This Is Not The Lord's Chicken...It's WOKE Chicken!!! And Other Tales Of GOP Silliness.
"Cracker Barrel has fallen!! I repeat; Cracker Barrel has fallen!!!" We may have to retreat to Claim Jumper....
I am deleting "Callin' Baton Rouge" and "The Thunder Rolls" because Garth Brooks said I have to be nice if I come to his bar in Nashville and he's serving a beer I don't like, and Target is selling clothes I don't like, and "Cracker Barrel has fallen" and "This is not the Lord's chicken, it's the woke chicken" and I am mad at Mickey Mouse and baseball is triggering me because there are some funny gay nuns going to one game in one city I don't live in and somebody somewhere might be having fun I don't approve of and God even knows what I'll be mad about tomorrow.
Probably the new live-action Bambi. But not because it's stupid and literally nobody is asking for a Bambi where the characters are real animals. Probably because one of the voiceover characters ends up being Black or non-binary or something, guess we will just have to wait and see.
Remember when Conservatives vented their considerable righteous rage on things that mattered? You know, on things like fiscal policy, foreign policy, Redskins tickets, whether or not Kevin McCarthy was boning Marjorie Trailer Green, that sort of thing?
Yeah, I know; I don’t either, but I like to delude myself by believing there was a time when the Right-wing of the American political spectrum weren’t total fucking loons. That seems like SUCH a long time ago. And I’m probably older than most of y’all, so my memory extends back a bit farther.
I can remember when Richard Nixon seemed almost (maybe/kinda/sorta) normal. No, that didn’t last long, but there was a time before he carpet-bombed…Laos? Cambodia? North Vietnam? Northern Michigan? Eastern Washington? (I can never remember)…when he seemed like a reasonable, rational human being.
Then along came Pat Robertson, who was to Christianity what Robert Oppenheimer was to destroying humanity. The good Rev. believed that he could talk directly to God and that God told him things like “Gays R Bad” and “Liberals R da spawn of Satan” or some such madness.
And then there was the Rev. Jerry Falwell, who, despite his cherubic visage, became one of the most judgmental and self-righteously evil members of the American Taliban. He believed himself to be the best, holiest, and most righteously awesome servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. Falwell’s version of Christianity was about protecting the Kingdom of Heaven for White Conservative Christian heterosexuals. He believed Heaven had been decorated in shades of White…and for good reason. It was a country club reserved for White folks who’d accepted Jesus Christ as their personal savior…and donated large amounts of money to the Thomas Road Baptist Church. (That explains why the Falwell family owns Lynchburg, VA.)
Once Rev. Falwell established the “Moral Majority,” a misnomer if ever there was one, he happened upon Ronald Reagan as his dream Presidential candidate. Except that Reagan was hardly an Evangelical’s wet dream. His “churchiness” was virtually nonexistent, and the marriage between Reagan and Evangelicals was merely one of convenience. Reagan looked Presidential and certainly acted the part. He projected strength and masculinity (the man was an actor, after all), which made Evangelicals all wet in places they weren’t used to being moist.
Once Reagan was in office and exhibited signs of independence from Evangelicals, Rev. Falwell realized that electoral politics was a fool’s errand. Still, Reagan was their guy, and they stuck with him…because what was the alternative? Falwell couldn’t admit that the man God had anointed had turned out to be a mistake because that would be tantamount to acknowledging that Almighty God had miscalculated. And God doesn’t make mistakes, does He?
Once Reagan was gone, it wasn’t long before the GOP became the Party of Unresolved Grievances and Petty Resentments, led by House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA). As petty and vindictive as he was small-minded and short-sighted, Gingrich managed to spark a row with then-President Bill Clinton he was always destined to lose. He succeeded in shutting down the government, a move Republicans never recovered from, resulting in more Democrats being elected. (Yay, Newt!!)
After Gingrich came the Tea Party over the summers of 2010 and 2011, when the take-no-prisoners, show-no-mercy, let-America-burn caucus of the Far-Right decided their time had come. These folks, for whom compromise was anathema, were quite happy with letting America burn to the ground if they couldn’t get their way. If they couldn’t win policy debates, NOBODY would, and they didn’t care what came afterward.
Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed, and the adults in the GOP eventually sidelined the Tea Party. This, of course, didn’t sit well with the firebrands who wanted nothing more than to see America burn. They didn’t get their way, but it wasn’t from a lack of trying…and they weren’t about to give up and go away.
While the Tea Party may have gone up in flames, the show-no-me’ show-no-mercy, take-no-prisoners attitude didn’t disappear. It survives today in the House Freedom Caucus, a group dedicated to the proposition that it’s their way or the highway. They’d like nothing better than to sentence Joe Biden to a month in the Australian bush shooting an episode of Naked and Afraid.
It’s not the Agenda of Hell; it’s the Road to Hell…but that still doesn’t mean Trump won…LOL
In 2015, The Former Guy descended the escalator at Trump Tower in Manhattan in a moment that thoroughly boogered up American politics forever. No longer could Americans count on hearing the truth (or at least something close to it) from their elected representatives. They were daily force-fed lies and cheap propaganda, and the GOP’s standard-bearer seemed to care little for the truth and facts he was decimating.
FAKE NEWS!! DEEP STATE!! PACKERS RULE!! COVFEFE!! ADAM SCHIFF WEARS WOMEN’S UNDERWEAR!! WITCH HUNT!!
Over four years in office, he told more than 30,000 documented lies, which have continued apace since he left office. He was impeached twice during his four years in office, though he was acquitted because Republicans in the Senate ensured the votes weren’t there to convict. Since he left office, he’s been indicted on more than 70 felony counts and is facing years of prison time, which, for someone who just turned 77, presents a significant problem.
Never mind that The Former Guy may end up being the first Presidential candidate to run for office while being tried for multiple felonies in multiple jurisdictions. If he’s convicted, I’m not even sure there’s a provision in federal law preventing him from running for office as a felon. Or, even worse, from serving as President as a convicted felon.
This situation has never presented itself before. I suspect the Founding Fathers never imagined such a situation would present itself. And yet here we are, with a moral and intellectual black hole as the likely GOP standard bearer in the 2024 Presidential election.
Republicans, in general, have followed The Former Guy’s example in becoming the party of reprobates, criminal appeasers, racists, homophobes, White supremacists, and Nazi sympathizers. People like Charlie Kirk, Ben Shapiro, Nick Fuentes, and other incels, misfits, and losers have become influential personalities in the GOP. The rats and cockroaches have crept into positions of leadership and influence.
Even worse is the reality that the GOP has no ideas to offer. Their entire platform opposes anything and everything Joe Biden stands for (along with persecuting women and the LGBTQ community). If President Biden proposes or endorses it, it’s ipso facto the worst thing EVER and should be contested with every fiber of Republican beings. The merits of the idea(s) hardly matter- President Biden proposed and/or approved it; therefore, it must be crushed. It’s ipso facto anti-American and, therefore, must die a brutal, swift, and unnatural death.
It’s the only choice available to true American patriots- i.e., White Conservative Christian heterosexuals.
This is what happens when you have no ideas, no programs, and no suggestions for how to move America forward. When all you can do is scream “NO!!” at the top of your lungs, you’re no longer a coherent political party; you’re an incoherent cult of personality.
Russell Kirk, Barry Goldwater, and Edmund Burke must be spinning in their graves.