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a mystical möbius — curating facts, ideas, text, and media to create a contemplative space.

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Common ground?

I hope we can agree that many, if not most, Americans (of both political parties) feel that Washington D.C. federal government rarely functions in any kind of helpful way. 

It’s a perception that, for many reasons, has accrued wide consensus and grown in degree and veracity over decades.

What if this serious, but mundane-sounding reality, that our governance system requires renewal, forms the generating energy for many overblown narratives, including QAnon and MAGA?

I’ll share the fruit of my reflection on these matters in just a moment.

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Courage or Cowardice 

The Grand Old Party (GOP) and the QAnon Old Party (QOP) describe two kinds of Republican identity that are presently vying for custody of the party’s legacy voting block. GOP Republicans are trying to discern their identity, and who they will be, beyond DJT. 

House side

Very little evidence of GOP courage appeared in the House vote on HR-72 last Thursday evening, e.g., the resolution to remove Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene from her House committee assignments. One hundred ninety-nine Republican legislators were OK-fine with Greene being in House committee leadership even after having advocated political violence and dangerous conspiratorial lies.

In her eleventh-hour attempt to influence the removal vote, Greene offered a ten-minute speech on the House floor. Her defense was essentially, “Well, I may have been a bank robber before I began campaigning for Congress in 2018, but I haven’t robbed any banks since I’ve been elected.” She didn’t bother to offer any apology for the harm she has caused with her batcrap-crazy rhetoric and behavior—for instance, like saying 9-11, the Las Vegas shooting, the Sandy Hook and Parkland school shootings were all fake. Neither has Greene made any amends for advocating the execution of some of her congressional colleagues.

DJT’s political technologies franchise

Picking up and building on DJT‘s demonization, bullying, and intimidation franchise of three Democratic congresswomen, Greene leaves little to the imagination in a campaign Facebook post:

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Hope?

One ray of hope, eleven GOP legislators exhibited great political courage and voted with the majority to remove Greene from committees. Interestingly, the grand total of the House GOP members who will stand up to the bully (DJT) has increased. The list of ten Republican congresspersons who voted with the majority to impeach DJT for a second time, and the list of the eleven who voted to remove Greene only share three names: Rep. Adam Kinzinger (Illinois), Rep. Fred Upton (Michigan), and Rep. John Katko (New York)—Good on them! So, the total number of GOP on the record expressing their courage is now eighteen. Sadly, the QOP numbers are at least 61—those who voted to remove Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyoming) from her leadership position. We don’t have a list of the 61 names because the Republican caucus took a secret vote.

Senate side

Courage or cowardice, what will we see from the U.S. Senate in the upcoming trial of DJT‘s second impeachment? Seventeen GOP votes will be needed to join with the majority party in order to convict DJT of inciting insurrection. 

Hope?

There are only a small handful of GOP senators who have given any indication that they might vote to convict DJT of impeachment. Hopefully this isn’t just: “It’s déjà vu all over again” —YB.

From a year ago:

The rub 

My current-events contemplation this week led me to an insight. Actually, this revelation is a variation on the widely-known Pogo insight: “We have met the enemy and he [sic] is us.”  

So, apparently, simply saying “government isn’t very helpful” or “money plays too big a role in our political system,” are insufficient to animate change. Apparently, these kinds of problems require the creation of far more sensational narratives, like QAnon.

I wondered, what if figures-of-speech like “swamp,” “political establishment,” and “deep state” are really just mythic-like expressions of what is our more mundane consensus, e.g., “government needs renewal?” What if conspiracy theories, and the like, are really just sensationalizing myth-like narratives all pumped-up in order to gain attention in our radicalizing algorithm-driven zeitgeist? 

Good politicians know and reflect their voters well.

I wonder, if politicians are really just mirrors of who we truly are, then is projection the reason behind why many people, regardless of party, agree that they really don’t like politicians? Ah oh. 

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tl;dr

Less than hopeful is the fact that the QOP (MAGA/QAnon) has fully realized that DJT-as-victim is the fund-raising goose that lays golden eggs. Ah oh.

DJT has established an extremist death-cult.

If seventeen GOP senators are unable to find the courage to kick DJT‘s extremist wing of MAGA to the curb, and take the path to life, then our two-party system of self-governance will become more of a one-winged bird with very little chance of truly taking flight again anytime soon.

An impeachment conviction may be the last chance Republicans have to purge White supremacist and seditionist extremism from the GOP.

Please write your senators and encourage them to choose life!

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Next week: No idea. Come and see. 

[this post approx. 850 words (3 min. read)]

Your thoughts? 

What did you hear me say? 

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