The Vicious Cycle of Republican Politics

The stupidity and hate that is now front and center in the Republican party was hidden from view until just recently.  Now the GOP is embarked on an overtly transparent mission to:

• Find the most ignorant and mean-spirited people in the country. (The mission will not succeed when applied to people smart enough to see what’s actually happening.)

• Create and disseminate messaging that appeals to their abominable values.

• Re-enforce these messages with Fox “News” and the other ultra-right-wing media platforms.

• Elect demagogues/carnival barkers (Trump, DeSantis, Oz) who whip these people into a frenzy.

• Eliminate programs that formerly relieved some of the financial pressure on the rapidly dying middle class, rendering these people even more desperate than they had ever been in the past.

• Bust unions, keeping wages as low as possible.

• Ignore environmental issues, whose impacts are felt disproportionately among the lower classes.

• Destroy public education, making this descent into moral oblivion inescapable for all but a lucky few.

• Keep taxes on the uber-rich low, ensuring their ongoing political support.

The optimists among us expect this whole dwindling spiral to hit rock bottom, and for the Republican party to begin to rebuild itself around its traditional values of small government, personal accountability, strong military, American exceptionalism, law and order, etc.

Whether or not this happens, it’s one hell of a frightening plunge into darkness.