Shamelessness is their superpower
One of the big issues I've been covering on this blog lo these many years is what I used to say was the fact that the Republicans had "retired the concept of hypocrisy." Trump did not invent this.
For instance, here's a little something I wrote here a while back:
Friday, October 31, 2008
Got Hypocrisy?
by digby
I often say that Republicans have retired the concept of hypocrisy and people titter politely, but I suspect they think it's a sort of glib slogan and not a serious observation. But I mean it literally.
Recently Michelle Malkin went ballistic over Joe the plumber's privacy being invaded. And many people pointed out that she was hardly the best messenger for such a complaint considering her own notorious history of stalking low income families to prove they weren't actually in need of government subsidized health care when they had the nerve to speak out politically.
One would have thought that would be enough for her to slither off in an embarrassed funk and let someone else carry the hypocritical wingnut banner on personal privacy, but it apparently spurred her on to write a big op-ed in the mainstream media instead.
[W]hen freelance members of the Obama Goon Squad take it upon themselves to do opposition research on The One's citizen critics and rummage through government databases, where are all the privocrats? And how safe will your state tax and IRS records be if Dear Leader is elected?Welcome to Obama's America.
Now, as it happens, I think that public employees searching through Joe the plumber's governmental records is absolutely wrong and that people should lose their jobs if they did it. It creeped me out too. And I thought the press treatment was overkill as well --- right up until the moment that Joe started grandstanding for the cameras, got an agent and started talking to people about a recording contract.
But, again, Malkin is hardly the right person to complain considering the absolutely horrific invasion of privacy she perpetrated against the Frost family. It's mind-boggling that, of all people in the right wing blogosphere, she has appointed herself to be the one to lead this story. The sheer brass of it, the unreflective audacity, is simply breathtaking.
This is why I say that they have retired the concept of hypocrisy. It goes far beyond double standards or duplicity or bad faith. There's an aggression to it, a boldness, that dares people to bring up the bald and obvious fact that the person making the charge is herself a far worse perpetrator of the thing she is decrying.
There's an intellectual violence in it.
In a world in which the conservatives weren't such post modern shape shifters, we could come to a consensus on certain issues in this country --- like privacy, for instance. We could agree that it's wrong for government employees to use private information for partisan purposes --- or for the media, including bloggers, to stalk and publish private information of anyone who dares speak out for a political cause. But we don't live in a world like that.
We live in a world where the right wing ruthlessly and without mercy degrades and attacks by any means necessary what they perceive as the enemy, and then uses the great principles of democracy and fair play when the same is done to them. They leave the rest of us standing on the sidelines looking like fools for ever caring about anything but winning.
It's not that I believe liberals are purely good and decent. We have many, many faults and are almost preternaturally talented at seizing defeat from the jaws of victory before we even get finished celebrating. But failing to truly grok just how pernicious this right wing rejection of hypocrisy really is and how much power it gives them is a foolish mistake.
I think we're about to get schooled. Again. The torture loving right is dusting off its completely hypocritical "government is full of jack-booted thugs" playbook --- and it's going to drive us all completely crazy.
That was eleven years ago. Trump wasn't in the White House committing what I called "intellectual violence." It was the conservative media and Republican Party. He was just another D-list celebrity at the time who saw what they were doing and realized this was something he knew how to do better than anyone.
Today I simply call this phenomenon "shamelessness" and I've concluded that it is their superpower. When you have no shame you have a whole lot of room to maneuver and pay no price. We cannot make laws requiring people to be rational.
A good case in point is this amazing flap about the Christianity Today editorial. I haven't weighed in because Tom and tristero have been doing such a good job of covering it but it does illustrate just how shameless the right is revealing itself to be. Just as the previous flag-waving patriots are fine with a president betraying the country and cozying up to autocratic foreign dictators, the vast majority of the allegedly moral religious right shows they are fine with a decadent, immoral brute in the White House.
They are just political hacks like the rest of them. And they have demonstrated over the past few days that they will descend upon one of their own who deviates from their cult of Dear Leader like a pack of ravenous jackals.
Everyone says it's all about judges and abortion but I don't really think it's just transactional. After all, the judges are Mitch McConnell's doing and Mike Pence would be even better on their issues. He's a real member of their tribe so they don't stand to lose anything by judging Trump on his grotesque behavior.
No this is about Trump himself. They like him. They are no more pious than he is.
The good news is that we don't ever have to listen to their moralizing again. The bad news is that they will still do it without missing a beat in service of their political goals. The Christian Right is as shameless as the rest of them.
I have been watching this phenomenon unfold for a long time and have been documenting it right here --- with your help I'll keep this blog going and we'll continue to do that.
I hope you will check in here at Hullabaloo as we try to sort all this out during this tumultuous time. I don't think it's ever been more important to stick together. This next year is going to be unspeakably ugly and I think it's going to be important for us to keep our heads and try to get through it without disengaging.
You can count on us to keep an eye on this unfolding drama seven days a week even when you find it too stressful to do it yourselves. If you have the means to help support this blog for another year, I would be very grateful.
Again, thank you so much for reading and supporting my work all these years. It means the world to me. --- d
And Happy Hollandaise everyone!
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