Republican Messaging

 

Ethan Grey

@_EthanGrey

This is a thread on Republican messaging. The press doesn’t want to have a direct conversation with you about this. So as a former Republican who is now a consistent Democratic voter, I will.

https://twitter.com/_EthanGrey/status/1534024357957230594?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1534024357957230594%7Ctwgr%5Ehb_0_10%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fdefendingthetruth.com%2Fthreads%2Frepublican-messaging.134606%2F

The Message of the Republican Party: 

What follows is the text of my viral Twitter thread posted on June 7th, 2022 regarding the messaging of the Republican Party. Minor changes were made to the original wording. As for the title of this piece, inspiration for this came to me from somebody else. Twitter user StringsNoTrump pointed out that what I discussed in the thread goes nicely with the spirit of the Gadsden flag, hence the accompanying visual (although I do not think that user was alone in this observation, this is the first case I saw).

The press does not want to have a direct conversation with you about what’s really at the heart of Republican messaging. As a former Republican who now consistently votes for the Democratic Party in US elections, I will. When I came to realize what the true message of the Republican Party was, I was out, and have been voting Democratic ever since.

Here is the Republican message on everything of importance:

1. They can tell people what to do.
2. You cannot tell them what to do.

This often gets mistaken for hypocrisy, there’s an additional layer of complexity to this (we will discuss this later in the piece), but this is the basic formula.

You’ve watched the Republican Party champion the idea of “freedom” while you have also watched the same party openly assault various freedoms, like the freedom to vote, freedom of choice, freedom to marry who you want and so on.

If this has been a source of confusion, then your assessments of what Republicans mean by “freedom” were likely too generous. Here’s what Republicans mean:

1. The freedom to tell people what to do.
2. Freedom from being told what to do.

When Republicans talk about valuing “freedom”, they’re speaking of it in the sense that only people like them should ultimately possess it.

So with this in mind, let’s examine some of our political issues with an emphasis on who is telling who what to do. And hopefully there will be no confusion about what the Republican Party message is ever again.

Let’s start with the COVID-19 pandemic. We were told by experts in infectious diseases that to control the spread of the pandemic, we had to socially distance, mask, and get vaccinated. So, in a general sense, we were being told what to do. Guess who had a big problem with that. All Republicans saw were certain people trying to tell them what to do, which was enough of a reason to make it their chief priority to insist that they will not be told what to do. Even though what they were told to do could save lives, including their own.

As you can see, this is a very stunning commitment to refusing to be told what to do. So much so that it is not in fact “pro-life.” But Republicans will nevertheless claim to be the “pro-life” party. That is because they recognize “pro-life” can be used to tell people what to do. The reason they say they are “pro-life” when they are trying to tell pregnant women and other pregnant people what to do with their bodies is not out of genuine concern for human life, but because they recognize that in this position, they can tell pregnant women and other pregnant people what to do with their bodies.

That’s why when you use that same appeal — “pro-life” — when you ask Republicans to do something about gun violence in schools, it doesn’t work. Because you are now in the position of telling Republicans what to do. That’s precisely why they don’t want to do anything about it. So gun violence in schools is not a problem, but their children having to wear masks in schools is. Because somebody is telling their children what to do. Dead children don’t bother them, but telling their children what to do? Only they should do that.

They claim to be for “small government”, but that really means a government that tells them what to do should be as small as possible. But when the Republican Party recognizes it has an opportunity to tell people what to do, the government required for that tends to be large.

The reason Republicans are so focused on the border isn’t because they genuinely care about border security, it’s because they recognize it as the most glaring example of when they can tell other people what to do. This is why it’s their favorite issue.

“You want in? Too bad. Get out.”

If Republicans could do this in every social space — tell the people who aren’t like them “Too bad, now get the fuck out” — I’m here to assure you that would be something resembling their ideal society.

Now, there are economic policies that we’ve proposed that we can demonstrate would be of obvious benefit to even Republican voters. So how do Republicans leaders kill potential support for these policies? Make the issue about who is telling who what to do. They focus on the fact that Democrats may raise taxes. Even when it’s painfully obvious that Democrats aren’t going to raise taxes on everyone (or on very few people), what’s important here is that Democrats are the people telling certain people what to do. If you want to know why Republicans can easily be talked out of proposals from the Democratic Party that are shown to be of benefit to them, it is precisely because they have to entertain the idea of Democrats telling certain people what to do.

What you didn’t understand from the very beginning is that Democrats should not ultimately be in the position to tell anyone what to do. Only Republicans should be in the position to tell people what to do.

On the issue of climate change, a lot of them don’t regard it as a serious issue to the extent that they think it is a hoax. This is because when you tell Republicans to do something for the sake of the planet, you are still ultimately telling them what to do. Furthermore, you are conceiving the planet as a thing that all human beings should have to share. I am here to assure you that the Republican Party’s main concern with the planet is to ensure that they don’t have to share it.

Now here’s where things get interesting: when you explain to Republicans you want them to do something and explain it’s on the basis of benefitting other people. Now you have really crossed a line. Not only did you tell them what to do, you told them to consider others. The whole point of an arrangement where you can tell people what to do, but you can’t be told what to do, is precisely to avoid having to consider others. This is why this is their ideal arrangement: so that they don’t have to do that.

As you can see, this is a very toxic relationship with the idea of who can tell who what to do. So much so that it seems like the entire point is to conceive of a “right” kind of people who can tell other people what to do without being told what to do. Yep, that’s the point.

So let’s add one more component to the system for who tells who what to do:

1. There are “right” human beings and there are “wrong” ones.
2. The “right” ones get to tell the “wrong” ones what to do.
3. The “wrong” ones do not tell the “right” ones what to do.

As you can see, I’ve just been talking about white male supremacy and the accompanying caste system structure it enforces all along. And I’m talking about this because the message of the Republican Party is that they quite like it. But I realize that we are operating in an environment where white male supremacy is so entrenched that the press doesn’t want to treat the Republican Party’s agenda of sorting the “right” human beings from the “wrong” ones as maybe presenting a “messaging problem.”

This is because the press has chosen to accommodate the Republican Party in a very specific way:

1. It normalizes the Republican agenda.
2. It normalizes framing the responsibility for stopping that agenda as ultimately being on Democrats.

Think about it: white supremacy is not allowed to be viewed as a “messaging problem.” Even when it’s a threat to democracy. Because if it’s a “messaging problem”, to Republicans, that sounds like you’re telling them that’s a problem they have to solve.

Anyway, I composed this piece mostly because I realize that the press has a “messaging problem.” Namely, in the sense that they seem extremely averse to explicitly identifying the message of the Republican Party. It’s called white male supremacy. Thanks for reading.

https://medium.com/@_EthanGrey/the-message-of-the-republican-party-dont-tread-on-me-i-tread-on-you-936037958bce

How big oil successfully blocked efforts to deal with climate change

Literally, an enemy of the people

In a three part series, investigative reporting from Frontline goes into great detail about what the oil industry knew about climate change and when it was known. The series goes into great detail on the propaganda, divisive lies and outrageous slanders the industry used to deceive, confuse and polarize the public and government about climate change.  

The series is heartbreaking and deeply discouraging about how corrupted by special interests our two-party political system is. To this day, Exxon-Mobile still lies and publicly claims that it never lied or misled anyone about climate change science at any time. Exxon's lies are jaw-droppingly brazen and in-your-face arrogant. About the same applies to the rabidly pro-pollution Koch Industries, which is another major player in special interests' successful effort to block environmental regulations.

For me, the series is too upsetting to watch all at once. I can take doses of about 15-20 minutes before having to turn it off.

Here are links to the series:

The Power of Big Oil (Part 1: Denial) 1:25:17

The Power of Big Oil (Part 2: Doubt) 54:52

The Power of Big Oil (Part 3: Delay) 54:22

 

A couple of points partly summarize what went on and is still going on today.

• Denial, doubt and delay are propaganda tactics common to all political and commercial demagogues; demagoguery isn't just for politics, it is for all kinds of demagogues in all kinds of situations; demagoguery is common in politics, religion and commerce

• Special interests have been using denial, doubt and delay propaganda tactics for decades, if not centuries; the cigarette industry knew they were selling death, but successfully used the same tactics that Exxon used and still uses to defend its ability to profit from its pollution

• The modern Republican Party has successfully subverted and broken government, in significant part by using denial, doubt and delay propaganda tactics 

• The modern Republican Party has successfully eroded social trust and civility, in significant part by using denial, doubt and delay propaganda tactics 

• Modern big tech companies are now fighting off regulations in significant part by using denial, doubt and delay propaganda tactics 

• Denial, doubt and delay propaganda tactics always or nearly always accrue benefits to rich and powerful elites, at the expense of the public interest; those tactics are a significant part of the Tragedy of the Commons Americans are facing all the time

Another enemy of the people

Bishop forbids Jesuit-run school from calling itself ‘Catholic’ for flying LGBT and Black Lives Matter flags

 A standoff between a Jesuit middle school and the bishop of Worcester, Mass., where the school is located, escalated Thursday, after Bishop Robert J. McManus stripped the “Catholic” moniker from the school over its decision to continue flying flags supporting L.G.B.T. pride and Black Lives Matter.

“The flying of these flags in front of a Catholic school sends a mixed, confusing and scandalous message to the public about the Church’s stance on these important moral and social issues,” states a decree issued on June 10 and signed by Bishop McManus. The ruling was posted to the diocese’s website on Thursday.

Thomas McKenney, president of the Nativity School of Worcester, wrote in a letter to the school’s community that the school would continue to fly the flags as it appeals the bishop’s decision though church channels.

“As a multicultural school, the flags represent the inclusion and respect of all people,” Mr. McKenney wrote. “These flags simply state that all are welcome at Nativity and this value of inclusion is rooted in Catholic teaching.”

The Nativity School of Worcester, founded in 2003, offers tuition-free education for boys from economically disadvantaged communities. Affiliated with the Jesuits, the school receives no financial support from the Diocese of Worcester and instead relies on donations and grants. According to the school’s website, the student body is comprised of 61 boys, in grades five through eight, most of whom are people of color.

“The flying of these flags in front of a Catholic school sends a mixed, confusing and scandalous message to the public about the Church’s stance on these important moral and social issues,” a decree said.

In January 2021, students requested that the school fly a rainbow flag to show support for the L.G.B.T. community and another to support Black Lives Matter. According to the school, the flags remained up for more than a year before the bishop requested they be removed. Shortly after that request, the flags were torn down in an act of vandalism, but the school replaced them.

At issue is what the flags are perceived to symbolize.

Bishop McManus wrote in the decree that the pride flag connoted support for same-sex marriage, which the Catholic Church opposes, and for “actively living a LGBTQ+ lifestyle.”

As for the Black Lives Matter flag, the bishop wrote that “the Catholic Church teaches that all life is sacred and the Church certainly stands unequivocally behind the phrase ‘black lives matter’ and strongly affirms that all lives matter.”

But, he continued, the movement associated with Black Lives Matter “promotes a platform that directly contradicts Catholic social teaching on the importance and role of the nuclear family and seeks to disrupt the family structure in clear opposition to the teachings of the Catholic Church.”

The school offered a different interpretation of the flags in explaining why it would continue to let them fly, citing the pope’s support for L.G.B.T. Catholics and overtures from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops indicating support for the Black Lives Matter movement.

“Both flags are now widely understood to celebrate the human dignity of our relatives, friends and neighbors who have faced, and continue to face hate and discrimination,” Mr. McKenney wrote. “Though any symbol or flag can be co-opted by political groups or organizations, flying our flags is not an endorsement of any organization or ideology,” he said, adding that “they fly in support of marginalized people.”

In Bishop McManus’s decree, he cites that in refusing to remove the flags, which he first requested earlier this year, the school’s leaders “disregard[ed] my legitimate authority as the guardian and overseer of Catholic education.

“This leaves me no other option but to take canonical action,” he continued.

In addition to no longer being able to describe itself as Catholic, the school is not permitted to celebrate Mass on its premises, is barred from engaging in fundraising with diocesan organizations and must remove a previous Worcester bishop from its board of directors.

The move by Bishop McManus to strip the Nativity School of its Catholic label mirrors a similar situation that played out three years ago.

In June of 2019, Archbishop Charles Thompson of Indianapolis decreed that Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School could no longer call itself Catholic after it refused to fire a teacher who had married his same-sex partner. The school appealed to Rome, and a few months later, in September 2019, the Vatican said that the decree would not go into effect while it investigated. No ruling has been made public, and the school’s website still describes itself as a “Catholic Jesuit school with daily Mass.”

On March 29, the Vatican’s Congregation for Education released a document titled “The Identity of the Catholic School for a Culture of Dialogue,” which states that individuals charged with hiring faculty and staff for Catholic schools must make clear to prospective employees the implications of working for a Catholic institution.

Those individuals should “inform prospective recruits of the Catholic identity of the school and its implications, as well as of their responsibility to promote that identity,” the document states.

It did not, however, highlight Brebeuf or any other specific cases in which a school or its employees clashed with church officials.

This is not the first time Bishop McManus has clashed with a Catholic school in his diocese over L.G.B.T. issues.

In 2019, he delivered remarks at a Catholic health care conference in which he said church teaching is at odds with the movement to support the rights of transgender people.

Administrators at the Jesuit-run College of the Holy Cross, which is located in Worcester and has connections to the Nativity School, responded by calling his remarks “deeply hurtful and offensive.” That prompted a reply from the bishop, who repeated his call that all people, including those who are transgender, be treated with compassion and respect. But he stood by his remarks.

“If certain members of the Holy Cross community find this to be hurtful and offensive, then perhaps the college should present clearly what Catholicism teaches regarding Christian anthropology and human sexuality,” he said in 2019.

https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2022/06/16/worcester-nativity-lgbt-blm-243176

FOOTNOTE:

Yet surprisingly, the comment section was very critical of McManus:

In Jesus's time, tax collectors were among the most despised people in Israel, yet Jesus went out of his way to befriend them to demonstrate the importance of extending love to all. One he chose became the apostle Matthew (Matthew 9:9-13; Luke 5:29). Another was Zaccheus (Luke 19:1-10) The love Jesus showed them led them to be fervent advocates of his mission. The bishop here seems more interested in protecting the appearance of his authority than imitating Christ.

I agree with the previous comments about this hate-filled bishop whose actions reveal his animus toward inclusion and unconditional love. But I wonder, too, whether his actions don't also represent a symbolic attack on our Jesuit pope. I am sure he is one of those who would accuse Francis of creating "confusion" in the Church and anticipates with glee an end to Francis's papacy.

From what I understand, the Catholic Church has no doctrine against LGBT or Black people attending and worshiping in its churches. These flags should simply be thought of as a welcome to worship and participate in the community. Would the Worcester bishop forbid such folk from just worshiping in churches of the diocese? Who is he to judge?

Another ignorant and possibly hateful bishop, creating far more scandal than does the private behavior of consenting adults.

When a Catholic bishop allows a whoremongering racist define family values it’s a sad day for the Church. His definitions appear to be straight from the extreme right playbook.

The only person confused and scandalized is Bishop McManus. Shame on him. He has exercised his power and thats all he's done. Except to maybe drive another 100 or so from his pews.

What? Black lives DON’T matter to this bishop? LGBTQ people aren’t equal children of God? God makes junk? His banning of this school is not sending the message he hopes for.

Life for women living in dictatorships

Since America is moving into a long period of Republican Party neo-fascist authoritarianism that is heavily tainted with intense animosity toward women, racial and ethnic minorities and non-heterosexual people, it is time for some examples of what that dictatorship will be like in the US. The New York Times writes:

BEIJING — The man walked into a barbecue restaurant in northern China and approached a table of three women. He put his hand on the back of one, who shook him off. In response, he slapped her — then, with several other men, savagely beat her and the other women, hitting them with chairs, kicking them and dragging them outdoors.

Thugs beating women at the restaurant

the attacked women are laying on the ground 

and going to get beat some more

Another thug attacking another woman in

another restaurant in China's 

wonderful dictatorship

Maybe it is over the top to think that this kind of savagery will rise once the voters put Republicans back in power. But, given the rigid Christian nationalist dogma of the inferiority of women and hated non-White out-groups, maybe this isn't all that exaggerated. Human males are human males, not fuzzy bunnies. Dictatorships are dictatorships, not girl scouts singing Kumbaya and roasting marshmallows around the campfire. 

Put the two key ingredients together, rotten dictator dogma and rotten personal attitude toward alleged enemies, and what can one reasonably expect could happen? Men savagely beating women because their manhood feels threatened. That perceived but not real threat pisses them off so much that they lose emotional control and o out and beat women up to make themselves and their hurt widdle fee-fees all better.

When you are used to privilege,

equality feels like oppression

IMHHO (double humble), that kind of savagery in China is what the modern Republican Party is moving America toward. That is what the GOP stands for. Yes, some Republican males truly oppose such senseless savagery. Good for them. But there are a hell of a lot of them who are susceptible to urges that the GOP cynically and ruthlessly foments in its endless and increasingly pro-violence dark free speech.

What's going around in China, can come around in America.

In case we forget, here are a few images of angry White Republican males marching in Charlottesville in 2017. These White men look to be very pissed off. Presumably, they feel very threatened. Threatened by what? Cynical, divisive Republican Party lies and hate-fomenting propaganda. 

Deceived and betrayed morons with flags and hurt fee-fees

The Republican moral rot chronicles: Team reality, bonkers or chicken?

One of the things that jumped right out over the last week or two is intense, copious colossal Republican elite bullshittrery. An opinion piece in the New York Times makes the point nicely: 

There Are No Winners on Team Chicken, Bonkers or Moral Rot.

“Team Normal” and “Rudy’s Team.” This is how Bill Stepien, Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, categorized the two camps of advisers swirling around Mr. Trump in the chaotic days after the 2020 election.

According to recorded snippets of Mr. Stepien’s testimony before the House select committee on Jan. 6 that were aired at Monday’s hearing, Team Normal consisted of folks like him who acknowledged that there had been no mass election fraud and that Mr. Trump had lost the presidency fair and square.

By contrast, Team Rudy, captained by an increasingly erratic Rudy Giuliani, was stocked with the Trumpworld players who were either untethered from or unwilling to bow to reality. These dead-enders — people like the attorneys Sidney Powell and Lin Wood and the Trump adviser Peter Navarro — were committed to peddling the defeated president’s voter fraud B.S., no matter the cost.

“I didn’t mind being characterized as being part of Team Normal,” Mr. Stepien told the committee. Noting that he has been in the political game a long time, the political consultant, 44, boasted, “I’ve built up a pretty good — I hope — a good reputation for being honest and professional. I didn’t think what was happening was necessarily honest or professional at that point in time. So that led to me stepping away.”

“Stepping away” from Trumpworld’s dishonesty and lack of professionalism. Well, that is certainly one way to spin Mr. Stepien’s behavior.

A more accurate, less self-aggrandizing way might be to say that he slunk away, coat collar flipped up and hat brim pulled low in the hopes that no one would notice him fleeing the spiraling freak show to which he had sold his services and his soul. And he has since taken pains to stay on Mr. Trump’s good side: In the 17 months after the Jan. 6 insurrection, he has served as a consultant to the former president’s Save America PAC and signed on to work with Trump-backed candidates who have peddled, or have at least flirted with, the election-fraud fiction. Two of these candidates are challenging Republican incumbents, Representative Liz Cheney and Senator Lisa Murkowski, whom Mr. Trump has targeted for removal for their respective votes to impeach and convict him over his role in the Jan. 6 attack.

Mr. Stepien may have tried to separate himself from the shadier schemes being pushed by Team Bonkers — er, Team Rudy. But he is apparently cool with Mr. Trump’s basic plan to burn down the nation by advancing conspiracy theories about a rigged election.

Team Normal? More like Team Chicken.

But let’s not pick on Mr. Stepien. His tale is sadly similar to those of so many other Trump courtiers. These are the people who could distinguish reality from delusion; they just chose not to do all that much about it. Some of them tried to privately nudge Mr. Trump in the right direction. But when that failed, most were far too frightened to kick up a fuss and risk ruining their special relationships with Mr. Trump. Many still haven’t totally abandoned him, even as he continues to spread the election-fraud lies eating away at the heart of American democracy.

Mr. Barr stressed to the committee how frustrating he found his former boss’s powers of denial and delusion. The second you finished debunking one ridiculous claim, he recalled, Mr. Trump would simply move on to the next. “There was never an indication of interest in what the actual facts were,” he said, noting that he became “somewhat demoralized” by Mr. Trump’s behavior, thinking that “if he really believes this stuff,” then “he has become detached from reality.”

When Mr. Barr told The Associated Press that there were no signs of systematic fraud, Mr. Trump took it about as well as you’d expect. “This is, you know, killing me,” Mr. Barr recalled a furious Mr. Trump telling him. “You must have said this because you hate Trump. You hate Trump.”

And yet, despite everything he witnessed — Mr. Trump’s disregard for the truth, his antidemocratic machinations, his emotional instability and his possibly failing grasp on reality — Mr. Barr has publicly said that he would again vote for the former president if he secures the Republican nomination in 2024.

And herein lies the rot at the heart of Team Chicken. These normies found Mr. Trump’s lying and plotting disturbing enough to want to avoid standing too close, lest they get spattered. But they don’t care enough to take a strong, sustained stand in defense of democracy — to make clear that the former president’s ongoing efforts to defraud the American people and his assault on our electoral system are unacceptable. Not unacceptable in a mealy-mouthed, “Oh, well, I’d prefer that someone else lead the party, but I’ll support him if it comes down to it” way but genuinely unacceptable, as in, “I have seen this man up close, and he should be disqualified from holding high office again. Ever.”

The most notable and most galling member of Team Chicken — its M.V.P. — is Bill Barr, who became Mr. Trump’s attorney general in early 2019. Mr. Barr made more of an effort to push back against the big lie than most, going so far as to tell the president that the election-fraud claims not only were “crazy stuff” and “bullshit” but also were doing “a great, great disservice to the country,” as he testified.  

Mr. Barr, Mr. Stepien and their ilk recognize that they set their professional and ethical reputations aflame by joining Mr. Trump’s circus. They are now looking to rehabilitate their brands. They want credit, perhaps even thanks, for having refused to cross certain lines. And yet too many remain willing to support Mr. Trump and his corrosive brand of politics, enabling and emboldening him to blow past even more frightening lines in the future.  

This, apparently, is what constitutes “normal” in today’s Republican Party. No member of any team should feel good about that.

There we have it from Team Chicken, despite “crazy stuff” and “bullshit” and “a great, great disservice to the country.” Bullshit and self-serving, gutless lies from Team Chicken, is pure lying and unrepentant drivel. That’s what makes ’em deboned chicken. A great, great disservice to the country doesn’t faze them in the slightest.

Barr admitted he would vote for T**** again despite his own understanding that the ex-president was an utterly self-absorbed bullshitter/liar. T**** could not have cared less about our democracy or competent, honest governance. He cared about himself and his debts. Some of his closest advisors admitted that they knew he was full of crap. Others, like Team Rudi Crackpots were too intoxicated on alcohol, deranged ego and/or mental delusions to know what planet they were on, or what actual reality and facts were.

If anything can be more compelling real world evidence of the deep moral rot among Republican Party elites, what is it? The realists are deeply corrupted and utterly immoral or evil. There is not one shred of decency or moral courage in them or their rotted Republican Party and their deceived and betrayed rank and file.The Republican Party’s intent to win power at all costs is crystal clear.[1]

Q: Are Barr, Stepien and their ilk valiant patriots or lying, neo-fascist, self-serving human scum, or something else?

Footnote: 

1. The Washington Post writes today:

The Republican National Committee is spending millions this year in 16 critical states on an unprecedented push to recruit thousands of poll workers and watchers, adding firepower to a growing effort on the right to find election irregularities that could be used to challenge results.

The RNC was until recently barred from bringing its substantial resources to bear on field operations at polling sites because of a decades-old court order. Now, the party apparatus is mobilizing volunteers to scrutinize voting locations for suspected fraud.

“It’s super, super critical that if issues are identified, they’re identified real time,” Melissa Conway, the RNC’s election integrity state director in Texas, said in a virtual meeting last year, so that Republicans can “have a legal footing in addressing the election and if need be, doing any overturning of the election.”

Election integrity director is another way of saying election subversion director. The GOP’s intent to subvert elections could not be much clearer. Only an admission that elections are to be subverted and nullified could be clearer. Since Republican elites will never admit their true anti-democratic, neo-fascist intent, one can only look at what they do, and ignore what they say.

Melissa Conway

The Texas GOP enforcer of election subversion