My Sunday column was about Mark Robinson, the Republican candidate for governor in North Carolina, and why MAGA keeps nominating corrupt and unhinged candidates for public office. A CNN report documented that Robinson had posted vile messages on a pornography message board, including messages in which he said he was a “Black Nazi” and “Slavery is not bad. Some people need to be slaves. I wish they would bring it back. I would certainly buy a few.” Robinson is denying the posts are his and is staying in the race. I’m not surprised:
In nine years, countless Republican primary voters have moved from voting for Trump in spite of his transgressions to rejecting anyone who doesn’t transgress. If you’re not transgressive, you’re suspicious. Decency is countercultural in the Republican Party. It’s seen as a rebuke of Trump.
This has changed the composition of the party. While many decent people remain — and represent the hope for future reform — Trump’s Republican Party has become a magnet for eccentrics and conspiracy theorists of all stripes. In a sharp essay (which my colleague Ross Douthat also highlighted), Matthew Yglesias calls this phenomenon the “crank realignment.”
Speaking of MAGA, I was also a guest on the “Opinions” podcast to talk about why MAGA keeps sharing cat memes about Springfield, Ohio, long after the claim that Haitian immigrants were eating dogs and cats had been debunked. The short answer is that they’re having a great time. They love making decent people angry:
I knew that MAGA was going to take this torch and carry it as far as it possibly could. And they did it in that particular way that MAGA interacts with the larger world, with this sense of gleeful transgression. They have fun being outrageous. They have fun being provocative. They like to “trigger the libs.” What MAGA is very good at doing is turning around back to its own people and saying, “See, we struck a nerve.” They’ll use words like, “If you’re taking flack, it means you’re over the target.” And so they use the backlash almost as proof that they’ve hit a nerve and all of this just creates an endless process of doubling down.
The people who are in on the joke, the core MAGA people who are pushing the memes out, look, if it’s true, great. If it’s not true, who cares? They’re having a good time.
6 comments:
It's good to know not all Republicans are sniveling cowards. Some are brave enough to call out Trump's evil.
I have to share this hilarious and brilliant satire from comedian Walter Masterson portraying “the Senior Strategist for the JD VANCE campaign spoke at Springfield Ohio about the Haitia”.
https://x.com/waltermasterson/status/1839424880955232520
Shaw quoted French...
"They love making decent people angry..."
That perfectly explains -FJ. He's been asked thousands of times for rational proof, evidence and some objective numbers to back up his myriad of statements. But they are never coming. Never.
Instead, by his own words, he exists simply to "trigger" lefties.
That's the point of the article written by French. The MAGA crowd's raison d'être IS simply to confound progressives, anger them, piss them off and keep them off balance.
There's no desire from them to find common ground, seek compromise, work together for the good of America, or unite around anything other than MAGA.
It's cancerous to our country.
On triggering and the desire to keep/make ppl angry, here's a quote from US GOP Congressman Clay Higgins of LA...
“Lol. These Haitians are wild. Eating pets, vudu, nastiest country in the western hemisphere, cults, slapstick gangsters... but damned if they don’t feel all sophisticated now, filing charges against our President and VP... All these thugs better get their mind right and their ass out of our country before January 20th.”
A US Congressman posts a tweet so racist even Byron Donald and a few other GOP member of Congress asked Higgins to take it down. He finally did, but then afterwords, said "It's all true... we do have freedom of speech. I'll say what I want."
How is Higgins trying to find common ground, move America forward and bring his fellow citizens together by posting a statement full of lies, threats and racism?
The answer... as French would agree, he's not. His only desire is to anger Americans and demonize certain people, legally here in the US.
There's a way you can be against a policy, or a viewpoint without demonizing and angering people. Folks like Congressman Higgins and other MAGA folks choose not to do so.
Why is that?
I believe French perfectly explains it.
Trumpists keep proving Trumpism is a white nationalist neo-Nazi movement built on racism, fear, hate, and lies.
Always.
Goodnight America.
And, MAGA trumpublicans are disgusting AND despicable.
Reminds me of watching 9yo boys trying to outdo each other. I walked up on three boys seeking new, exciting, ever more extreme ways of torturing toads. One boy got some lighter fluid. Another some matches.
They, evidently, based on the number of burnt toads, had tried many variations. They had advanced, regressed, to the point of surrounding a lighter fluid soaked toad with a ring of fire. When the toad, in pain from the lighter fluid on it, jumped through the fire ...
The boys were into the pain and horror. Flush with excitement and thinking hard on how to make it more horrible.
When I walked up one of the boys forgot he was holding the can of lighter fluid. Some got on his hand and ignited. A minor but painful burn. He started crying and I suggested that they might think of how the toads felt covered in fire. They looked shocked. The boys all cried.
People can be cruel and heartless. Empathy can be painful. Nobody wants to think of themselves as a monster. A day will come when the hate is no longer fun. People have to be able to look themselves in the eyes in a mirror and not see a monster. Because, in the end, you know what you did, and you have to live with yourself.
This may not apply to confirmed sociopaths like Trump or Miller, they seem incapable of conscience and shame. Most other human beings are not so unburdened.
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