Republicans Gift to Democrats

As President Biden prepares to deliver his first State of the Union address tonight and Republicans begin to investigate parents of transgender children for child abuse, I figured it would be a good time to ask - what exactly is Republican’s plan for America should they take back control in 2022 or 2024? So lets dig in to their recently announced plans.

Last week Senator Rick Scott released the Republicans 11 Point Plan to “Rescue” America. This document is a gift to Democrats for the mid term elections, and it’s quite frankly a laundry list of culture war wedge issues that are hugely popular with the far right echo chamber of Fox News and the Republican Party. It’s a manifesto of classic Republican ideas mixed in with some Christian and White Nationalism. Importantly given this recent poll - people seem to think Republicans are better for the economy. So what do they plan to do?

In an attempt to keep this on the shorter side I will not be covering every point, and there’s some off the wall stuff in it I won’t touch on. You can read the actual document here (mirrored here), as well as some additional coverage here.

To be quite frank this is an 11 point plan of fascism, bigotry, racism, transphobia, isolationism, xenophobia, and the list goes on. Let’s go into some of the finer points…

The United States Lacks Perspective

This will come as no surprise to many people around the world, but the United States - and the west in general, lacks perspective. I said this when Afghans held on to the side of C-17’s leaving Kabul, hoping for a better life only to fall to certain death late last year. And I will not sugar coat what I am about to say.

As we sit here in this country bitching about gas prices to fill up our SUVs or the price of hamburgers, and raging out about the supposed “loss of freedom” being asked to protect our fellow citizens from a deadly disease, or complaining we were blocked access to a movie theater or restaurant because we’ve made the choice to not protect our fellow citizens…

An authoritarian invades a sovereign nation, a democracy - claiming it’s his. Ordinary citizens take up arms, brewery’s are converted to create Molotov cocktails. People look outside their homes and see Russian tanks going by, children separated from their parents who must now take up arms. Hiding in subways, to remain safe from the bombs above.

The Karen Convoy is in route to Washington DC to “protest” restrictions that are largely falling off, and certain Republicans line up to support Putin.

I say this with all due respect, wake the fuck up America. Our petty squabbles and culture wars mean nothing - they’re intended to divide. Don’t be divided.

I stand with Ukraine. I stand with Democracy.

• Image Source Ukrainian photographer Dmitry Muravsky, 2016 (Facebook / Ukraine Ministry of Defense)

Speaking Out

I’ve followed politics most of my adult life, and I actually enjoy the inner workings of the US government and how it functions. I used to stay fairly quiet about it and my views on issues. I was an informed observer. But over the past six years that’s changed drastically for me. I wanted to write a post and explore why that is and my reasoning behind it.

In my view of todays politics, it is not about liberal vs conservative, democrat vs republican, or left vs right.

It is about right vs wrong, it is about truth and lies, it is about decency and outright filth.

For the most part, I am not speaking out on Republicans anymore. I am speaking out on people who got behind the cult of personality, and believe literally everything he says. I am speaking out on the the absolutely authoritarian tendencies of todays Republican Party. I am speaking out against a party who considers a violent insurrection, and beating first responders with thin blue line flags to be “legitimate political discourse”

Donald Trump brought out the absolute worst in people. He’s divided this nation more than it’s been in generations and on top of that, we’re dealing with multiple realities today. I am speaking out on the lies and blatant misinformation whether it be people STILL claiming Trump won in 2020 or that critical race theory is even something taught in public school.

Republican Normalization

A few months ago I posted an update on Facebook complaining of media bias against Democrats. One of my friends challenged me on it. It caused me to re-evaluate my statement.

After re-evaluating I realized I was oversimplifying the issue. The issue we are seeing today is normalization of a political party that has gone off the deep end into far right conspiracy and all out culture wars.

The Republican Party is currently the vessel for a modern day fascist movement. They’re actively dividing our nation and positioning white people, especially white males as victims who’s country is being taken away. They’re actively demonizing racial justice movements and protests as criminals. They’re actively trying to erase our nations history and saying kids should not “feel shame” for our county’s history. They’re using things like CRT (which isn’t even taught in K-12) to fashion policy which will make teachers unlikely to teach our actual history. Not to even speak of voting law in places like AZ that will allow them to pick their own slate of electors.

Whitewashed America

The latest Republican culture war, and disturbing new trend - is the banning and censoring of books. In this latest NBC News special report they uncovered some of the books parents have asked school libraries to remove.

Records requests to nearly 100 school districts in the Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin regions — a small sampling of the state’s 1,250 public school systems — revealed 75 formal requests by parents or community members to ban books from libraries during the first four months of this school year. In comparison, only one library book challenge was filed at those districts during the same time period a year earlier, records show. A handful of the districts reported more challenges this year than in the past two decades combined.

These parents feel empowered now to come out of the woodwork, fueled by white grievance stoked by Republicans and the former president. They wish to have their kids grow up in a whitewashed version of reality, devoid of thought or critical thinking.