Woe is the conservative brain trust – a non sequitur if ever there was one. Whereas, in the past, conservative arguments at least tried to persuade those in the middle, now “conservative thinking” (such as it is) is meant either to bludgeon or bamboozle independent voters instead. That’s what happens when you surrender feelings to facts, well-reasoned analysis to rote responses, and real world logic to emotion and hatefulness. All you have left in your arsenal are what poet T S Eliot (in his poem “The Love Song Of J Alfred Prufrock”) called “arguments of insidious intent”. Or, less poetically – bullshit
Part of America’s quiet genius – up until recently – was our ability to find consensus between all our disparate parts and govern ourselves. As diverse as we are as a nation, still we could find a degree of consensus. But, if you oppose that diversity from the jump – if you despise it for being diverse – then you certainly don’t want the consensus that flows from it. Democracy stops working for you because not enough people will vote for what you want.
Republicans Hate Democracy
That is, in fact, the GOP’s position now! Their standard-bearer, Donald Trump, has openly said as much. And the Republican Party has embraced his standards. If you run for election – but have no intention of accepting the election’s results – then you’re not actually “running for election”. You’re performing “election kabuki” as a prelude to a criminal act of insurrection.
Authoritarianism and fascism – the GOP’s brand now – do not mix at all with democracy. And every argument to vote Republican – to vote for Trump – is literally an argument against democracy.
You could literally pick any Republican argument for anything right now and guarantee yourself that it won’t hold water. How about Tommy Tuberville’s reason for screwing our military? Or any conservative argument to outlaw abortion? Or deny Ukraine funding to defend itself? What’s the conservative justification for undermining America’s social safety net, or putting people in cages or giving more taxpayer money to rich guys? Why don’t conservatives want EVERY eligible American to vote?
The response to every one of those questions is some form of drivel that’s metastasized into toxic bullshit. Into arguments of insidious intent.
“Putin Pays Trump”
The word “insidious” perfectly describes the current GOP. They are “beguiling but harmful”. Above all, they’re “treacherous”.
Make no mistake. The Republican Party is a party of stone cold traitors.
I keep looking back to June 25, 2016 as the date you can point to when the Republicans officially became The Treason Caucus. On that day – in the midst of the 2016 presidential election – former Speaker Of The House Kevin McCarthy exited a meeting wherein our intelligence community briefed members of Congress on Vladimir Putin’s active attempts to undermine Ukraine’s struggling, new democracy. From there, McCarthy entered another meeting, this one of Republican leaders.
The first thing McCarthy said as he entered was “There’s two people I think Putin pays – Rohrbacher and Trump – swear to God!”
Now, that’s a pretty outrageous thing to say about the person your party’s about to nominate to be POTUS. What made it more outrageous – and insidious – was that everyone present AGREED that California representative Dana Rohrbacher was indeed in Putin’s pocket. But Trump? If Putin is paying Trump, too, then making Trump POTUS would pose a grave national security risk. Why on earth would you go and nominate him such a person to be president?
No one present – none of those Republican LEADERS – either questioned what McCarthy said or challenged him to back it up. They accepted that “Putin pays Trump” and – per then Speaker Of The House Paul Ryan – agreed to keep their knowledge of same a secret! As Ryan put it, “No leaks. . . . This is how we know we’re a real family here.”
No leaks? About the fact that your about-to-be presidential nominee is a traitor?
Talk about an argument of insidious intent!
Insidious…
Since Trump first seized hold of our political discourse, he made nothing but arguments of insidious intent – for his stupid border wall, for approaching Kim Jong-Un, for wrecking our climate, our economy and our relationships with the rest of the world.
And the Republican Party itself made the same arguments for going along with Trump (“we disapprove of the man but love his policies”). The GOP’s religious wing doesn’t care that Trump is the antithesis of Christian morality. That makes every one of their arguments “insidious”. Our news media has made equally insidious arguments to explain Trump’s hold over the GOP. Or the ONE election Trump “won” – in 2016 when Russia literally put him over the finish line and into the White House.
There is no good argument to make Trump POTUS again. No good argument NOT to prosecute the crap out of him and every single Republican who in any way enabled Trump – and his stated attempt to overthrow our legitimate government.
Arguments don’t get any more insidious than that.