What rank and file Republicans are thinking

An intense personal interest is in observing how the human mind sees and thinks about reality, especially reality related to politics. By now, it is clear from cognitive and social science that the human mind is an amazingly fast and effective reality-distorting machine. Humans can make all kinds of stuff up on the fly and not even know it. Most don't have an even a tiny inkling of what their minds are doing. The human mind evolved to make us as psychologically comfortable as possible by simplifying the world and justifying the beliefs and behaviors of self and tribe.

Attendees at the “Festival of Truth” listened to speakers spout 

election and coronavirus conspiracy theories in Vermontville, Mich.

Along these lines, a New York Times article today, In Michigan, Pro-Impeachment Republicans Face Voters’ Wrath, discusses what is going on in rank and file Republican minds. It is a reason and reality-detached festival of fearful and angry fantasy wrapped in a comforting “illusion of truth.” At the least, it looks like there is going to be some more RINO hunting in the FGOP (fascist GOP) pretty soon. The NYT writes:

Representative Peter Meijer, a Republican who voted to impeach Donald J. Trump, seeks “decency and humility” in Western Michigan, but has found anger, fear and misinformation.

“Sometimes when you’re surrounded by cacophony, it helps to have someone sitting there who isn’t adding another screaming voice onto the pile,” Mr. Meijer added.

Six months after the Capitol attack and 53 miles southeast of Grand Rapids, on John Parish’s farm in the hamlet of Vermontville, Mr. Meijer’s problems sat on folding chairs on the Fourth of July. They ate hot dogs, listened to bellicose speakers and espoused their own beliefs that reflected how, even at age 33, Mr. Meijer may represent the Republican Party’s past more than its future.

The stars of the “Festival of Truth” on Sunday were adding their screaming voices onto the pile, and the 100 or so West Michiganders in the audience were enthusiastically soaking it up. Many of them inhabited an alternative reality in which Mr. Trump was re-elected, their votes were stolen, the deadly Jan. 6 mob was peaceful, coronavirus vaccines were dangerous and conservatives were oppressed.

“God is forgiving, and — I don’t know — we’re forgiving people,” Geri Nichols, 79, of nearby Hastings, said as she spoke of her disappointment in Mr. Meijer. “But he did wrong. He didn’t support our president like he should have.”

Under an unseasonably warm sun, her boyfriend, Gary Munson, 80, shook his head, agreeing: “He doesn’t appear to be what he says he is.”

Well, there you have it. God is forgiving but we're gonna scorch Meijer right out of elected office because he done us and the president wrong. And, it is not just Meijer who is going to get scorched by voters. The fascist ex-president and his FGOP are fixin' to scorch all congressional Republicans who voted to impeach. 

The NYT goes on to assert that all Republicans who voted to impeach face a backlash from Republican voters. The rank and file are enraged by what they believe are multiple outrages. They include (i) an FBI that is ruthlessly hunting down the “peaceful” 1/6 coup attempters, (ii) a vicious radical liberal news media that silences conservatives, (iii) a Democratic governor who took away their livelihoods with tyrannical pandemic restrictions, and (iv) a Democratic secretary of state who stole their votes and laughs in their faces about it. The false claims the ex-president constantly spewed on the American people have well and truly “taken root with voters who now look past him,” as the NYT puts it.

In other words, if this is competent evidence of rank and file Republican reality and anger, and I believe it is, American-style fascist rot has spread from the ex-president and the FGOP leadership. The rot has now become entrenched in tens of millions of adult American minds. 

Poor Mr. Meijer confesses that he is in a pickle. He comments: “The challenge is if you believe that Nov. 3 was a landslide victory for Donald Trump that was stolen, and Jan. 6 was the day to stop that steal. I can’t come to an understanding with somebody when we’re dealing with completely separate sets of facts and realities. People are willing to kill and die over these alternative realities.” One woman told Meijer that he would soon be arrested for treason and hauled before a military tribunal, presumably to be shot.

Right, there is no basis for mutual understanding when facts, realities and reasoning are completely different. That evinces the raw power of dark free speech in real time, right now. That power can overthrow a democracy and the rule of law. 

The urgency and severity of the FGOP threat to democracy and the rule of law is about as clear as it can get without a successful coup. But, just to gently reinforce some of these unsettling thoughts, consider this from the NYT article:

Pro-Trump activist Audra Johnson is one of the challengers to 

Meijer in next year’s Republican primary 

She comments: “People are terrified. We’re heading toward a civil war, 

if we’re not already in a cold civil war.”

That irrational fear, anger and distrust is mainstream Republican reality and thinking. This is what is on the minds of most rank and file Republicans. By now, it is arguably reasonable to see most or all of these citizens as fascists who are, knowingly or not, opposed to democracy and the rule of law. Ms. Johnson is dead serious about acting on her emotions. Those emotional responses are either more reality than illusion or vice versa. 

Questions: In view of all the evidence now in the public record, e.g., a massive FGOP nationwide voter suppression effort, is it now reasonable to see most or all rank and file Republicans as more fascist and rule of demagogue-dictator driven than democratic and rule of law driven? 

If not, why not? What else would be needed to constitute an American fascism, e.g., an actual, large scale shooting civil war with blood flowing in the streets? An actual overthrow of the government and its replacement with a single party (the FGOP) and an above the law demagogic dictator as supreme ruler? 

Or, are rank and file Republican fears justified by the horrors of the Democratic Party and its evil critical race theory, its openness to minority participation in government and its other anti-Christian and/or pro-tyranny beliefs and behaviors? Who are the tyrant wannabes here, dems, repubs, both or neither, and how do you define tyranny?