Welcome to Tehran

The Ayatollah has nothing on the new Republican Party

The concerted right-wing effort to put an end to the “social justice” movement that started in Texas’s schools has spread to 20 other Republican-dominated states, but the war on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) has stalled elsewhere, because to most, their ideas seem un-American.

A New York Times article points out that under the guise of “academic freedom,” the far-right is actually stripping that very thing from public schools. It’s Orwellian “Newspeak” at its hypocritical best. Their agenda is obvious—it’s the same one they’ve foisted on us for decades: Gays are abominable; working women are social engineers out to overturn the God-blessed patriarchy; and the Ayatollah has it right, social justice isn’t as important as preserving the ruling order.

They like to say that DEI exists in opposition to the Founders’ ideals as embodied in our most sacred documents, but don’t our Declaration of Independence and Constitution rely on the very concepts of DEI? That we are all created equal is nothing if not a statement of inclusion. That we are a country of immigrants is about nothing if not diversity. That everyone should have a seat at the table is equity incarnate.

Sometimes, the ends dictate to the middle, and it rarely turns out the way the extremists wish. Take for example the Taylor Swift/Travis Kelce romance. It was once the stuff of Conservative American Dreams: the glamorous cheerleader falls for the varsity football player. You’d think that kind of wholesomeness would be celebrated all around, but you’d be wrong.  The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight is so far from mainstream thinking—precisely the kind of thinking they say they love—that they’ve targeted the romance as artificial, a put up job by, get this, the Democratic Party and the NFL to ensure another Biden victory.

Have you met the Democratic Party? A conspiracy theory that puts them at the center of a master plan for galactic denomination forgets that they are about as organized as a finger painting party in a kindergarten class. And to propose that the NFL, whose broadcasts this season took 96 of the top 100 spots in the Nielsen ratings, would conspire with anyone other than J. P. Morgan, is equally preposterous.

What’s next, an assault on motherhood and apple pie?

The same geniuses on the hard-right who disdain the Taylor and Travis romance are also the ones who for years have been calling for the very border security measures that a bipartisan group of senators have crafted, and that President Biden has agreed to sign, but Congressional Republican leadership calls it “dead on arrival.”

The Former Guy, in his usual way of saying the quiet thing out loud, has told the Speaker not to move the border reform bill because it will give a victory to the Democrats. Instead, he wants to leave the border crisis to fester until he’s back in the Oval Office and can claim the victory for himself. He wants to run on the open border and will smash any Republican who dares to fix the crisis before he’s able to make it a campaign issue.

This is an out-of-body experience for James Lankford of Oklahoma, one of the most conservative lawmakers in Washington. Lankford is a leader in the bipartisan effort to solve the border crisis, and is in no mood for the party to kowtow to Trump’s political demands. Meanwhile, the Trump faithful seem surprised that Lankford would put country over party.

This level of political calculation and cynicism is exactly the kind that blows up in one’s face, primarily because the American public may be dumb, but we’re not stupid.

I’ll assume that you’re as comforted as I am to learn that “Moses” Mike Johnson, the recently anointed (I’m pretty sure that’s the right word) Speaker of the US House of Representatives, told a gathering of Christian Nationalists (do keep in mind that is a political assignation, not a religious one) that God has chosen him. “The message he received form God,” Johnson said, was to prepare for a “Red Sea moment.”

After thanking the National Association of Christian Lawmakers for throwing the media out of the meeting, he asked if they wanted to know a secret. Unlike the Beatles, he didn’t insist that they promise not to tell, and they posted the whole thing on Facebook. America, Johnson insisted, is “engaged in a battle between worldviews” and “a great struggle for the future of the Republic.” About that he’s right. The NACL is another group behind the vilification of social justice, and is busy “enacting its ‘biblical worldview,’ one state legislature at a time,” according to Rolling Stone. The House Speaker alleges God directed his path, like Moses, to power through the “roiling sea.”

Just in case, we have the Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group deployed there.

©2024 Jon Sinton