This may well be counter-productive, but what the hell. I feel ranty.
I’ve got to the point in my analysis of US politics that I now think that no one on the right can be a morally good person. I talked about this a little in my piece “Religion, Psychology & Morality: Most People Aren’t Very Nice“. People on the right can be all sorts of delightful to their in-group, but when it comes to people outside of their moral landscape – outsiders – things change. I have seen this with close family members a lot. I mean a lot. I know people who are otherwise wonderful – kind, loving, would do anything for family members. But they have really problematic moral views outside of that context. There is a clearly demarcated duality going on.
Perhaps I am being hypocritical because I am excoriating people from outside my in-group for their out-group membership: right-wingers.
But, here’s the thing. My position is rational, and based on their chosen position (issues of free will aside – as a moral evaluation). I am not excoriating them on account of their skin colour, or sexuality, or place from whence they came; no, I am morally calling them out precisely because of their moral position.
Well, it appears that the GOP has learnt nothing in the Trump experience. Indeed, they are simply running with it. Anyone who supports Trump is either so easily duped that there is a real issue there or they are morally abhorrent. I’m not going to mince my words. To be that supportive of a twice indicted serial liar and sex offender says more about the supporter than Trump, perhaps. Trump is a terrible human and so those who support him are terrible humans.
What’s got my goat today, this week, this month? Any number of things. I could choose climate change, or workers’ rights, or guns, or education or…
Let’s do money.
I can’t understand how GOP lawmakers can be so bold as to attack the Democrats for spending and debt ceilings and looking after each line of a budget and fiscal responsibility after signing off a quite disgusting tax cut. They promised that it would add $1.8 trillion in new revenue which would more than pay for the $1.5 trillion cost of the tax cuts themselves. The budget planned to boost growth through increased infrastructure spending, deregulation, and welfare reform. Congress approved the budget plus additional appropriations. Trump asked for $1.15 trillion in discretionary spending; Congress approved $1.3 trillion.
If made permanent, the tax cuts will cost $2.3 trillion over the next ten years.
But the wealthy, particularly the ultrawealthy, did really well out of it, thank you very much. It is worth looking at the ProPublica investigation into it. It’s the sort of thing that makes me really angry.
It looks like there is only one anchor with a moral conscience on FOX, calling out this rank hypocrisy:
Meanwhile, white supremacist moral cesspit Tucker Carlson is going about publically disinforming the public:
As Adam Kinzinger said:
It comes largely down to media landscapes. This Pod Save America episode (time-stamped) has a really interesting discussion around this:
Whilst the Democrats were busy spending gazillions on adverts that are largely ineffective, the Republicans were buying entire radio stations. The right control talk radio, local TV News, and large swathes of the mainstream media. The right dictate the conversations, and talk about emotive stuff as the Democrats try to win people over with the nitty-gritty of policy. Heart vs head, the heart wins. It’s why the GOP are better campaigners – they get this. But fear is the winning emotion, and the right hold all the fear cards, apart from concerning climate (though they use the ostrich joker for that). Well worth a watch, that one above.
And this continues to get me angry because not only do the GOP have terrible things to say, but they have all the megaphones to shout them. It’s one massive uphill struggle, and one I have talked about in the UK context:
- What Is Wrong with the Left?: The Mechanisms of Messaging
- What Is Wrong with the Left?: The Mechanisms of Voting and Rigging the System
All made worse by Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin working for the GOP and together ruining the Democrats’ chances of getting anything meaningful done before they lose the majority in the 2022 midterms. Thank goodness for Katie Porter:
So I have lost patience. The GOP is an entirely financially and morally corrupt group of people, the American political system is broken and long overdue an overhaul, and the right have not learnt a thing from Trump’s reign of ineptitude, instead obsequiously genuflecting to the great fat golden calf whilst fawning over the deplorable MAGA supporters, red caps and guns at the ready. Marjorie Taylor Greene would have previously been ousted but instead is mollycoddled and treasured:
Cognitive dissonance. In for a penny, in for a pound. The GOP are chest-deep in the cesspool, the one they said they would drain.
I need some repair.
<\rant>
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