07. Who's Grooming Who?
Your children are being recruited by a cult of far-right zealots. Their goal is to breed future generations of hateful, ignorant and intolerant Americans like themselves.
You have to give the MAGApublicans credit for one thing: They understand audacious marketing.
Take “grooming,” currently #1 on the GOP’s Top 10 Wedge Issues chart. As 538.com’s Kaleigh Rogers recently reported:
“Fox News host Laura Ingraham included a segment on her show last month where she claimed public schools have become “grooming centers” where “sexual brainwashing” takes place.
“Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene recently tweeted that the Democrats are the party of “grooming and transitioning children.”
“Last week, One America News host Chanel Rion even called President Joe Biden “the groomer-in-chief.”
Don’t even get me started on Florida’s new Don’t Say Gay law, just one among several dozen current anti-LGBTQ legislative initiatives in at least 19 different states (several of them involving Senator #LadyGraham of South Carolina).
And then there’s Tucker Carlson’s stupefying homoerotic video montage, aka the promo trailer for his new “documentary” The End of Men.
It goes without saying that one can — indeed one must — ridicule Tucker’s testicle-tanning schtick, but he does have his finger on something essential: Kids may be the wedge issue, but at a deeper level, this whole manufactured controversy is really about what it means to be a man.
Carlson says American men are both literally and metaphorically going soft; he points out that serum testosterone levels in American men have been declining about 1% annually since the 1980s.
However, according to the National Institutes of Health, Mexican-American men have the highest testosterone levels among all US men. By your standards, Tucker, isn’t this an argument for increased immigration across the southern border?
All kidding aside, a consistent throughline links attacks on trans youth; opposition to teaching racism as part of US history; undermining teacher unions; and campaigns to give conservative “parental rights” activists de facto veto power over local public-school curricula.
We are facing a frightening and unprecedented national insurgency composed of the political far right, religious fundamentalists, white nationalists, and revanchist elements among the traditional ruling classes.
Perhaps the missile gap of the 1950s has indeed morphed into the testosterone gap of the 2020s. That’s no reason to empower the fascistic youth indoctrination techniques of pre-World War Two Europe.
Creeping fascism is on a 21-month game clock and half-time is just 200 days away.
When the whistle blows on November 8, 2024, and regardless of who wins that day’s Presidential election, far-right conspirators intend to launch open civil warfare in the United States.
It’s estimated that some 20% of the American electorate verges on Q-Anon level adherence to the doctrines of MAGApublicanism. A far smaller, yet still uncomfortably large number of die-hard insurrectionists and white nationalists is also in play, contemplating, and planning to execute, acts of domestic terrorism.
Our best chance to fight back is just 200 days away. The Congressional midterm elections this November 8 mark the half-time of Biden’s Presidency, and will largely write the political playbook for its last two years.
We have to keep Democrats in control of at least one House of Congress and begin to shore up our share of elected representation at the state and local levels.
Are you someone who is angry and frustrated by the illusion that progress is only happening at a snail’s pace in the Biden Administration? Have you given up on being more involved? Is bitching to friends your primary form of social activism? Please! Take a chill pill and get with the fucking program because what’s the alternative?
Here’s what we have to look forward to if we lose the House and Senate in November:
Whatever your progressive issue of choice, a MAGApublican majority in the next Congress is going to start kicking our ass on day one.
Forget about making forward progress politically; we’ll be stymied and overwhelmingly on the defensive. You think things were bad under Trump? This next crew is going to be even meaner… and smarter.
Our allies within the federal government, and sympathetic nonprofits with government-sourced contracts, will be facing systematic audits, terminations of funding, unending investigative hearings, disciplinary proceedings and even prosecutions.
I can at least understand why the smattering of progressives who consider themselves “revolutionaries” are less than enthusiastic and committed Democrats. They truly believe the only way forward for society as a whole is for the inherent contradictions of late-stage capitalism to foment a systemic breakdown. But unless you fit into that deluded demographic you have no excuse to stay uninvolved over the next 28 weeks.
Yes, you are going to see some temporary backtracking on principles by our side. You may notice some creepy conciliatory gestures and even possibly a loathsome compromise or two. Don’t give up. And don’t start badmouthing our own team.
Focus your animus on the other side. Even if you have to grit your teeth to vote for the asshole with a D next to their name, do it with pride! It’s your minimal civic responsibility.
If you care a little more, find a bit of money to donate or volunteer some time with groups like SwingLeft and MoveOn, which have a track record of activating voters in the places it most matters.
And be thankful we're not Ukranians.
- Art