The one thing I NEVER could have anticipated from the GOP, is how deeply committed they are to making racial bigotry, white entitlement, and supposedly blind/subconscious bias a central element of their "brand."Yes, I knew the racist elements were there, just under the surface. But basic math shows the futility of continued antagonism and hegemonic marginalization of non-whites and women. You JUST CAN'T WIN with such a strategy.So what do they do in the face of futile math? They double down on the racism and bigotry?! That tells me something important, perhaps the most important thing we could ever learn about far right Republicans, ever ever ever:It's in their (figurative) party DNA. They can't purge bigotry and racist assumptions from the party because it is the CORE MOTIVATING FACTOR of the party. That's a grim assessment. But I mean, really, KKK et. al. have maintained a half-life underground for many years. BIGOTS HAVE LEARNED TO HIDE. But the GOP can't, even to their own mathematical downfall. Even to the point that is it like watching a national political party commit hari kari right before your eyes.
Wow. Just let that sink in for a second.
A TRUE PARADOX! I mean, really. Most would agree the GOP is a party that tilts toward top-down authoritarianism. If it has a "god" in the non-religious-professing sense, that "god" is power and authority. And, it stands to reason, even their conception of the religious-professing-god is a patriarchal holder of absolute power and authority, top-down, don't ask questions, disobey, go straight to hell. So they worship the holders of the greatest power and authority (religious, secular, financial, political), apparently genuflecting in some postmodern version of the Victorian Great Chain of Being;they covet power and authority, worship that "us vs. them" Othering that a deeply-held sense of entitlement brings;and deliberately and subconsciously seek to marginalize, bully, subdue, or merely diminish those designated as "Other"
EVEN TO THEIR OWN DETRIMENT!
That's where the paradox comes in. Power-worship, and the entitled arrogance of power-wielding, requires the continued ability to retain that power. Yet their need to continually assert that entitled arrogance and bigotry. This virtually guarantees that they will losethe political power they deem to hold so dear. I feel this is a precedent for this kind of blindness and self-sabotage. Where a so-called "power group" was so invested in its own cultures of power, how "big" it makes them feel, in other words that the harder it hung on to its claims of great superiority and power, the more they have alienated all of those around them, sharing the broader culture and social contracts? Is this the inevitable downfall of fascists and strongmen? That they effectively poison their own wells? I guess the greatest historical precedent I can think of is the English royality from the time of the First and Second Estates. Somehow, some people came to hold (steal or earn) great power or wealth, sufficient to lay claim to great estates, servants, chattal, serfs in an anarchic or feudal time (castles, moats, if you will). They loved the power and wealth so very much, they deemed themselves a special class, with special bloodlines, in order to continue to consolidate and perpetuate their specialness and when an alternate economic system appeared on the scene (rise of an independent merchant class, guilds, etc.) with its own commodities and trading system that didn't automatically defer to the power and value system of the "lords," they were caught off guard. Sure, some probably adapted. But the affectations and assumptions of that class boxed many of them into a comfortable assumption that their entitlement to power and wealth were inherent. As more and more of them became "land rich" but "cash poor.
While today's GOP is certainly affiliated with many people who have many large estates, by and large, all they can really lay claim to for superiority is the color of their skin, their gender, their exclusions and inclusions, which grow more and more hollow every day. Yet, instead of adapting, they hold on to the thing, power and entitlement, and the arrogant and bigoted expressions thereof, that will make them LOSE that very power and entitlement most quickly! Tone-deafness that doesn't even comprehend how tone deaf it is. Wake up and smell the coffee GOP your bigotry is going to take you down.
The one thing I NEVER could have anticipated from the GOP, is how deeply committed they are to making racial bigotry, white entitlement, and supposedly blind/subconscious bias a central element of their "brand."Yes, I knew the racist elements were there, just under the surface. But basic math shows the futility of continued antagonism and hegemonic marginalization of non-whites and women. You JUST CAN'T WIN with such a strategy.So what do they do in the face of futile math? They double down on the racism and bigotry?! That tells me something important, perhaps the most important thing we could ever learn about far right Republicans, ever ever ever:It's in their (figurative) party DNA. They can't purge bigotry and racist assumptions from the party because it is the CORE MOTIVATING FACTOR of the party. That's a grim assessment. But I mean, really, KKK et. al. have maintained a half-life underground for many years. BIGOTS HAVE LEARNED TO HIDE. But the GOP can't, even to their own mathematical downfall. Even to the point that is it like watching a national political party commit hari kari right before your eyes.
Wow. Just let that sink in for a second.
A TRUE PARADOX! I mean, really. Most would agree the GOP is a party that tilts toward top-down authoritarianism. If it has a "god" in the non-religious-professing sense, that "god" is power and authority. And, it stands to reason, even their conception of the religious-professing-god is a patriarchal holder of absolute power and authority, top-down, don't ask questions, disobey, go straight to hell. So they worship the holders of the greatest power and authority (religious, secular, financial, political), apparently genuflecting in some postmodern version of the Victorian Great Chain of Being;they covet power and authority, worship that "us vs. them" Othering that a deeply-held sense of entitlement brings;and deliberately and subconsciously seek to marginalize, bully, subdue, or merely diminish those designated as "Other"
EVEN TO THEIR OWN DETRIMENT!
That's where the paradox comes in. Power-worship, and the entitled arrogance of power-wielding, requires the continued ability to retain that power. Yet their need to continually assert that entitled arrogance and bigotry. This virtually guarantees that they will losethe political power they deem to hold so dear. I feel this is a precedent for this kind of blindness and self-sabotage. Where a so-called "power group" was so invested in its own cultures of power, how "big" it makes them feel, in other words that the harder it hung on to its claims of great superiority and power, the more they have alienated all of those around them, sharing the broader culture and social contracts? Is this the inevitable downfall of fascists and strongmen? That they effectively poison their own wells? I guess the greatest historical precedent I can think of is the English royality from the time of the First and Second Estates. Somehow, some people came to hold (steal or earn) great power or wealth, sufficient to lay claim to great estates, servants, chattal, serfs in an anarchic or feudal time (castles, moats, if you will). They loved the power and wealth so very much, they deemed themselves a special class, with special bloodlines, in order to continue to consolidate and perpetuate their specialness and when an alternate economic system appeared on the scene (rise of an independent merchant class, guilds, etc.) with its own commodities and trading system that didn't automatically defer to the power and value system of the "lords," they were caught off guard. Sure, some probably adapted. But the affectations and assumptions of that class boxed many of them into a comfortable assumption that their entitlement to power and wealth were inherent. As more and more of them became "land rich" but "cash poor.
While today's GOP is certainly affiliated with many people who have many large estates, by and large, all they can really lay claim to for superiority is the color of their skin, their gender, their exclusions and inclusions, which grow more and more hollow every day. Yet, instead of adapting, they hold on to the thing, power and entitlement, and the arrogant and bigoted expressions thereof, that will make them LOSE that very power and entitlement most quickly! Tone-deafness that doesn't even comprehend how tone deaf it is. Wake up and smell the coffee GOP your bigotry is going to take you down.