Right-Wing Rot; Fox Bans Rudy, Flynn's Salad Dressing Bunk & Tucker Warns Afghan Refugees Might Vote

I'm old enough to remember a time when the Republican Party and its voting base wasn't comprised of raving maniacs, bigots, and conspiracy theorists. I often remind my classes that long before Donald Trump roused the populist masses against immigrants, science, and international trade, the GOP had produced some of the nation's finest leaders like Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and George H. W. Bush, to name but a few. The Americans who put these individuals in office sought principled leadership by men of reason and intelligence.

And, as a nation, we used to hash out our problems and challenges by marshaling evidence and facts to support our positions. We eschewed conspiracy theories and embraced science and research. All that seems so quaint. Today, the right-wing discusses climate change, vaccines, and economic theory as if they haven't opened a book since the 19th century, and we are tortured by an ever-expanding flood of conspiracy theories and racist nonsense meant to appease the lowest common denominators within the GOP base.

Here are just a few examples from the last week.

1. One might have hoped that the results from the right-wing financed Arizona "audit" of votes from Maricopa county showing a larger Biden margin of victory would finally end Trump's election fraud nonsense. Nope. Trump and his supporters are pushing for additional audits in Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin despite a total lack of evidence of fraud and with full knowledge that they are undermining faith in the electoral process.

2. How insane do you have to be to be banned by Fox News, the home of Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson? Apparently, Rudy Giuliani surpassed whatever "wacko test" the network has in place based on his false accusations of election fraud and was banned recently. "America's Mayor" has become a laughingstock, snubbed even by our nation's chief purveyor of BS. It's probably time for Giuliani to consider a career in AM talk radio.

3. Speaking of Tucker Carlson, he has a new conspiracy theory; Joe Biden isn't helping Afghan refugees because they assisted our troops during the war. Carlson is pushing a theory that the President is bringing them in as part of the "great replacement" of white folks in America. Chris Hayes explains how “deeply stupid” Tucker Carlson's white nationalist “replacement theory” is here.

4. Not to be outdone, Donald Trump’s former National Security Adviser, Michael Flynn is pushing a bizarre conspiracy theory that the "deep state" medical establishment is planning to put COVID-19 vaccines in salad dressing. In case you're wondering, it's theoretically possible, but no one is actually considering it.

And, so it goes, week in and week out; new conspiracies, more nonsense, and no real conversations about the challenges that we face as a nation. Speaking of the modern Republican Party and its voters, Tom Nichols of the Atlantic may have said it best back in May in his article, The GOP Now Stands for Nothing.

Nichols, The Atlantic: "Today’s Republicans exist only to stay in power, not least so that their elected officials can avoid what they dread most: being sent home to live among their constituents." ...

"Republican legislators should be scared. Their base is an angry white minority that cares nothing about government; its members want their elected officials to rule by hook or by crook, the Constitution and democracy itself be damned, and they don’t want any guff about namby-pamby ideas or policies. They want the elections controlled, the institutions captured, and the libs owned. The rest, to them, is just noise." ...

... "The GOP long ago abandoned any effort to convince women, people of color, immigrants, and others that the party had a place for them. Instead, Republicans in Congress have surrendered to the ignorance and racism of their most extreme voters in exchange for a continued life of privilege inside the comforting embrace of the Capital Beltway."

Nichols' point is that Flynn, Giuliani, Trump, Carlson, and their ilk are just an ugly, unprincipled reflection of a deeper rot within the GOP and they probably don't believe a word of the nonsense they say. Each seeks only to profit from the distrust and hatred they sow.

#politics

By: Don Lam & Curated Content