table discussions became a little less contentious, although Dad liked to play devil’s advocate to see how well we could defend our positions.
Have I mentioned how lucky I was to grow up in a family where we always ate dinner together and any and all subjects were open for discussion? We didn’t alway agree, but we all knew where everyone stood.
A few years later Dad and I had a major falling out over the Vietnam war.
I was no longer living at home, so we didn’t see each other much. Years later, after reading a book about Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers Dad took me aside at a family gathering and said, “I was wrong about Vietnam and I’m glad neither you or your brother had to go fight.”
“Could you say that louder so the rest of the family can hear?”, I said. [pause for laugh]
But I digress.
Believe it or not I actually have a point here.
All of this history is scaring the crap out of White Christian Nationalists.
They are very much aware that sometime in the next two decades the US will become a Majority Minority country, i.e. there will be more citizens with black or brown skin than caucasians.
At the same time, church attendance has been waning in most parts of the country.
A lot of White Christians see this as an existential threat.
Why? Because for the last, well, forever, western European society has considered white folks to be superior to other human beings with darker skin. I
t’s built into the culture. Water to a fish. It affects all of us.
Our current Presidential administration has embraced this supremacist ideology with gusto.
I think the election of a black President in 2008 scared the crap out of many people, so when Trump came along and acted as if it was OK to be overtly racist again, about half the people in the country heaved a sigh of relief and voted for him in 2016.
Since he lost the election in 2020 he’s been trumpeting lies about voter fraud and selective prosecution to make himself THE VICTIM.
As the Nazis discovered in the 1930s, if you tell a lie loudly and often, especially if it’s a BIG lie, a lot of folks will start to believe it, because why would someone keep saying such outrageous things if they’re not true?
Especially if you belong to a group that will be advantaged if the lie is true. Or if you act as if it’s true.
Rationalization is a powerful force.
We, as a society and as a country need to get past supremicist thinking. This will be difficult because most folks don’t realize that they are thinking and behaving as supremicists.
We fool ourselves all the time. I’m not immune, neither are you.
One way I try to keep myself honest is by reading books like How Minds Change by David McRaney. He also has an excellent podcast, You Are Not So Smart that I highly recommend.
Yes, I’ve mentioned him before and I’ll mention him again. He is very good at pointing out how we fool ourselves and how we can attempt to avoid doing that.
Another good source of information is Brian Brushwood who, if I remember correctly, introduced me to David McRaney’s work.
Brian is very prolific. I suggest that you start with this podcast episode to get a feel for his work.
He has a YouTube series called Scam School that is a master class on how we fool ourselves and allow others to fool us. I pretty much hate the concept, which is how to use human’s propensity to fool themselves to win bar bets, but I’ve met and talked to Brian and his goal is to educate we silly humans so they can live better lives.
His motto is:
You don’t get conned because you’re stupid—you get conned because you’re human.
This is important information to have when your country is being run by a conman.
OK, that went all over the place.
I originally planned on writing something about the current shutdown of the US Government. Maybe next week, if it’s still going on.
Call your Congresscritters! Keep Calling!
Trump lie of the week:
Lies our President has told recently. Not necessarily this week. I’m only posting statements rated “Pants On Fire!” by Politifact. I’m too disorganized/lazy to keep track of these so I there may be duplicates once in a while.
It’s incredible to me that with all the stupid things Trump has said over the past week there are no recent “Pants on Fire” lies listed on Politico. So, here’s a golden oldie from last year:
I have to ask, I’ve heard several Republican spokespeople complain that liberals/progressives, “Want transgender for everyone.”
What the hell does that mean?
Musical Visual Coda:
This clip from the 2012–2014 Aaron Sorkin HBO series, The Newsroom still resonates:
Lets see if we can make this country The Best Country in the world again.
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