March 19, 2014 8:01 AM

Misogynists, bigots, and troglodytes, oh my!!

I hesitate to use the words “stupid” or “ignorant” to describe Conservatives whose Far Right beliefs lead them down the path of misogyny, sexism, racism, and all manner of other unpleasantness. Truly. That said, it’s difficult to find a way to characterize such a belief system without employing those words. Such is the curse of a limited vocabulary, I suppose, but sometimes there’s no way around calling something out for what it is. I find it difficult not to wonder what the reality of some of these folks looks like.

I’ll use last week as an example, though this could easily be true of any of the other 51 weeks of the year. While I have no doubt that these folks believe that what they’re saying is correct, they seem incapable of recognizing the effects their words might have on public discourse. That they also fail to recognize the comic relief potential in their utterances accrues to the benefit of people like me, but they do nothing to work toward finding solutions. Instead, their words divide and polarize. F’rinstance, here are a few of the worst examples of Right-wing silliness from last week:

  1. Paul Ryan: When I said ‘inner city’ men are too lazy to work; that’s their ‘culture,’ I didn’t mean it racially.
  2. Kevin Swanson: The movie Frozen is a satanic plot to turn our children gay.
  3. Pat Robertson: Horror movies cause demonic possession. Let us pray.
  4. Fox’s Stuart Varney: ‘Obama’s overtime move is just a way of buying votes.’
  5. AZ Republican: Slaveowners took pretty good care of their slaves.
  6. Ben Carson doesn’t care about political correctness or really about being correct at all, because ‘America today is like Nazi Germany.’
  7. Austin Ruse: ‘Liberal professors should be taken out and shot.’
  8. New Hampshire lawmaker posts beyond-offensive sexual ‘joke’ about battered women — and stands by it.

Sadly, this is only a representative sample. I suspect the challenge was in whittling the list down to merely eight examples.

When challenged on their outrageous and/or offensive words, the strategy is as simple as it is dishonest:

  1. Claim that you were “inarticulate,: as in, “I apologize for inarticulately stating the problem facing America today.” That you essentially referred to African-American men as lazy was but a mere slip of the tongue. Engaging in “dog whistle” rhetoric means that sometimes the code words are sufficiently camouflaged to evade detection. It’s not “racism,” it’s “inarticulate.” The good news is that your base knows EXACTLY what you were saying, which is all you probably care about anyway.

  2. You’d be surprised at the things that can turn your or your precious, impressionable child gay. When in doubt, advocate prayer and supplication…because those engaged in prayer seldom consider the homophobia they’re buying into.

  3. When in doubt, blame Barack Obama…because Lord knows as President (“The Buck Stops Here,” right??) he’s responsible for everything from murdering Archduke Franz Ferdinand to the Lindbergh kidnapping to the Cold War to the recession. Hey, it’s beats accepting your portion of the responsibility.

  4. When you get busted for “inarticulately” espousing what amounts to racism, issue a tepid apology. Said apologia should neither fully accept responsibility nor renounce your views. Carefully using code words the Conservative faithful understand is always a good strategy.

  5. If nothing else works, fall back on accusing your ideological adversaries of working to turn America into Nazi Germany. This strategy is especially effective when used in conjunction with accusing the President of being a Socialist, Nazi, and/or Islamofascist advocate for Sharia law.

  6. Suggest that your adversaries be liquidated. If your advocacy of violence backfires, you can always claim that it was a joke and that people really should lighten up, knowhutimean?

  7. Occasionally a good rape joke will backfire. This is another case when you can blame the ensuing kerfuffle on Liberals and feminists lacking a sense of humor. Surely, the little ladies understand humor…right?? I mean, who doesn’t like a good rape joke now and then??

This is where I would normally lament that troglodytes such as this get elected…and yet people vote for them. Think about that for a moment: Louie Gohmert and Michele Bachmann were ELECTED by a majority of voters in their districts. That says far more about those voters than it does about Gohmert or Bachmann, neither of whom could be describe as intellectual or moral heavyweights.

It’s true; America tends to get EXACTLY the quality of leadership it deserves. Who knew our standards were so abysmally low?

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on March 19, 2014 8:01 AM.

Is we learning? Evidently not. was the previous entry in this blog.

If it's Lubbock, this guy's on the Highway to Hell is the next entry in this blog.

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