An American neo-fascist propaganda fantasy: Grooming

Propaganda-stoked social ferment

A person has to admit that propaganda gushing from modern American neo-fascists is persistent, creative and without much or any concern for contrary facts, truths or reasonable reasoning. For the professionals of radical right dark free speech and for the most part (completely?), there is no such a thing as an inconvenient fact, truth or reasoning. 

As part of the creativity division of the Republican Party propaganda Leviathan, radical right professionals are road testing a new, divisive lie. So far the creativity division, also know as the DLEMCS (Deceivers, Liars, Emotional manipulators and Crackpots Squad) is working feverishly on the “grooming” fantasy. This has its origins in Pizzagate lies and crackpottery. 

FiveThirtyEight writes on this exciting new Republican lie from the DLEMCS wonks in the Republican Party skunk works (Fox News, etc.):

Why So Many Conservatives Are Talking About ‘Grooming’ All Of A Sudden

“Grooming” has become the most recent scare tactic of choice for the right. 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.”

For the unfamiliar, “grooming” is a term typically reserved to describe the type of behavior that child sexual abusers use to coerce potential victims without being caught. But now some Republicans are using it against any Democrat (or company)1 who disagrees with them on certain policy issues. This is a deliberate tactic that was promoted as early as last summer by Christopher Rufo, the same conservative activist who helped muddle the language around critical race theory. “Grooming” is a term that neatly draws together both modern conspiracy theories and old homophobic stereotypes, while comfortably shielding itself under the guise of protecting children. Who, after all, can argue against the safety of kids? But by adopting this language to bolster their latest political pursuits, the right is both giving a nod to fringe conspiracy theorists and using an age-old tactic to dismantle LGBTQ rights.

“There is no better moral panic than a moral panic centered on potential harm to children,” said Emily Johnson, a history professor at Ball State University who specializes in U.S. histories of gender and sexuality.

This most recent round of high-profile “grooming” warnings seems to have started in early March, as Democrats attacked Florida’s law limiting what can be taught in schools. Republican defenders turned to “grooming” as a way to push back.

“The bill that liberals inaccurately call ‘Don’t Say Gay’ would be more accurately described as an Anti-Grooming Bill,” Christina Pushaw, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s press secretary, tweeted on March 4. “If you’re against the Anti-Grooming Bill, you are probably a groomer or at least you don’t denounce the grooming of 4-8 year old children.”

Except there’s no mention of grooming in the law. Instead, it prohibits “classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity” in kindergarten through third grade, “or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.”  

So if casting those who oppose this law as “pro-grooming” is not rooted in evidence, what is it rooted in? In part, it’s a dog whistle to the party’s most extreme, conspiracy-minded base. The foundation of the QAnon conspiracy theory is that there is a mass, secret, underground ring of Satanic pedophiles whose members consist of Democratic leaders and Hollywood elites. Painting anyone who opposes Florida’s law (i.e., mainly Democrats) as being pro-grooming fits neatly into that narrative and winks at QAnon adherents without requiring politicians on the right to actually endorse the outlandish theory.  

But what’s being normalized here isn’t grooming; it’s the use of homophobic rhetoric and conspiracy theory language. And it’s intended not to protect children but to advance political causes and slander political enemies.

There it is. The newest creation from the DLEMCS. American society is in for a major bout of moral panic with much wailing, gnashing of teeth, hair on fire, and panties twisted in an unpleasant bunch. One can look on with wonder at the endless fascination that Republicans and Christian nationalist authoritarians have with the sex lives of other people. They must be horribly repressed.

This promises to be a wild ride into the Republican Party’s toxic neo-fascist la-la land. It is time to get out the tinfoil hats, gird the loins and install the cod piece. 

Codpiece being modeled by

a sharp-looking metrosexual model

What does this tell us?

 

Fractured faierie tales from Faux Newslandia

These faierie tales are about the Great Faierie, Tucker Carlson, the most popular faux news personality on the flat screen. Just so we don't forget.

NPR:

Now comes the claim that you can't expect to literally believe the words that come out of Carlson's mouth. And that assertion is not coming from Carlson's critics. It's being made by a federal judge in the Southern District of New York and by Fox News's own lawyers in defending Carlson against accusations of slander. It worked, by the way.

Just read U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil's opinion, leaning heavily on the arguments of Fox's lawyers: The "'general tenor' of the show should then inform a viewer that [Carlson] is not 'stating actual facts' about the topics he discusses and is instead engaging in 'exaggeration' and 'non-literal commentary.' "

She wrote: "Fox persuasively argues, that given Mr. Carlson's reputation, any reasonable viewer 'arrive[s] with an appropriate amount of skepticism' about the statement he makes."

Vyskocil, an appointee of President Trump's, added, "Whether the Court frames Mr. Carlson's statements as 'exaggeration,' 'non-literal commentary,' or simply bloviating for his audience, the conclusion remains the same — the statements are not actionable."

Vyskocil's ruling last week, dismissing a slander lawsuit filed against Carlson, was a win for Fox, First Amendment principles and the media more generally, as Fox News itself maintains. As a legal matter, the judge ruled that Karen McDougal, the woman suing Carlson, failed to surmount the challenge.

 

I'm not fibbing, honest!

Washington Post:

Fox News host Tucker Carlson is fashioning something of a professional defense: Sure, he lies, but not the way those guys at CNN lie.

In a 2018 podcast appearance, he ripped into CNN “Reliable Sources" host Brian Stelter. “He’s just such a pompous little guy. … I mean, he’s one of the falsest people I’ve ever seen on television. … He’s just so, like, self-righteous … but also lying at the same time. Like, I lie ’cause everyone does. But one thing I would never do, have never done in my whole life, is lie self-righteously,” said Carlson in a chat with Jamie Weinstein. Moments later, he reversed: “I don’t lie.”

He lies because everyone does. Excellent reasoning.

WaPo again:

Fox News host Tucker Carlson made news in a speaking engagement in San Marcos, Calif., where he suggested that he hadn’t been vaccinated. On the topic of the second booster shot, Carlson quipped to the crowd at Awaken Church, “I skipped the first three, I’m not getting that one either.

Perhaps Carlson was just waiting for the right audience to talk about his vaccination habits. Last year, then-New York Times media columnist Ben Smith asked Carlson whether he’d gotten the shot. “When was the last time you had sex with your wife and in what position? We can trade intimate details,” Carlson replied.

Consider the turnabout here: Carlson insisted on more than one occasion that disclosing vaccination status was tantamount to disclosing details about your sex life — and yet there he was, committing that very offense at an evangelical church. 

Remember — there’s no worldview guiding Carlson’s rantings on any subject, be it covid or racism or testosterone. Carlson himself confessed as much at a 2019 conference: “The temptation in my politics — and my politics are evolving, although I don’t even have politics, I just have reactions to things, as you can tell.” 

Correct. He reacted to conservative distrust of the vaccines by hyping and deepening that distrust. He reacted to questions from mainstream media reps — those soulless elites! — by stiffing them with preposterous attitude. And he responded to the crowd at Awaken by giving them a helping of anti-establishment covid ideology.

 

Trump's legacy: Sabotaged federal functions & starving the beast

WHY ARE YOU FUNDING THE ENEMY? -- “Woke” companies across our country have been using the profits from our purchases to fund their own agendas — many of which destroy American freedoms, opportunities, and rights. This MUST change. -- STB (Starve the Beast) (Clearly, these fine folks want you to buy from un-woke companies)

One of the ex-president's major legacies is a more effectively sabotaged federal government. Of course, he alone does not get all the credit for damaging the federal government. The Republican Party has been actively attacking and sabotaging the federal government since before Reagan said in the 1980s that government is the problem, not a solution.

But the ex-president brought the toxic power of that government-hating dogma to new and more lethal levels. The rot that T****, his rotten administration and the Republican Party left behind and still defends to this day does not just include the sabotaged withdrawal from Afghanistan and the human lives it cost. It is spread all over the federal government. The neo-fascist Republican deep state is alive and thriving in the big crevices that Democratic Party incompetence leaves in its wake.

This one is about the Secret Service, which has had occasional problems for years. The Washington Post writes:

Secret Service leaders are downplaying any risk to national security after four of its employees — including an agent assigned to protect first lady Jill Biden — were allegedly hoodwinked by two men impersonating federal agents and plying them with gifts, telling congressional committees and allies that the severity of the breach has been overblown by prosecutors and the media, according to people familiar with the conversations.

But several former Secret Service officials warn that the alleged infiltration of the elite protection agency reveals a major vulnerability extending well beyond this particular case. They said the revelations suggest that agents who had regular access to the White House and the Biden family — and who are supposed to be trained to spot scammers or spies seeking to ingratiate themselves — were either too greedy or gullible to question a dubious cover story.

“If you can compromise Secret Service personnel by cozying up to their agents and their uniformed officers, unwelcome sources can get to the president and the first family,” said Jim Helminski, a retired agency executive and former leader of Joe Biden’s vice-presidential detail.

The Republican Party (RP) wants government to fail so it can be eliminated as much as possible. That has been an explicit RP goal since before Reagan. The RP sabotages and installs incompetence wherever it can, whenever it can. None of this is new or secret. The RP "Starve the Beast" strategy has been in place for decades. Wikipedia writes on Starve the Beast:

"Starving the beast" is a political strategy employed by American conservatives to limit government spending by cutting taxes, in order to deprive the federal government of revenue in a deliberate effort to force it to reduce spending. The term "the beast", in this context, refers to the United States Federal Government and the programs it funds, using mainly American taxpayer dollars, particularly social programs such as education, welfare, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.  

On July 14, 1978, economist and future Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan testified to the U.S. Senate Finance Committee: "Let us remember that the basic purpose of any tax cut program in today's environment is to reduce the momentum of expenditure growth by restraining the amount of revenue available and trust that there is a political limit to deficit spending."

The tax gap is a stupendous example of RP sabotage of hated government. There is a logical connection between refusing to provide a budget for the IRS to collect taxes and the net tax gap, now estimated to be up to about $1.4 trillion/year (much less by corporate anti-tax sources like Deloitte). If the US government cannot collect the money it needs to be competent, then it will be incompetent. Incompetent government is what the RP has wanted for years. That gives the RP a great excuse excuse to get rid of the broken government that it worked hard to break.