Sunday, July 22, 2018                                              2:46 PM

Republicans: How Embarrassing!   (2018Jul22)

I see similarities between the McCarthy Red-Scare era and the Amoral Republican era. You’d expect it to be called the ‘Trump era’, I know—but it’s more accurately described as the Amoral Republican era. It began with Reagan’s shameless pandering to the rich and his marginalizing of the low-income population.

The bankruptcy of the Soviets, which we all hail as our victory in the Cold War, led to a revolt won by the Russian people—and the independence of the satellite states was a simple fact forced by that bankruptcy.

The US failed to secure their nuclear arsenal—which outlived the state that built it—and those nukes sit, still today, littered about the globe and under the sea. The US failed to provide a ‘Marshall plan’, after we finished slapping each other on the back for defeating the Soviets without the use of American lives lost. We turned our backs on the people who did the dying for us—and that led to Al-Qeada, Boko Haram, and ISIS.

Then came 9/11—which had many heroes and martyrs amongst the common men and women, of uncommon bravery— ever since which the Republicans have used the tragedy. They used it to lionize an inept President and his mistaken wars. They used it to lionize an elitist, bigoted mayor who just happened to hold office while real New Yorkers did all the hero-ing.

The Republicans have used 9/11 to promote cowardice and Islamophobia, panic and inhumanity. They’ve revived racism, in a country that seemed only years ago, to be headed in the proper direction. And they have done all this out of obedience to their paymasters—they laugh at the phrase ‘public service’.

Everyone knows one can’t do the people any good if you don’t get elected—and thus it follows that nothing you do to get elected can be wrong. This part of their amorality is the part that is opposite from the McCarthy era—McCarthy’s amoral egotism was exposed by the televising of the HUAC hearings—and by Edward R. Murrow’s reporting.

Today’s Republicans have hacked mass-media—and hijacked all of it as a megaphone for their misinformation campaign. They did the impossible—convincing Americans to worry about a great female candidate with no real scandals (but endless imagined ones) and not to worry about a blatantly, embarrassingly unfit male candidate. Even more embarrassing—the Russians were helping them the whole time. How’s that for an endorsement?

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a do-over election? Too late—y’all had yer chance—and now Putin’s in charge. Ha- ha! The Republicans are doing a great job—a perfect impersonation of the band on the deck of the Titanic.