Comments by "wily wascal" (@wilywascal2024) on "'Shameless': Avlon reacts to McCarthy's press conference" video.

  1. “I'm not scared of the Maos and the Stalins and the Hitlers. I'm scared of the thousands or millions of people that hallucinate them to be "authority", and so do their bidding, and pay for their empires, and carry out their orders. I don't care if there's one looney with a stupid moustache. He's not a threat if the people do not believe in "authority".” ― Larken Rose Setting aside the sleazy immoral Reich-wing grifters at the top -- people like Trump, Congressional Republicans, Reich-wing demagogues and media -- the rank-and-file of the GOP has become a fascist cult. To be clear, Trump did not create the cult, it existed before him. He merely served as a unifying figure they chose to rally around and worship as their fool's gold god. Trump appealed to their basest nature and told them what they wanted to hear. Now, those Reich-wing grifters may have cultivated their cult to exploit for their own greed, power and vanity, but at least to some extent the Republican cult in turn seeks to exploit the GOP for their own various misguided purposes. They CHOOSE to be willfully ignorant, to believe or espouse the lies, because as a political calculus they shortsightedly see it as expedient to their ends. What must also be taken into consideration are the characteristics of a cult. Why do people join a cult? Why do they choose to remain in a cult? No need to go into detail; the answers are largely common knowledge or easily researched. But it should be pointed out that in a complex world, the simplistic and rigid beliefs embraced by cults can be very alluring, no matter how fantastical and removed from reality. It should also be acknowledged that the Republican cult is not a monolithic entity, but an amalgamation of sects, including White supremacists, Christian nationalists, libertarians, sovereign nationals, anarchists, tax resistors, Qanon and other extremist fringe groups. Of course, not every Republican is an extremist, a fascist, or untethered from reality. But this latter more benign group is nevertheless part of the fascist Republican cult, complicit in their support of the whole, whether through their silent acquiescence and votes or willing assistance. It's a very dangerous feedback loop, a vicious circle, one that as it sinks further into depravity its threat correspondingly rises, for as the Republican cult has over time been becoming increasingly more radicalized, we witness the election of more radical politicians to represent them, more radicalized Reich-wing media and demagogues to feed them propaganda. While some Republicans are leaving the GOP and some others are speaking out and trying to save their party, they constitute a weak minority, unfortunately. In a normal, sane world, the Republican cult would have ended or been marginalized after the Mueller Report, after Trump's Ukraine shakedown and impeachment, after Trump's horrendous handling of a deadly global pandemic, after his election defeat, or after January 6th and his second impeachment. But that hasn't happened. Instead, the Republican cult continues to become increasingly more radicalized and extreme. As President Biden says, "We are in a battle for the soul of this nation." And that battle is far from over.
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  2. Of course, the January 6th Select Committee is going to issue an invitation to members of Congress to come forward with information about January 6th before issuing a subpoena, expecting them to honor their Oath of Office. Of course, Republicans don't care about their Oath of Office. Of course, they're going to falsely claim victimhood and allege the Commitee is a political witch hunt. Of course, they're not going to cooperate. Of course, Republicans will continue to Gaslight, Obstruct, and Project, putting personal and party interests before country. Of course, outside of a small handful of Congressional Republicans, they are not leaders, but followers in a fascist, nihilistic GOP cult. Of course, they continue to push the Big Lie, whether actively or silently complicit, fomenting domestic terrorism while undermining and degrading our democracy and republic.
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  3. Republicans can't handle reality, would rather traffic and believe in lies. The GOP has become a fascist, nihilistic cult that would destroy democracy and America if given sufficient opportunity. And THAT, folks, is your reality check. What we are witnessing from so-called Republican "leaders" is just pure evil. They are either actively or silently complicit in fomenting Reich-wing domestic terrorist violence, Reich-wing insurrection, and Reich-wing undermining of our democracy and Constitution. It's crystal clear that Trump, Boebert, Greene, Gosar and other Republicans like them are fomenting Reich-wing domestic terrorism. The GOP has become radicalized to such an extent that it has essentially become a fascist terrorist organization, with members that fantasize and promote violence against their fellow Americans. While those Republican elected officials must be condemned and sanctioned, they are only a symptom of the disease poisoning a third of America, the most visible part of the cancer infecting our nation. The GOP has been mainstreaming radicalization of their voter base for decades, ALLOWING Reich-wing media and Reich-wing demagogues to take over the party, to the point it has become a fascist, nihilistic cult. Because just as now, Republican politicians and their plutocratic masters have always seen it as the ends justifying whatever means to win power. Remember the Republican Tea Party? This catastrophe with the GOP didn't start with Trump, who just exploited what Republicans had already built. Republican politicians are only interested in helping themselves, sadly. It's not even really placing party before country, because they don't really care about the GOP, either, which is evidenced by their destruction of it; they only use that as a convenient vehicle for graft and to grift their voters and us taxpayers. You don't get denialism without nihilism, and Sen. Hirono hits the nail on the head when she said that "Republicans don't give a shit." GOP = fascism + nihilism The few patriots left in the Republican party are rejected by the vast majority of Republicans. Hard as it may be for some to believe or accept, it is to our own and our nation's peril to ignore, diminish, or dismiss that the GOP has become a fascist cult. Their fascism, nihilism and cultdom needs to be recognized, acknowledged, called out, condemned, and strongly opposed if we are to keep our democracy. A quarter of America has been successfully Talibinized, thanks to Reich-wing plutocrats, Reich-wing media, Reich-wing demagogues, and Reich-wing politicians. Republican cult is the new ISIS. Call them Talibangelicals, ISIS-KKK, Y'all Qaeda, Vanilla ISIS, Reich-whingers (the original English word for whiners), or QaBomb----they're all part and parcel of the current lunatic Reich-wing GOP. Republican politicians are appeasing fascist, seditious terrorists...because that's their voter base, radicalization and extremism is what they have cultivated, nourished, nurtured, exploited, and profited from for four decades. Reich-wing politicians, plutocrats, demagogues, media, white nationalist, Christian nationalist religious, sovereign citizens and Qanon leaders thought they could ride the tiger, too arrogant, greedy, and stupid to foresee that master would become slave, and the beast they created would soon come to consume them.
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