The entire raison d’être of the Republican Party is now to scare white people into voting for them so they can continue to wield power (on behalf of billionaires, of course) with the backing of a craven minority of the U.S. population.
Indeed, the only problems conservatives seem interested in solving are ones that clearly do not exist. A killer virus is on the rampage and the planet is overheating like Donald Trump’s toilet seat on the McRib’s annual rerelease date? Meh. Oh, but wait! Here’s a new buzzword that sounds super scary! We’ve thoroughly focus-grouped this, so we know it will fill every hog-shit lagoon in Iowa with white people’s blazing hot fear-diarrhea. (By the way, I’m a white native Midwesterner, so I don’t want to hear it. Come at me, bro!)
We’re less than a year out from a former Republican pr*sident’s attempt to overthrow a free and fair election, and since that date, Republicans have been furiously flushing that off-the-charts outrage down the memory hole while elevating utter nonsense. And based on Tuesday night’s results in Virginia, it worked like a charm—because too many of the people who grew up in lily-white redoubts (like the one that briefly succored me before spitting me out) fall for stupid shit like the following.
Exhibit 1: The biggest problem in Florida right now is not rampant death. It’s kids getting cranky over wearing masks. Pfft. Wake the fuck up, cuck
Wednesday on Fox & Friends—which is what the Algonquin Round Table would have looked like if they’d all written for the Walmart Sunday circular instead of The New Yorker—Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis trotted out a little girl who doesn’t like wearing masks in school. Uh-huh. I hated being served creamed corn during hot lunch and I couldn’t even get an audience with the principal. But I guess the world has changed.
Anyway, the student is a second-grader in Palm Beach County named Fiona Lashells, and she was suspended for 36 days for not wearing a mask. Her mother, who is in no way influencing her, told Tampa’s The Free Press that Fiona “has been steadfast in her unwavering decision to not back down to tyranny and lunacy, vowing to do everything she can for every child going through these lawless mandates.”
Yeah, sure she did. Ever thus to sensible public health measures, huh? Per Crooks and Liars:
When the cameras cued on DeSantis and the child, the governor prompted her and said, "Go ahead." ...
Fiona on cue said, "I'm not wearing a mask because you touch it, and you have germs on your hand, and then you put it on your face and breath all the germs."
The co-host agreed, "That's right."
Yup, that totally checks out. Let’s be afraid of the fake oppression of 7 year olds, not a virus that’s killed nearly 60,000 Floridians. We’ve got our priorities sorted out, that’s for sure.
The video, if you really want to see it, is at the above link.
Exhibit 2: Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, a Republican (duh), is warning parents that Biden could send them to Guantanamo Bay if they keep protesting at school board meetings
(This fake controversy is a response to a Department of Justice memo intended to address violence and violent threats toward teachers and school board members.)
BRNOVICH: Just because parents are exercising their First Amendment rights to speak out against critical race theory or even vaccine mandates does not make them domestic terrorists, and if we allow the Biden administration to continue this, God forbid, you’re going to end up with Mom and Pop at Gitmo. Think about how outrageous that is, Harris, to think about.
HARRIS FAULKNER (HOST): That is outrageous. Could that really happen?
No, Harris. It couldn’t really happen. But really nice journalamism there. Just aces. If there’s a Pulitzer Prize for weakest follow-up question, you’re a lock.
Exhibit 3: Greg Gutfeld, whose Fox News “comedy” show is to comedy what the Exxon Valdez was to ducks, thinks we’re teaching white kids that they’re “bad.” Because … well, isn’t it fucking obvious?
Reported via Media Matters for America:
GREG GUTFELD (CO-HOST): So the—while the media and the Democrats were focused on microaggressions, parents were experiencing macroaggressions through education. Politics is a tug of war, as you know, between the people who go too far and the people who don't go far enough. Right now, it's the leftists that are realizing how far they've gone and they need—somebody needs to pull them back in.
And you see that how that they've turned, you know, the police into defunding and demoralizing the police and now you have this CRT stuff and you know, being white at birth is bad. So, they're the one that have gone too far. It's now time for the Republicans to pull that back in.
I’ve been white my whole life, and I never thought being white at birth was bad. Being white kind of sucks now sometimes because I get tired of apologizing for my relatives. But, no. The messages I grew up with did not lead me to believe I was “bad.” Quite the opposite. I got loads of unearned merit for no discernible reason. And so I guess at the very first sign that that dynamic might be changing, I should freak the fuck out. But I don’t—because I choose not to be a frightened, delicate little snowflake who can’t bear to see traditionally marginalized people make strides. That doesn’t make me extraordinary in any way, of course. It just makes me not an asshole. That’s a very, very low bar.
So, yeah, this is what Fox News does. While one party tries to deliver meaningful change to hundreds of millions of Americans through President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better plan, the other is busy freaking out its core constituency so billionaires can keep their loot.
I’d say they should be ashamed of themselves, but you have to have shame to begin with for that to mean anything.
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