MAY 5, 2021 – Anyone who’s been following the news lately knows that the Republican Party is about to hang one of its own—Liz Cheney, Chairperson of the House Republican Conference. I’m speaking figuratively, of course, though the images of January 9 still haunt my thoughts. Somehow, I think the crazies who chanted “Hang Mike Pence!” really meant it.
This is all bad business, not only for conservatives, but for the country. And yes, it’s bad for business, which defines America.
If I myself am any kind of political barometer, conservatives should worry. Ever since you-know-who started running for president, I was so thoroughly disgusted by him, I no longer analyzed thoroughly any idea, statement, policy, or perspective that was denigrated by his nonsense. Or conversely, I was attracted perversely to opponents who abhorred him most. When I encountered a person who’d voted for you-know-who, I ignored anything regarding policy or politics that the person thought or said. “If you lack the judgment to see him as a wholesale disaster for the country,” I’d think, “you couldn’t possibly have anything constructive to say about policy.”
Consequently, when it came to the Democratic agenda—no matter how “progressive”—I didn’t give it any more thought than I would to hopping aboard a bandwagon in a desperate escape from the flames of hell. I knew it was the opposite of you-know-who, and that fact rolling alone through smoke and flame, was all I needed to know.
Of course, such is not the behavior of someone in normal times under normal circumstances. A person in stable conditions would question the so-called bandwagon: Will its tires withstand the rough road ahead? What’s causing the clanging inside the engine? What’s producing that black smoke blowing from the exhaust pipes? Who of ill-repute are among the crowded passengers? And above all, who’s driving the vehicle and to what destination? No, you don’t have the luxury of asking these questions and answering them methodically. The town’s on fire, and you need to get out by the fastest means possible.
The problem is, if you get too many people on an overly jerry-rigged bandwagon, the whole business will go over a cliff. The problem is—for true conservatives—they will become toast in the inferno that is now consuming the Republican Party.
Yesterday, I watched a little cable commentary (I no longer call any of it “news” in the traditional sense)—my first meaningful dose since The Trial. I heard a former Republican strategist emphasize that the root of the problem isn’t Republicans in Congress but Republicans, so-called, in the hinterlands. I immediately thought of people I know who used to espouse “traditionally conservative values” but then fell hook-line-and-sinker for the propaganda feedback loop between rightwing media outlets and you-know-who.
True conservatives have never been in such danger. If they can’t stage an effective uprising against the purge, they’ll face extinction under the bald wheels of that clanking, over-crowded, smoke-belching, bandwagon they fear so much.
(Remember to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.)
© 2021 by Eric Nilsson
