The Far-Right's Romance With Cruelty

[LawDem]

Steven Day
Common Dreams

Politics has always been cruel. Political candidates can be brutal in trying to discredit, or even destroy, their political opponents. Congressional leaders will at times act harshly when trying to whip party members into line. And as is true in any profession, there will always be politicians who mistreat subordinates simply because they are jerks.

But the cruelty of the far right is something different. This is cruelty as the defining characteristic of a movement. To the far right, cruelty is more than a means to achieving a policy goal—it is often the goal itself. Cruelty for cruelty's sake—directed against "the other," a variable collection of liberals, immigrants, and minority groups. It has become the substance, even the soul, of today's far right. And it is becoming increasingly difficult to differentiate the far right from the rest of the political right on this score.

Just look at how much pure cruelty by GOP leaders has been in evidence lately. Ron DeSantis spends public money to transport a handful of undocumented immigrants to politically liberal northern areas of the country. Substantively this accomplishes nothing. The tiny number of people involved doesn't amount to a scratch on a Boeing 747-8, when compared to the number of undocumented immigrants in Florida. But even that understates the absurdity of the stunt. The coup de grâce is the fact the immigrants in question were taken from Texas, not Florida.

https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/cruelty

[bronxiteforever]

1. Kick & recommend great article!

[I_UndergroundPanther]

2. KnR

And kickety kick kick!

[Faux pas]

3. Kickety Kickin'

[2naSalit]

4. K&R

[Mr.Bill]

5. Absolutely cruelty for cruelty's sake.

Just ask what Governors Abbot and DeSantis recent actions regarding immigration are doing to solve the problem.

[thenelm1]

7. Great article. What was not mentioned, as obscene as it is,...

is that undoubtedly many of these ugly excuses for human beings, if asked, would identify themselves as Christians.

[DemUnleashed]

6. Article

I didn't read the article...did it talk about the cruelty of separating kids from their parents??!!

[BigmanPigman]

8. No wonder so many GQP love Putin...

The king of cruelty. The GQP is mentally ill. They are sociopaths, plain and simple.

[heckles65]

9. The transported immigrants weren't Cubans

I wonder why.

[raccoon]

10. That bastard Gianforte certainly qualifies. And many others.

[Blue Owl]

11. The basket of deplorables, the bag of dicks, the sack of shitmongers

Fuck the far-right...

[usonian]

12. Fascists thrive on hopelessness, even when they have to induce it (via 24/7 propaganda)

And fascism is cult behavior at its worst. Hence, the symptoms.
Cruelty is projection of one's own fear and weakness.

Interestingly, the cure for this is not "winning hearts and minds".
https://democraticunderground.com/100216524810
The best, the ONLY cure to WhiteChristianNationalism, race baiting, mysogyny, etc. is WINNING
This is from the epilogue of "Stamped From the Beginning", by Ibram X Kendi.
This is of course, about racism, but racism is the engine of the Repugnant party.
Emphasis mine:

Protesting against racist power and succeeding can never be mistaken for seizing power. Any effective solution to eradicating American racism must involve Americans committed to antiracist policies seizing and maintaining power over institutions, neighborhoods, counties, states, nations—the world. It makes no sense to sit back and put the future in the hands of people committed to racist policies, or people who regularly sail with the wind of self-interest, toward racism today, toward antiracism tomorrow. An antiracist America can only be guaranteed if principled antiracists are in power, and then antiracist policies become the law of the land, and then antiracist ideas become the common sense of the people, and then the antiracist common sense of the people holds those antiracist leaders and policies accountable.

And that day is sure to come. No power lasts forever. There will come a time when Americans will realize that the only thing wrong with Black people is that they think something is wrong with Black people. There will come a time when racist ideas will no longer obstruct us from seeing the complete and utter abnormality of racial disparities. There will come a time when we will love humanity, when we will gain the courage to fight for an equitable society for our beloved humanity, knowing , intelligently, that when we fight for humanity, we are fighting for ourselves. There will come a time. Maybe, just maybe, that time is now.