Set aside for a moment (1) the alternate reality and fan fiction perpetrated by the platform-poor Republican National Convention, a.k.a., the hagiographic veneration of Donald Trump, and (2) the shameful, death-inducing White House pressure on the Food and Drug Administration to approve an untested treatment and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to reduce Covid testing. While the lies and insults emanating from the forked tongues at the GOP convention podium were dominating the airwaves, there was something even more ominous going on.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, an openly racist, anti-Semitic, QAnon conspiracy monger and professional hater won a Republican congressional primary in Georgia and earned President Trump’s high praise. Another candidate who openly hates Muslims and people of color prevailed in Palm Beach County, Florida, home to Mar-a-Lago, and Trump was once again all in for her. In all, 21 Republican congressional nominees who have secured a place on the November ballot have publicly supported or defended the QAnon conspiracy theory movement and its preposterous tenets, e.g., that the government is rife with Satanic cannibals who run a child-sex ring when they aren’t eating the children they have enslaved, and that Trump is the champion battling against them. At least 20 Republicans running for state legislative seats have also bought into these dark QAnon fantasies.
By the time the primaries are past, it is likely that more of these fascist fearmongers may find a way onto general election ballots this year. At least four additional Republican House and two Senate candidates are still in the running. No fewer than 50 QAnon followers competed unsuccessfully for congressional nominations. Welcome to the new Republican Party, a formerly respectable organization that has now gone off the deep end of the political spectrum into Nazi-like paroxysms.
Because a number of these fanatics are running in deep red districts, they are likely to win and be seated in the next Congress. And what do Mitch McConnell and the other sorry excuses for Republican leaders do in the face of this lunatic fringe takeover of their party? Nothing. These fiends are the logical, albeit alarming outcome of almost half-a-century of Republican efforts to trample on the less fortunate while undermining government and rendering it helpless to function.
The FBI says QAnon is a domestic terrorist threat. Trump, however, has retweeted QAnon baloney at least 251 times at this writing and recently said: “I understand they like me very much. I heard that these are people that love our country.” In response to a reporter who asked: “QAnon believes you are secretly saving the world from this cult of pedophiles and cannibals. Are you behind that? Trump responded: “Is that supposed to be a bad thing? We are actually. We are saving the world.”
It is hard to believe that a president of the United States not only buys into this rubbish, but actually endorses it publicly. Aside from his countless other failings, this one stands out. We the people—and I mean all of the people—cannot allow someone this reprehensible, inept and irresponsible to hold the highest office in the land.
The choice this November is simple: the candidate and party of hate, fear and fascism vs. the candidate and party of decency, democracy, dignity and truth. Four more years of sinking into the darkness vs. striving for the light of reason.
You decide.
Dick Hermann
August 28, 2020
Marjorie Taylor Greene, an openly racist, anti-Semitic, QAnon conspiracy monger and professional hater won a Republican congressional primary in Georgia and earned President Trump’s high praise. Another candidate who openly hates Muslims and people of color prevailed in Palm Beach County, Florida, home to Mar-a-Lago, and Trump was once again all in for her. In all, 21 Republican congressional nominees who have secured a place on the November ballot have publicly supported or defended the QAnon conspiracy theory movement and its preposterous tenets, e.g., that the government is rife with Satanic cannibals who run a child-sex ring when they aren’t eating the children they have enslaved, and that Trump is the champion battling against them. At least 20 Republicans running for state legislative seats have also bought into these dark QAnon fantasies.
By the time the primaries are past, it is likely that more of these fascist fearmongers may find a way onto general election ballots this year. At least four additional Republican House and two Senate candidates are still in the running. No fewer than 50 QAnon followers competed unsuccessfully for congressional nominations. Welcome to the new Republican Party, a formerly respectable organization that has now gone off the deep end of the political spectrum into Nazi-like paroxysms.
Because a number of these fanatics are running in deep red districts, they are likely to win and be seated in the next Congress. And what do Mitch McConnell and the other sorry excuses for Republican leaders do in the face of this lunatic fringe takeover of their party? Nothing. These fiends are the logical, albeit alarming outcome of almost half-a-century of Republican efforts to trample on the less fortunate while undermining government and rendering it helpless to function.
The FBI says QAnon is a domestic terrorist threat. Trump, however, has retweeted QAnon baloney at least 251 times at this writing and recently said: “I understand they like me very much. I heard that these are people that love our country.” In response to a reporter who asked: “QAnon believes you are secretly saving the world from this cult of pedophiles and cannibals. Are you behind that? Trump responded: “Is that supposed to be a bad thing? We are actually. We are saving the world.”
It is hard to believe that a president of the United States not only buys into this rubbish, but actually endorses it publicly. Aside from his countless other failings, this one stands out. We the people—and I mean all of the people—cannot allow someone this reprehensible, inept and irresponsible to hold the highest office in the land.
The choice this November is simple: the candidate and party of hate, fear and fascism vs. the candidate and party of decency, democracy, dignity and truth. Four more years of sinking into the darkness vs. striving for the light of reason.
You decide.
Dick Hermann
August 28, 2020
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