Thursday, October 13, 2022

The company you keep.

 





Dear Skippy: Being endorsed by Alex Jones isn't the own you think it is.

2 comments:

Purple library guy said...

It's strange, you know. I think politically, and I normally think of political differences between, say, political parties or groups as being about, you know, politics--ideologies, policies, stuff like that.

But looking at the modern hard right, I can't help thinking it isn't about that. Their policies are whatever they think makes the best sneer today, there's no coherence to it except it has to be inflammatory and fundamentally mistaken. The division these days seems to be weirdly personality-based. If you're a total lying asshole with plenty of arrogance but not too much brains, you join the right. If you're a basically pleasant person but the kind that feels it's a lot more comfortable to be basically pleasant while going along with the status quo, taking the bribes and so forth, you become a Liberal or mainstream Democrat. If you're all earnest, you join the left.

Purple library guy said...

Oh, yeah--and this personality difference explains why the modern right chooses these leaders nobody else can understand why they would choose. The people on the right look up to pugnacious assholes who ignore facts. That's what they aspire to be. They don't really understand why everyone else is going to have a visceral hate reaction to these people.

And this is new--even George W. Bush, while he's not a guy I'd be able to have much of a conversation with, was personable and pleasant in his way--he was initially sold, not just to Republicans but to undecideds, as the guy you'd want to have a beer with. While Cheney would have been unelectable without coattails to ride on . . . of course, he might still be, because while he's nasty enough for a modern right-winger, he's not stupid enough; he comes off as a heartless technocrat, not a heartless know-nothing.