Politics of Hate category archive
Code Words 1
Gerald Haslam explains how they work in the Party of the New Secesh.
Just read it. No summary or excerpt can suffice.
No Walker in the Park 0
Farron Cousins wonders what happened to the Koch Brothers’ golden boy.
Delusions of Virtue 0
Bigotry wants itself some equal rights.
The magnificent chutzpah of the twisted rationalization is stunning. Stupid, nasty, perverse, self-serving, vile, hypocritical, craven, and evil, but stunning.
(Ask me nicely, I’ll tell you what I really think.)
Still Rising Again after All These Years 0
Down the road a piece, the boys are advertising their little club.
Each bag also contained a Confederate flag sticker and a Life Savers candy.
An application for the Ku Klux Klan was on the back of the fliers, along with an address and a telephone number that Medlock said was bogus.
A Nation of Immigrants 2
Alfred Doblin is disheartened by Republican rants about brown people.
Scary stuff. Maybe America is not 1933 Munich, but we are not a shining city on a hill, either. This rhetoric by smart, pragmatic politicians like Christie and Bush is dangerous. It shows how much both men will sacrifice to become president. They are willing to abandon all that was good about their public lives just to compete with a billionaire P.T. Barnum with straw-colored hair. Is this the only choice: The scarecrow or the straw man?
Follow the link for the rest.
Public Health Notice 0
Shaun Mullen explains Trumposis. Here are some characteristics of those susceptible to it.
- They vote Republican when they vote, which is not particularly frequently and sometimes not at all.
- People who hate complexity and want simple solutions to difficult problems seem especially vulnerable.
- If they see something on television, they believe it must be true, and many sufferers worship celebrities.
- Even though sufferers think they hate the super rich, they secretly worship their extravagant lifestyles.
- They are racist and nativist in outsized numbers and believe America was made for whites and should remain white.
- They are prone to hysteria and Nobody Understands Us convulsions.
Learn more about this scary new ailment at Shaun’s place.
Note that epidemics of this nature are not unprecedented in American history.
Anchor Babies Away! 0
Aside:
“Anchor babies” exist only in the fetid imaginations of racists and bigots.
If someone you know–including someone running for public office–starts to babble about “anchor babies,” back away, slowly. He or she is so taken with hate as to be beyond reason.
American Taliban, Reprise 0
Chris Honore marvels at the appeal of Donald Trump and finds an alarming analogy. A snippet:
The answer may reside with ISIS. To explain, at least in part, the attraction of this group, Roger Cohen posited in the New York Times that what this caliphate offers is a release from the “burden of freedom” while offering purpose and meaning as well as strict moral boundaries and order. There is the promise of salvation and martyrdom framed by a code of behavior (sharia law) that is enforced with lethal finality while simultaneously surrounding the true believer with community and approbation.
Follow the link for the rest of his argument.
Bears! 0
Pamela Druckerman remembers vacationing in the Smokies and her fear of bears, even though no bear ever threatened her. That leads her to wonder why so many Americans seem scared of everything all the time. Here’s a bit (emphasis added); follow the link for the rest.
Americans didn’t invent this narrative, but we’ve embraced it with a special fervor. Never mind that owning a gun makes you less safe; we like the story that says we’re protecting our families. Never mind the enormous drops in homicide, robbery and other violence. We cling to the story that the world has become more dangerous.
The hero story also seeps into American politics. Why are many Republican presidential candidates obsessed with undocumented immigrants? They’re inventing a monster that threatens America, then promising to rescue us. Donald J. Trump has Mexicans; I have bears.