So, what’s up with our White Man in Moscow,
Tucker Carlson? With or without portfolio, his delusions of
grandeur are dissolving into their constituent parts. We already
know what he looks like without a heart and a brain. We already
presume that he was the guy on the beach into whose face
everyone kicked sand, even the girls. But the mind boggles at
the thought that his pale rider is on the fritz. How can he
pretend to rape and pillage with Team Putin if his member and
associates are as soft and white as a baby’s bottom? Do the
Proud Boys secretly sport pale members and tender hangers-on as
well? Putin-love is hard to sustain in circumstances like these.
Enquiring minds want to know why the Republican Party is
obsessed with pedophilia? Tanning testicles and raping children
used to be the realm of 9th Century tumescent Vikings and other
T-Rex sized mesomorphs. But now, being jacked and having a
diagnosis from the DSM-5 is a sought-after credential for
political success in today’s Republican Party. They have their
Gym Jordan, their Matt Gaetz, their Roy Moore. And they have a
surprisingly long list of legislators with morally impeachable
back stories calling the shots in the Republican Party.
In Republican politics this means that when they find themselves
scraping the bottom of the barrel, it’s time to make the world
safe for a new Moral Panic.
It’s what they do. If your project is to stem the tide of
cultural evolution and social justice by suppressing inclusion
among the volk and impartiality within the judiciary to preserve
the God-given rights of white male supremacy, then it’s time to
torch some witches; it’s time to foment some good old fashioned
mass hysteria. It’s what many political coups begin with.
In the Germany of the 1930s, it was Jews and Gypsies. In Ronald
Reagan’s 1980s, it was the Satanic Panic at the McMartin
Preschool in California. Back then, the real targets Republicans
were trying to extirpate were working women and their abnegation
of wifely duties to their husband and children. After a hard
day’s low wage work, a wife was reluctant to bring her man his
slippers and scotch at day’s end.
The McMartin Preschool moral panic was to be proof of concept
that children consigned to daycare risk rape, human sacrifice
and the like, if not perpetually embraced in the ever-present
arms of their mothers. The preschool’s curriculum of imaginary
satanic rituals led to accusations of human sacrifices,
pornography, and prostitution. And now, some 40 years later,
it’s back as a rerun with Qanon. Yes, fomenting moral panic is
back thanks to Marjorie Taylor Greene, her Gazpacho Police, and
her Jewish Democratic cannibals. It’s back with Madison Cawthorn
and his cocaine fueled sex orgies – winning himself a DSM-5 Seal
of Approval for Extraordinary Mental Illness While in Office.
And it’s back in full force thanks to Tucker Carlson and his
cure for flagging manliness in Amurika.
But the moral panic model is as old as dirt itself. It is a
time-tested tool of emerging authoritarianism.
Florida’s Governor, Ron DeSantis, has brought back book banning
and censorship to public schools. My initial reaction to his
legislation was to question whether I should start memorizing
Ray Bradbury’s, Fahrenheit 451, just in case the GOP’s moral
panic surrounding childhood education would spread to all
aspects of education…even mathematics. But if one draws back the
curtain separating DeSantis from his quixotic ambition, Fox’s
Laura Ingraham from her “grooming” hypothesis, and Greene and
Bobert from their risible badass, it’s apparent that the
Democratic Party must demand that the Republican Party tear down
their “fourth wall” and speak directly to America. Democrats
must do the unthinkable; they must fight against the bad guys.
They must stop themselves from engaging in a willful suspension
of disbelief. This is not a comedy; this is a tragedy. This is
Hamlet.
Democrats know that the Supreme Court has been entirely
politicized, even if Justice Amy Coney Barrett says: "My goal
today is to convince you that this court is not comprised of a
bunch of partisan hacks” - and Democrats know that Justice
Clarence Thomas is in the pocket of the far right with his sole
dissenting vote on releasing documents to the January 6th
investigation.
Democrats know that Donald Trump is an organized crime figure,
even if he says “If you’re innocent, why are you taking the
Fifth Amendment? The mob takes the Fifth.” – while Eric Trump
and Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer, Allen
Weisselberg, invoked the 5th over 500 times each under
questioning.
Are we really all dumbbells?
Moral Panic is the last redoubt of a hollowed out political
party. Its crimes against our government include:
“Sedition: Actions or speech intended to incite people to rebel
against the government.
Treason: Crime of betraying one's country, typically through
efforts to overthrow the government.
Rioting: Participating in a violent public disturbance.
Insurrection: Violent uprising against one's government.
Sabotage: The intentional destruction or obstruction of
something for political advantage.”
This is where we are. There is no grooming; there is no
pedophilia; there is no critical race theory. These are simply
the disgusting components of a moral panic, brought to you in
living color by the Republican Party – the party that stands a
good chance of taking over the United States Legislature in
November.
Where are you, Merrick Garland? Must we bear the law’s delay,
the insolence of office, and the spurns that patient merit of
th'unworthy takes? We’re drowning in a sea of troubles. To be,
or not to be,… that is the question. |
