Caitlyn Jenner

I'm old enough to remember when Bruce Jenner was an honest-to-goodness, real American hero.  The undersized all-American kid who became the world's greatest athlete by defeating the Russian and east German supermen. This was back in the day when the USSR, for propaganda purposes, invested heavily in identifying potential Olympic champions at a young age and enrolling them in state-run athletic mills where they were immersed in the the most up-to-date training, nutritional, and drug regimens. While American Olympic athletes, on the other hand, were pretty much on their own. So, it was quite an achievement when he won the grueling Decathlon in the 1976 Olympics.

Even later, when he revealed his Republican leanings, he remained a hero to me.  As the years, passed, though, and the GOP moved ever further to the right, becoming ever more bigoted, hate-filled, and intolerant, and he chose a career as a professional celebrity, it became increasingly difficult to hold him in high regard.  Then it became impossible.  It wasn't his decision to become a woman; I had no problem with that. I imagine the misery must be suffocating for individuals who perceive themselves trapped in a body not conforming to their true gender.

But as he, now she, maintained her loyalty to the Republican party, with no objection to it's ever-strengthening alliance with groups that are the primary persecutors of transgender people, a tipping point was reached for me, and she became a shallow, self-centered man with nothing inside, who became a shallow, self-centered woman with nothing inside. Nothing to see here, unfortunately.  Just another of the multitude whose moral compass points nowhere.

There are no morals more relative than conservative morals, and no hypocrisy quite like conservative hypocrisy.

The Great Game

When I was a young man I remember reading about the Great Game, which was played out on a global scale between Great Britain and Czarist Russia as Britain strove to maintain its dominance of the seas by preventing Russia from obtaining a permanent warm water port. Those must have been the days. But they are long gone. Now the term means something else entirely. Now the Great Game is the effort by Republican leaders to hide the true effects of their policies on working class white Americans - the group that most strongly supports, and votes, for them.

Over the years they have become experts at hiding the damage their policies inflict on their supporters. But once in a while the truth is mistakenly leaked, as Donald Trump recently did when he revealed that if Republicans succeed in having abortions made illegal, then women who have abortions will be treated as criminals. Now to the rest of us, this revelation came as no surprise. It's pretty obvious that those engaging in a criminal activity will face criminal penalties. If you are surprised that this revelation caused so much uproar, you haven’t been paying attention and aren't familiar with the rules of conservative world.

Because, actually, the Great Game, as it is played in conservative world, is more like a ponzi scheme, which can only operate successfully if both victims and perpetrators mutually agree not to reveal the con that is taking place. Whether it is Republican welfare policies that will only cut assistance to those that don’t deserve it and leave it alone for everyone else, economic policies that will only cut the wages of immigrants and raise them for everyone else, or social policies that will criminalize abortion but only punish providers, Republican leaders promise and their supporters invest.

It’s entertaining, and sad, when the Republican ruling class occasionally reveals the truth of the arrangement, like Trump recently did, or several years back when a journalist asked wealthy Republican women if they wanted the option of having an abortion for themselves or their daughters if it were to be necessary.  While many of them obfuscated, some of them in fits of honesty said that yes, they wanted that option, but that if it became necessary, they would only have one for the “right” reasons.

In the case of abortion, that is the arrangement that must not be spoken of: Republican leaders, both men and women, assume that the option to have an abortion for the “right” reasons will always be available to them, due to their wealth and power, no matter its actual legal status.  While at the same time, it will be forbidden to the poor, who would invariably seek it for the “wrong” reasons. Keep that in mind when you try to make sense of Republican politics and what passes for policy in conservative world and the Great Game that is played between its elected perpetrators and their willing victims.

There are no morals more relative than conservative morals, and no hypocrisy quite like conservative hypocrisy.

Uncivil War

I'm old enough to remember when there were sensible Republicans - defined as ones who didn't wish the south had won the war.  I even voted for some of them.  That's hard for me to imagine now.  That was before the two parties flipped their roles, back when GOP politicians were often more progressive and the party more inclusive than Democrats. That was so long ago it wasn't even back in the day, it was more like back in the day before the day. It was before the terms conservative and Republican were synonymous.

Now I hate Republicans for what they believe, for what they represent, for what they are.  That's not literally true - I know some individual Republicans I don't hate.  I don't like them, but I don't actively hate them. But as a group, I do hate them for what they are doing to this country.  They seem determined to destroy it along with any hint of fairness, tolerance, compassion, charity, inclusion, and create a new country in their own image.  A new country dedicated to fear, intolerance, bigotry, selfishness, and ignorance.

Republicans and their political leaders don't even seem to consider themselves Americans.  Don't believe me?  Ask them if Obama is their president.  They are citizens of conservative world, with its own rules of governance, its own principles, and even its own reality that have little in common with the United States and its place in the world as the rest of us know it.  The way they describe it, the U.S is a weak, poor, dangerous country, governed by an ineligible president not respected by the rest of the world. In conservative world, George W. Bush kept us safe and Barack Obama hasn't. In the reality the rest of us live in, the opposite of all those statements is true

I live in the middle of conservative world, at least geographically, so I'm familiar with this alternate reality. I see it on television, I hear it on the radio and in conversations.  I get angry at the racism and determined ignorance of the Republicans that surround me, but I get even angrier at their leaders who mostly know how they are damaging our country, but can't force themselves to risk their elected offices by challenging their constituents.

I wonder if any of the leaders of the south in the years leading up to the civil war tried to talk their fellow citizens out of  tearing the country apart.  If so, I haven't read about any of them.  But I'm no historian, so there could have been some.  Are there any today? I'm more confident in my answer to this one.  There aren't any. Not one who will stand up and take the side of America over the interests of conservative world.  And as usual they create their own reality in which they are the patriots.  Not in this universe.

There are no morals more relative than conservative morals, and no hypocrisy quite like conservative hypocrisy.