https://medium.com/@philgarber/blog
0921blog
Puppet Masters
I’ve been had, we’ve been had, the ultimate shell game, bamboozled, victimized by the greatest misdirection this country has ever known. And the stakes could not be higher.
This is not about that sorry, pathetic, uneducated, self-centered bigot in the White House and it never was. Trump has always been nothing more than a subterfuge and a pawn, a clown to take the public’s attention away from the true battle for the soul of America.
This is about a relatively small group of far right conservatives in Congress and business who have gained power in total disproportion to their numbers in their quest to shape this country for decades to come on seminal issues from abortion, health care coverage, tax cuts for the wealthiest titans, gun control, gay marriage, LGBTQ rights and religious rights to law enforcement and environmental regulations. And they have been very angry for a long time about the direction of America and very smart and very wealthy and that is a poisonous combination as they are utterly convinced that their vision of America, dominated by rich, white, Christian men, continues to crumble under what they see as the decadent, anti-Christian influence of the Democrats.
And Trump is the perfect patsy for the likes of Mitch McConnell, Jim Jordan, Ted Cruz, Ron Johnson, Rand Paul, Tom Cotton, James Inhofe, Mark Meadows, Lindsay Graham, the Koch brothers, et al. Without these angry white men who believe they are the gatekeepers to their sorry version of American values, Trump would be nothing and he most certainly knows it, despite all of his foolish bluster.
They don’t care about Trump’s stupid, racist, sexist, divisive comments. That’s entertainment, a great misdirection. They will put up with anything, that is anything, if they can pack the Supreme Court to guide this nation’s greatest issues for generations to come. It’s a titanic struggle to reshape the soul of the country, nothing less.
In fact, Trump’s inane ineptitude fits the game plan perfectly as he draws the public’s attention in so many different directions that people lose sight of the true grail, the Republican goal for an absolute majority of right wing jurists on the Supreme Court.
The far right played the game expertly and expected that Trump would have been a shoe-in to win reelection and continue as a pawn for the dark forces except for the one thing the dark side didn’t count on: a plague. The COVID-19 pandemic has really screwed up their plans and they fear their straw man will be defeated and that is why they are scrambling to the death to name a new justice before Jan. 20. They see the consequences of a loss as nothing less than a country and a system that will be destroyed under Democratic rule.
Look in their eyes and get past their smug appearances and you see rich, white men who will not give up what they are convinced is their god-given heritage. You will see anger so deep that they will stop at nothing to get what they want and that is nothing short of a wholesale reversal of the progress made in past years for everyone from women to LGBTQ.
The Mitch McConnells laugh when accused of being hyprocrits. They have absolutely no interest in how they are perceived because they are convinced that they are the only ones with the courage and the will to stop the destruction of their American way.
Every time you look at them, think of those who fought to keep Jim Crow, those who struggled to keep segregated schools and keep people of color from voting. Think of those who want to take away health insurance protection from millions of Americans and who want to keep out any who would not buy into their versions of Christianity. Think of the bigots who ridiculed and harassed gay people and who want to keep the country out of the grip of people with different ideas, colors and nationalities.
They are the ones who defend the police against any and all attacks, those who have been responsible for the largest percentage of Americans in prison than in any other country and those who always have been ready to lead the country to war with little concern over those who will die in battle as they have always been predominantly people of color.
And they are not alone. They are millions of others who also want their failed version of America preserved. It is moving toward a war between the two colossal forces of good and bad.
The myth of a high court with apolitical justices who rule on cases based on the law has been exposed as a naive fantasy. The Republican right wing wants ideological judges who will vote based on their politics and not on the law. And that will most certainly mean a quick end to a range of issues, from a woman’s right to choose to unfettered gun controls, even though the majority of the public believe a woman should have the right to abortions and that there should be strict controls on gun ownership.
The question will be whose country is this and who will decide on its fate.