Conservatives are the new "good Germans," enabling and defending Trump's crimes

[applegrove]

Conservatives are the new "good Germans," enabling and defending Trump's crimes Whatever "conservative" once meant in American politics, it's now just a flimsy rhetorical shield for fascism

By CHAUNCEY DEVEGA at Salon

FEBRUARY 26, 2021 10:50AM

https://www.salon.com/2021/02/26/conservatives-are-the-new-good-germans-enabling-and-defending-trumps-crimes/

"SNIP......

Basic and common understandings of truth and consensus reality have been discarded or ignored by Trump and his movement in favor of the Big Lie — and the innumerable small lies that sustain it. Contrary to widely-held folk theories of democracy, which presume a shared commitment to consensus politics, Trump and his movement have now normalized right-wing terrorism and political violence directed against liberals, progressives, nonwhites, Jews, Muslims and others deemed to be "the enemy."

Public opinion polls and other research show that Republican and Trump voters embrace such values and beliefs, and now believe that political violence (on the order of the Jan. 6 Capitol attack) may be necessary as a way of protecting their power and privilege in American society.

At Vox, Zack Beauchamp echoes these concerns:

From top to bottom, the [Republican] party has stoked the embers of extremism. They have worked to convince their supporters that Democrats are monsters, they have to delegitimize the mainstream press and replace it with fact-free alternatives, and they have embraced extremist politicians and commentators who have condoned violence in the name of putting down the Democratic "threat."

This is not just a question of "that's how we got Trump" (though this is in fact how we got Trump). It's that the party leadership has knowingly and willfully created an entire segment of the electorate that is prone to violent and dangerous conspiratorial thinking.



......SNIP"

[catbyte]

1. Yep.

[DEbluedude]

2. I have been using this term for years.

Amongst relatives, friends and others. That’s what I say they are after I hear them purport to be “real ‘mericans” and when they start offering other conservative bullshit. Never had one of them ask “what do you mean?”. Some stares at times, with that Tucker Carlson dumbfuck look. They’re fuckin clueless. I get some satisfaction without getting my blood pressure up or wasting my time pointing out facts to them.

[triron]

3. Is Republican a more apt label?

[mitch96]

4. "Conservatives are the new "good Germans". Spooky as my best friends Mom grew up in

Hitlers Germany.. She was just getting into the Hitler youth when the war ended..
I remember growing up she would say this person was a Jew but a "good Jew"..
spooky shit...
m

[applegrove]

5. Yuck. I was lucky to grow up where i did not hear **** like that from adults.

[mitch96]

6. As a kid I really did not know what she was talking about.. Later on it all made sense..

She was brainwashed early and it stuck.. You go with what you know.. She did not care for Belgians either having lived on the border with that country.. Some people need to have to have a person/race/religion/country to dump on I guess.. Funny thing is that most of her kids friends were Jewish.. Karma, eh?
m