In 2016 I gave Marco Rubio a small donation. Last year, far more to Democrats. Yet it’s Republican fundraising emails that continue to flood my inbox. On one recent day I counted 99. It’s a window into the party. The messages are hysterical — in both senses of the word.
Trump used them to personally extract huge sums from his suckers with the lie that it would combat the “election steal,” itself a lie. Always promising donation matches up to 900%, yet another lie. AND — we now learn that people who thought they were making one-time campaign donations were automatically enrolled for weekly charges! The opt-outs for this were hidden in fine print on the Trump “Winred” websites. His organization itself smirkingly called this a “money bomb.” Millions of unwitting donors were shocked to find their accounts unexpectedly drained. Many had to battle for refunds. But despite such clawbacks, this massive monstrous scam still added hundreds of millions to Trump’s fraudulent take. Perhaps the Great Con Man’s greatest con.
The fundraising emails continue, ostensibly now from diverse organizations and personages, but actually most originate with the same “Winred” outfit. Those named as senders are the likes of Donald Junior, Josh Hawley, Jim Jordan, Devin Nunes, even Matt Gaetz (sent from Central Casting for the “slimeball” role). A rogues gallery of the Trumpiest trolls. Prominently including the two QAnon congresswomen — Lauren Boebert, who brought a Glock into the House chamber, and quite often Marjorie Taylor Greene. The QAnon conspiracy theory, recall, holds that Trump is secretly battling to save America from a Satanic cabal of pedophile cannibals. Meantime Greene also blamed California wildfires on Jews using space lasers.
This is the face of Republicanism the party itself chooses to showcase!
The messages’ content is likewise extremist. A serious “loyal opposition” might develop some well-considered critiques of the administration. Instead the attacks are ridiculous and demented. Banging on the word “socialism.” Misogynistically demonizing Nancy Pelosi and AOC. Wild lies about President Biden. Often invoking stuff where Trump was the really egregious transgressor — can you believe, slamming Biden’s treatment of underage migrants?
They scream about border wall construction being stopped. Greene demands Biden’s impeachment for this, as supposedly violating Congress’s constitutional “power of the purse.” Forgetting that Congress refused to authorize wall spending in the first place. Thus in fact it was Trump who violated Congressional authority, by raiding the military budget for his wall.
So that rap on Biden is laughable. Likewise the wall itself — a series of disconnected sections with wide gaps anyone can waltz through. A monument to stupidity. Billions wasted (not so funny).
Republicans fetishize the word “freedom.” I consider myself basically libertarian. But today’s Republicans are highly selective about what freedoms they cherish. Certainly not freedom to have an abortion; gays’ marital freedom; freedom to protest; press freedom; freedom to vote; etc., etc., etc. (In a 2017 poll, on a whole range of issues, Republicans were actually more likely than Democrats to say freedoms had gone too far.)
Their emails show there are just two freedoms Republicans love. One is the freedom to kill people with military style weapons. Of course they fantasize owning guns to protect against such killers. Reality is the opposite. Compared to other countries, America has way more gun deaths because we have way more guns. Nevertheless, Republican messages aim to scare gullible recipients with the bogeyman of Democrats coming to confiscate their guns. (They’re not. They favor reasonable regulations supported by the vast majority of Americans.)
The other freedom Republicans love is the freedom to contract covid and infect others by flouting public health measures like masks and social distancing. One of their emails heralds a “Million Maskless March” and mask burning planned in (where else?) Florida. They attack any idea of “vaccine passports” as an assault on freedom and some kind of Orwellian control measure akin to implanting brain chips. In many states they’re even pushing legislation to ban vaccine passports. And a rising Republican star is South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, lionized at the recent Conservative Political Action Committee conference for boasting that hers was the only state never mandating lockdowns, social distancing, or masking.
It also, not coincidentally, had one of America’s highest covid death rates. While America itself had one of the world’s highest. Recently Dr. Deborah Birx, Trump’s own covid coordinator, said his conduct was directly culpable for the bulk of our half-million-plus death toll. (He responded, true to form, by sliming her as a “liar.”)
I mentioned freedom to vote. Government accountability to citizens, through the ballot box, is the essence of a free and democratic society. This Republicans work against. With their onslaught to enact wide-ranging voting restrictions, lying that this is to combat election fraud (proven virtually nonexistent). With a majority of GOP lawmakers voting on January 6 to overturn our presidential election. And with devotion to a man who would have made himself king in all but name. All this makes Republicans’ “freedom!” cries ring hollow. They believe in democracy only insofar as it can be manipulated to give them power.
It’s a global phenomenon. After the cold war, it almost looked like democracy was unstoppable. Then bad guys learned how to stop it — or twist it, by manipulating processes and mainly by manipulating voters. Seen in country after country — voters suckered into effectively voting themselves out of power. Blind to a leader’s badness even when it virtually smacks them in the face. We had a close shave in America, and we’re not out of the woods yet. Half a million deaths didn’t dissuade 47% from voting for Trump.
Philippine voters have similarly fallen for a vile vulgar strongman, Rodrigo Duterte, whose “war on drugs” consists of literally murdering tens of thousands. A recent documentary film profiled journalist Maria Ressa, struggling to hold the regime to account as it crushes press freedom. She herself being targeted with numerous trumped-up criminal charges that have been called “Kafkaesque.”
At a public forum, Ressa was challenged by an elderly woman, saying she personally felt no threat from the Duterte murder regime. Ressa said she’d respond with a poem. I knew which one:
“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out —
Because I was not a socialist . . . ” *
