Once more, the usual suspects in far-right hypocrisy are at it again. The right-wing National Review just published a “statement” signed by former members of the Trump administration and other far-right personages in politics and media, claiming that the country is in “an age of increasing national self-doubt.” They are not blaming the true villains in this—Donald Trump and his aiders and abettors on the right who have used the politics of divisiveness and division for at least three decades now, claiming that their worldview is the only “legitimate” one even though their candidate has lost the popular vote in all presidential elections but one since 1988.
No, according to the likes of William Barr, Betsy DeVoss, Karl Rove and other perpetrators of hate and division the blame lies entirely with the “leftists” for negatively affecting the “national mood.” They of course have a “plan” to improve the “national mood,” which not surprisingly is meant to satisfy the wants and desires of white nationalists like the ones we saw on January 6. Naturally racism doesn’t exist in this country, so even talking about it—especially in schools—only causes people to dislike each other, as if not talking about it makes it “disappear.”
Note the poor timing of this “statement” after the Buffalo mass shooting; the parents of the shooter are blaming the “pandemic” for giving their son too much time to surf the Internet to find like-minded people to feed into his racism. But that kind of “speech” must be “defended.” The Review goes on “Our traditional values of fair play, free speech and religious liberty are trampled by inflamed ideologues determined to impose their will by force and fear.” Good God, are these people for “real”? Whose “ideology” was being imposed by force on January 6? The reality is that the “statement” is referring to those who were responsible for its content, not about the “leftists” who are trying to warn the country who is the real danger to this country.
The hypocrisy continues: the far-right wants to “reclaim what once was a consensus view of America that has now become bitterly contested.” Again, who is to blame for that? These people only see the world from the prism of white privilege. They don’t want “dialogue” with people who disagree with them; they just want to fight “culture wars” to beat down people who have their own interests and aspirations. In fact Barr and company just want anyone who opposes them to “shut up” and disappear. Their “world” is not only fascist but Orwellian: everyone must subvert their private thoughts in favor of “groupthink”—there is no room for individualism and free thinking.
That’s right. If you want to see what kind of country the far-right wants us to live in, just look at what is happening in Florida under the fascist reign of Ron DeSantis, for whom when anyone has the audacity to speak out against him, he and his one-party Reichstag scramble to pass a law to silence them. When embarrassed by rising Covid-19 deaths while opposing mandatory protocols, DeSantis had the state health department change how they publicly reported deaths, by not reporting them on the day they occurred but reporting them in one weekly lump, apparently in the hope that gullible people would be fooled by the low daily totals on most days.
Then during the George Floyd protests, DeSantis signed an “anti-rioting” law. There was no need for a new law to make it a crime to vandalize or loot. What was different about this law was as the New York Times reported, “penalizes anyone who stands in a public street or highway during a rally, among other provisions,” as well as banning “groups” of protesters near government or commercial buildings. The potential for police abuse of power is staggering, and a federal judge also saw the law more broadly as an assault on freedom of speech. As reported by the Associated Press,
The 90-page decision by U.S. District Judge Mark Walker in Tallahassee found the recently-enacted law "vague and overbroad" and amounted to an assault on First Amendment rights of free speech and assembly as well as the Constitution's due process protections. People engaged in peaceful protest or innocently in the same area when a demonstration turned violent could face criminal charges and stiff penalties under the law, the judge said.
A key issue is defining what the word "riot" means in the statute. Walker noted that past Florida laws sought to prevent demonstrations that could threaten segregationist Jim Crow-era practices. "If this court does not enjoin the statute's enforcement, the lawless actions of a few rogue individuals could effectively criminalize the protected speech of hundreds, if not thousands, of law-abiding Floridians.”
People who protest racism and police abuse must be silenced so that they don’t make neo-Nazis and supporters of authoritarian violence feel “bad” about themselves. In April DeSantis signed an “anti-woke” law banning racial and sexual orientation sensitivity “education” in businesses and schools—and then this month he signed a law banning social media platforms from censoring hate speech and far-right conspiracy "theories" passed as "fact" that endanger the public welfare.
Republican politicians who choose to distance themselves from the reality that most people live also must be protected from those exercising their freedom of speech rights. Thus DeSantis signed a law a few days ago banning protests in front of the private homes of public officials living off the taxpayer dime and answerable to their constituents. Although this law was passed by the legislature in March because the two Florida Republican U.S. Senators (Rubio and Scott) had been “discomfited” by protesters, it was noticed that it’s signing came in the wake of protests in front of the homes of three Republican-appointed U.S. Supreme Court justices following the “leak” of its potential decision overturning Roe v. Wade.
These justices clearly are unaware that the majority of people in this country oppose its overturning, but they either don’t want to listen, or don’t care. How else are they going to know how people feel about this if freedom of speech rights are curtailed so that they don’t actually have to feel—let alone hear—what people are thinking outside their own tiny orbit of far-right fanatics?
Thus what the signers of the National Review “statement” actually support is a nation of uncomplaining “sheep” who will willingly give up their speech and privacy rights and follow far-right authoritarians over the cliff. What makes this all the more offensive is that it is Joe Biden and the Democrats—not Trump and the Republicans—who are showing true leadership in this time of international crisis.
Domestically this country is also in crisis, but
at least Biden and the Democrats (outside a couple of Senators) are providing
sober leadership that encompasses the nation’s needs as a whole—unlike Trump and
(most) Republicans, who only want to sow division, divisiveness and racial hate for partisan political advantage. They want to return this country to a time where everyone was "happy" because everyone knew their "place." That time is long gone, if it ever existed at all; the only way to return to it is to turn this country into a violent, oppressive fascist state.
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