If you’ve spent any time on social media, you’ve noticed that many influential and well known Republicans are now saying they don’t recognize their party anymore, even going so far to break with it. Who would ever have thought that we’d suddenly have common cause with a Bill Kristol, a Joe Walsh, a Max Boot, or even a Cheney?
Well, I suppose there is one simple answer. Democrats have become more hawkish since the Clinton years, and that’s really the major priority for a neocon, that we project American strength everywhere possible. That’s been their whole deal since PNAC. Insofar as social liberalism goes, the idea doesn’t really interest the true neocon. Republicans as a party, however, have slid into the goo of reactionary politics in a big bad way. Obviously that degeneration began in the sixties and enjoyed acceptance in the Reagan administration, but it really wasn’t until the advent of The Tea Party that things really started to go truly whacko in righty land. It was then when star-spangled politics became legion, if you ask me. They identified with revolutionaries who were doing their patriotic duty to throw off oppression. It was absurd on its face; it got people screaming about taxes and the abolition of government and that was considered within the bounds of acceptable rhetoric. It had no regard to the people it would hurt if a functioning government could not provide services. They wanted anarchy. Freedom of responsibility from their fellow man. A radical idea of individualism that cared about nothing but itself, history be damned,
There’s nothing inherently bad about revolution; in fact, colonialism is no damn good, period. It’s important that a government come from its own land. But let’s be real about who Americans are. I am a third generation immigrant mutt, a mixture of the European refuse that landed in New Jersey in the early 20th century for a better shot at survival. I do not have slaver blood. But our white American forefathers do, and their offenses are now mine. My kin and I have prospered well enough in this country, having all of the advantages of white society that are still denied to people of color every day. But our revolution was tainted. We established ourselves with genocide and enriched ourselves with slavery, the echoes of which we are still feeling today. I’m not interested in arguments that “everyone was doing it”, especially if we want to claim “exceptionalism” as we are so often wont to do. Our revolution was supposed to be based on our natural human rights, and that was a quantum leap in a way, but it was only for white people, not the Indian “savages” nor the human chattel they owned.
So, to wrap that up, let’s just say I’m not in love with the myth of how great this country is. In terms of modernity, it’s slowly becoming a miserable experience for everyone, as the inequality gap widens. The cost of shelter, energy and food without appropriate wage increases is grinding on all families, and it feels like no one is interested in stopping it. Women just lost the Constitutional right to reproductive freedom. A steady diet of bad news screaming out of the television, radio and the Internet has made people resentful and hostile, looking for someone, some group to blame besides the greedy bastards who are Hoovering up more and more profits.
Anyway, to get back to the neocons-all they really care about is American military hegemony around the globe, and the Biden administration is providing that by proxy warring with Russia over Ukraine. So neocons have cover now to speak their conscience about the hatriot movement that has suddenly replaced the Tea Party patriot movement. Anyone with functioning eyes and ears has now seen at least part of the white supremacist movement in action; it has also seen Republican leaders, young white nationalists and talking heads on TV espouse white grievance or excuse it. Charlottesville was a major flashpoint in 2017 where we saw the true strength of the white hate movement reveal itself and its message that it would not be replaced by inferior races. You have young kids who play too many video games and can’t get a girlfriend find camaraderie in the fascist bowels of the right wing. As I write this, we are still paralyzed by the Buffalo shooting and its seemingly senseless origins. Having read the shooters screed, I can tell you that we need to have a bigger conversation on the depth of the militarization of this fascist white Christian male supremacist movement, who their targets are, and how to destroy this movement. Because it’s not about “speech” anymore-a line must be drawn, a bright one that states objectively that some information and practices are simply toxic to a polite democracy. They are hiding their hate and possibly another revolution under our founding documents and that is much cause for concern.