The GOP’s Nefarious Mythologies Have Become a Dire Problem for Democracy
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
newrepublic.com /article/168379/right-wing-myths-2022-midtermsThe GOP’s Nefarious Mythologies Have Become a Dire Problem for Democracy
Rich Logis12-16 minutes 11/3/2022
(excerpts)
Man’s manna is mythology. The Republican Party understands this, and the Democrats—at least at the institutional levels—seemingly do not. Closing this gap, and learning to tell a great story about the country, is critical in outcompeting the GOP and, possibly, keeping our democracy alive.
The political right has a familiar story that it repeats over and over again: America was already perfect and great in the 1950s and ’60s. On the surface, it sounds like pleasant nostalgia, but these gauzy memories are weaponized in the service of a poisonous and traumatizing myth that the Republican Party continues to sell to the predominantly male, Caucasian, heterosexual, Christian demographic: namely, that America has been steadily and rapidly declining since our apogee of perfection and greatness, in which Caucasian, heterosexual, Christian men were the dominant American class. Once enough Caucasian, heterosexual Christians are consumed by the imaginary existential threats that ooze from Republican rhetoric, they will support anyone—and anything—that might conserve their myth.
Has the GOP given up on competing in the marketplace of ideas, and democracy? This is absolutely the case. Republicans, for all their bluster about the Framers and our Constitution, have abandoned the great blueprint of our nation’s Founders and no longer aspire to the great ideals of our founding: that all are created equal and that “We the People” have a great mission—to form a more perfect union. The GOP has badly strayed from this path; in its present form, it could not be more antithetical to the intent and vision of our Founders.
Conservatism has always been marketed as “mind your business, let me live”; however, it’s always been about thwarting progress, the advancement of democracy, and the expansions of rights and freedoms. Political conservatism is singularly the biggest fraud—I repeat: fraud—ever perpetrated upon the American people because it is the most unnatural ideology of all, one that presumes that time should be made to stand still, a barren way to live that can only be made bearable if it’s shrouded in the soothing emollience of mythology. But we must give Republicans some credit: They seem to better understand the compulsions of our Homo sapiens species than the Democrats, who tend to try to accommodate the conservative myth in their rhetoric instead of forging a compelling alternative. But Republicans know the world is going to change, whether one wants it to or not, and no amount of legislation or Fox and Breitbart traumatization can stop those changes.
In GOP mythology, in the immediate decades following our victory in World War II, the perfection of our union had been eschatologically finished and realized; the flowers nourished by the blood of patriots in the American Revolution, Gettysburg, and Normandy had blossomed; these fruit-bearing plants provided succulent bushels of teleological, saccharine sweetness—precisely as Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison, and Adams had intended.
When America was great and perfect, public schools prayed in almighty gratitude to Jesus, women knew their place of inferiority, and mass shootings were rare—mind not the violence along the way: the assassination of Emmett Till; the fire-hosings of John Lewis and other Black Americans nonviolently demanding the franchise; and discrimination against gays, immigrants, and religious minorities.
The “good ol’ days” is arguably the most traumatizing mythology in American history, and it has been almost exclusively propagated by the right. (But not solely by the right: Bill Clinton, after all, also wanted to make America great again; that he embraced the myth on the way to his own electoral success goes a long way in explaining why Democrats remain beguiled by it.)
It’s also the case that the right even mythologizes its opposition with absurd stories that turn ordinary people with differences of opinion into absurd demons. Most of the Republican mythology concocted about former President Obama is ghoulish balderdash—in their telling, he is a mortal enemy of the great and perfect America. But these despicable tales almost seem sedate compared to other inventions: Bill Gates’s and George Soros’s plan for world domination, according to the right, is to kill off the human race with the Covid vaccine. (Would murdering your would-be serfs be the best way to effect a global takeover? Make this make sense!) Suffice it to say, reports about my death due to the vaccine—and about Obama as a Kenyan-born Islamic Communist—have been grossly exaggerated.
...to nefariously prey upon the insecurities of others by feeding them with hysteria and paranoia over an increasingly browner and blacker, less male, less Christian, and gayer America, is a cruel form of exploitation. This rhetoric traumatizes its victims in two ways: It forecloses any possibility of a joyous future, but it also strips the joy from nostalgic memories. None of it makes sense as a political project—to strand your adherents in a dire present, surrounded by imaginary enemies that can never be defeated, is a pure form of nihilism. Ahh, but it has proven to be very lucrative in modern American politics. And it will remain lucrative until it is no longer rewarded.
The power of mythology can be difficult to contend with, or even wield. Many of the stories we keep close in our collective imagination illuminate our nation’s virtues and ideals. But mythmaking can also deeply imprint false—even nefarious—notions. The Republican Party of today is plainly intoxicated with its false idols. Reducing the nation’s adherence to the story the GOP is telling is critical. But the Democrats too have their own blind spots: Perhaps the most dangerous myth to which they’ve lately subscribed—the idea that demographics and the country’s changing complexion will naturally fortify their electoral chances—has proven to be a false dawn. As a nation, we’ve never been more diverse, but we’re biting our fingernails now, wondering if the party that nearly ended the American experiment with the January 6 insurrection will regain a congressional majority and make inroads in statehouses and governorships.
As it turns out, the Democrats’ belief that “demographics are destiny” was also a destructive myth that permitted many in the party to believe that America would simply forge a more perfect union on autopilot. Democrats’ political muscles have atrophied as a result, and it’s time to move on from these beliefs. They should consider reinvesting in some of the historically Democratic voting blocs that they’ve somewhat taken for granted, such as religious minorities, LGBTQ citizens, Blacks, and Hispanics. But it’s also time to expand horizons and restore roots with rural and small-town America, where there are problems to be solved. Reasonable Republicans deserve consideration and engagement: to form necessary nonpartisan alliances and challenge previously held beliefs, to increase metacognition about some of our deeply rooted biases. It’s never a bad thing to take occasional slings and arrows from the people we hold close. Battle the liars, but don’t forsake those who have been lied to—these, treat with forbearance, and remember that the more perfect union will require reconciliation.
In the most accurate definition of the word, the U.S. is exceptional, in that we are the only exception in world history: a multiracial, multi-ethnic, multi-religious (including freedom from religion), increasingly diverse, tolerant republic-democracy hybrid, in which the people directly participate in government representation and commerce, which also happens to be the most powerful military and largest economy, by gross domestic product, in world history. This country can and should be a great place to live, worship, raise a family, and enjoy the trappings of the good life.
The GOP sells power as a means to cause harm and to keep its adherents constantly frothing about encroaching enemies within. Whether it’s a skewed and poisoned memory of “the good ol’ days,” the wrong-headed insistence that the least inclusive eras of our history were our finest hours, or the toxic notion that the marriage of two lesbians must somehow be adulterating our values, these myths must be countered for our democracy to endure. It’s going to be a Herculean effort, but as the GOP retreats from policy and governing and cocoons itself into its culthood, there’s a chance for Democrats to fill this vacuum with a new story: one about power as a means of doing good, of solving problems, of ideas and substance, and a more dignified way of leading the nation into a future instead of into a trap.
... By aiding in the demythologizing of the story this Republican Party wants to spread, you will help stymie the malignancy of nationalism and the ongoing Christian theocratization; you’ll be one hand among many pulling our country back from the brink of a dictatorial vision that perverts our faith and our freedom into a murderous mockery of humanity and every person’s worth. If you need a story to guide you, heed the advice of the good book that all too many conservatives and Republicans heretically co-opt in their photo-ops: Ecclesiastes 7:10—“Say not, ‘Why were the former days better than these?’ For it is not from wisdom that you ask this.”
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No they haven’t. Nothing nefarious to see here.
No windmills to tilt at ....
What is it that one of the mouthpieces on this site spams all over the place? Oh yeah - "deflection, projection, and denial."
As they say, "you cant handle the truth".
Or as others would say:
“you wouldn’t know the truth if it bit you in the ass and held on.”
Like we are going to find it in anything you have offered. Day in and day out the Democrats and the left try to distract from the abhorrent way they've fucked up this country. Point to fictitious musings (like this article) or your constant fictitious "Smoking Gun" articles about a former POTUS all you want. You may be gullible enough to fall for it but it doesn't distract from the Biden Administration's fuck ups when it comes to inflation, illegal immigration, partisan "investigations" and what ever else is on your list of talking points.
Sorry. No matter how much you polish that turd, it's still a turd.
Were the least inclusive eras of our history our "finest hours"? Do you deny that many if not most conservatives believe America's finest hours were the hours when minorities were diminished or even oppressed ?
The Dems "finest" (worst) hours were in the era before the Voting Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
These Acts, opposed by most Democrats, started to bring to an end their oppression of blacks..
The left have divisively diminished, damaged, and done their best to destroy democracy.
Come Wednesday morning the good, decent, sane, and patriotic American majority will have squashed the vile and evil pestilence of progressivism.
So, why haven't Democrats fixed it all? We're only allowed to choose between Republicans and Democrats. If Republicans won't or can't fix it all then that means Democrats must.
The Democratic Party has been around since the 1820s. We really are nearing the 200th anniversary of the founding of the Democratic Party. What has the Democratic Party been doing for those 200 years? Many claim that the Democratic Party has reshaped itself. But has that reshaping benefited the country? Have Democrats unified the country any more than Republicans have?
Mythology can either unify the country with a stylized aspirational telling of history - or - mythology can divide the country with a stylized cynical telling of history. So, which mythology is being promoted by the only two political parties that are allowed?
Damn, you're one hell of a comedian spouting a line like that...
With all the money and power that comes with being one of the two political parties, why should they ever want to give that up? And keeping the population in fear is the easiest way to keep in power, keeping the sheep in line and willingly following the orders of their "betters" in party leadership... What a utopia for those at the top.