GOP in center of circular firing squad

GOP in center of circular firing squad

By Hal Brown

THE TITLE of the article below SAYS FRAGILE, I'd add "fractious about to fracture" to this title, and change the photo (click to see how below) - this dark triad, this danger to democracy if they have power, fighting among themselves can only instill hope for those who fear they will bring a fascist autocracy (MAGAism and America First) to the country.

I made my own version of the photo used to illustrate the article. Click above to enlarge. Here's the meaning of Dark Triad.

Also on RAWSTORY:

'Don’t be ugly!' Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert quarrel noisily in House restroom

The article in Daily Beast is behind a paywall but you can see their illustration:

We all watched the soap opera of the fight over McCarthy's nomination to be Speaker of the House which included an actual attempted assault.

One would think that this travesty for Republicans would have taught them a lesson about public fighting and even supposedly private bathroom outbursts of acrimony.

Too bad Debbie Dingell didn't take and share a video of the so-called noisy quarrel. It was called a near-screaming match between Greene and Boebert. Classy person that she is, Dingell said "what happens in the ladies room stays in the ladies room."

Who actually reported the incident - since apparently it was't Dingell, hasn't been reported. It would be interesting to know who it was, especially if it was a Republican.

I don't see any avenue for the leaders of the GOP to remedy the situation by holding their version of the Mafia's Apalachin Meeting which was held to stop the feuding between various Mafia families. (It would have succeeded had not the police noticed all the out-of-state cars headed into a sleepy village and raided the meeting.)

The sociopaths in the Mafia knew what was best for their greater good. Not so with the sociopaths in the GOP because their narcissism overrides their good sense.

The self-defeating actions of the Republicans don't just involve individuals. For example as Thom Hartmann reports in "House Republicans are playing with fire" in Rawstory+ "the House Republican threat to crash our economy if Democrats don’t agree to gut aid to higher education, the EPA, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid... are playing with fire and appear to be blissfully ignorant of how destructive it could become." He writes:

Will this be our entre into Strauss and Howe’s “Fourth Turning”? Will House Republicans provoke a worldwide repeat of the Republican Great Depression that, history suggests, could easily lead the planet into another world war? 

Anybody who thinks cooler heads will prevail like they did in 2011 doesn’t know these Republicans. 

If they’re willing to offer excuses for Trump trying to overthrow the government of the United States, there truly are no guardrails to protect our nation from their avarice, stupidity, and willingness to destroy America for personal and political gain.

Buckle up. We’re in for a wild ride.

The term circular firing squad comes to mind thinking of what the Republican Party has devolved into. Ready, aim, fire!

_________________________

Related from Salon:

Heroes and villains: Fascists now control Congress — we can't afford to pretend otherwise

Comment below or on Facebook or on Mastodon. You can make a reply on Twitter too.

Amanda Marcotte Said It All About The GOP House But Her Title Put It Mildly

 Amanda Marcotte Said It All About The GOP House But Her Title Put It Mildly

By Hal Brown

The lettering above comes from one of the images used to promote one of the versions of the Ray Bradbury novel of this name.

I was resting in bed after waking up this morning and thinking about writing something about what the next two years has in store for the country as the GOP turns the house into Benghazi on a malevolent mixture of steroids and psychedelics.   

Then I read this republished Salon essay by Amanda Marcotte on RAWSTORY.  (I like reading Salon articles on RAWSTORY because the later has a comments section and the former doesn't. If you prefer you can read this piece on Salon here.)

If it was up to me I would have changed the title of her essay. Instead of 

"Call it the Conspiracy Theory Congress: Things are about to get dangerously weird on Capitol Hill"

 I would have changed it to 

Call it the Conspiracy Theory Congress: Things are about to get treacherously weird on Capitol Hill

Amanda Marcotte addressed everything I was thinking and more better than I ever could.

I urge you to read what she wrote. I thought I'd bullet-point some of what stood out and it apropos that the word "bullet" in this term used in this particular context has another meaning. These are bullets aimed at the heart of our democracy.

• The antics of various House committees, as they work hand-in-glove with Fox News to create and disseminate right wing conspiracy theories, will make an epsiode of Infowars seem downright sober-minded.
• Having realized that they'll likely never get their desired ends through democratic means, they've determined democracy itself must go. And make no mistake: McCarthy and other GOP leaders are only too happy to go along with the program.
• ...the current iteration of the GOP is functionally a fascist party and adheres to the knee-jerk fascist distaste for thinking, rational debate, and above all, letting facts guide your decision-making.
• ...they will use the immense power and resources of the U.S. Congress to be a bullshit-generating machine. 
• The hearings publicizing the conspiracy theories will be framed as "investigations," but no one should be fooled. The Republicans behind these lies, much less the right wing "journalists" who will elevate them, know full well it's all nonsense.
• The purpose of these exercises in fantastical story-telling is, if anything, more diabolical than an old-fashioned desire to fool people. It's about a larger assault on truth itself, or more specifically, on the value that truth has in our society. The goal of the "alternative facts" crowd is to make truth no more relevant than lies.
• The next two years of "hearings" will be much of the same: Lots of insinuations and false accusations, as well as incoherent ramblings that only make sense to those who are already well-versed in right wing conspiracy theories. Little, if any, effort will be put toward making any of these outlandish stories or conspiracy theories convincing. They aren't really meant to be believed. They are meant to alter the American relationship with reality so people lose all faith that the difference between true and false matters at all.

This all doesn't strike me as merely dangerous. I don't think it is hyperbole to say that treachery is what we as a nation is facing. 

Addendum 1: This is the second time I used an illustration form Something Wicked The Way Comes in a story. This is from May, 2016:

Addendum 2:

For whatever reason, Chris Hedges, the author of 

America's theater of the absurd: Our politics has become an endless carnival

Last week's power struggle between warring factions of charlatans, con men and "influencers" was only the beginning

 in Salon  decided to put, or allow to be poorly photoshopped, a clown nose onto President Biden as if he is cut from the same fascistic clothe as Kevin McCarthy and Donald Trump. 

He wrote: The billionaire class, for the most part, prefers the mask of a Joe Biden, who broke the railroad unions. But it also knows that the goons and con artists on the far right will not interfere in its disemboweling of the nation.

This is the only reference to Biden in his essay. 

This is an example of bothsidesism. He isn't comparing apples and oranges. He's comparing an apple with a small bruise with a pit of venomous vipers.

Click "Read more" to continue.

One person train wrecks and a huge traffic pileup

One person train wrecks and a huge traffic pileup

By Hal Brown

Archives on Right >

Why I was banned from Daily Kos

 

Is it any coincidence that all of the people who have become one person train wrecks and the large group that has become a huge highway traffic pileup are Republicans? I can't think of a Democrat but would be happy if readers can find one to add to my list.

In a quick glance at RawStory this morning I saw these articles:

The first one is about the coming battle in the House for who will be Speaker. I consider this just the beginning of what will be a huge traffic pileup for the House GOP as they begin their investigations into Hunter Biden, who everyone has heard of but few care about, to Alejandro Mayorkas who nobody has heard of but will once the hearings start.  Their eventual goal may be to try to impeach President Biden, an effort that might be successful in the Republican controlled House but will go nowhere in the Senate. 

What it all adds up to is a gridlocked (to use another traffic term) legislative agenda in the House which you better believe Democrats will publicize to their advantage when popular bills go down to defeat.

The individuals who have the most ginormous train wrecks Donald Trump and Elon Musk who are the most publicized. The lack of judgment and self-defeating grandiose narcissism of these two is 

If Herschel Walker loses he will be added to the list. Hell, if he wins, covering his putting his foot in his mouth as a Senator will prove irresistible to media.

Other train wrecks who make the news who come to mind are Kari Lake (read story) and Ye (who is apparently going to run for president with 

Nick Fuentes and Milo Yiannopoulos helping in his campaign ). 

I predict that there will be many opportunities for the likes of Jim Jordan (read yesterday's blog story about the soon to be chair of the GOP Judiciary Committee) and other House Republicans, especially those in the Freedom Caucus who crave attention like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, and Matt Goetz, to vie for the dubious distinction of becoming headline grabbing train wreck of the day or week.

The reason some of the individuals who will crash and burn will be due to calculated attempts to gain notoriety and to stand out in a crowded field. Keep my highway metaphor, compare it to someone driving 100 MPH in attempt to beat everyone else to a destination.

Most of them also just happen to meet the many of the clinical criteria for having a narcissistic personality disorder.  This is from The Mayo Clinic:

Symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder and how severe they are can vary. People with the disorder can:

• Have an unreasonably high sense of self-importance and require constant, excessive admiration.
• Feel that they deserve privileges and special treatment.
• Expect to be recognized as superior even without achievements.
• Make achievements and talents seem bigger than they are.
• Be preoccupied with fantasies about success, power, brilliance, beauty or the perfect mate.
• Believe they are superior to others and can only spend time with or be understood by equally special people.
• Be critical of and look down on people they feel are not important.
• Expect special favors and expect other people to do what they want without questioning them.
• Take advantage of others to get what they want.
• Have an inability or unwillingness to recognize the needs and feelings of others.
• Be envious of others and believe others envy them.
• Behave in an arrogant way, brag a lot and come across as conceited.
• Insist on having the best of everything — for instance, the best car or office.

At the same time, people with narcissistic personality disorder have trouble handling anything they view as criticism. They can:

• Become impatient or angry when they don't receive special recognition or treatment.
• Have major problems interacting with others and easily feel slighted.
• React with rage or contempt and try to belittle other people to make themselves appear superior.
• Have difficulty managing their emotions and behavior.
• Experience major problems dealing with stress and adapting to change.
• Withdraw from or avoid situations in which they might fail.
• Feel depressed and moody because they fall short of perfection.
• Have secret feelings of insecurity, shame, humiliation and fear of being exposed as a failure.