The situation in Gaza is similar to ours in a few ways. The intransigence in both places is based on enmities and beliefs rooted in ethnicity and opportunity, or the lack of it. The entire world has seen the same events, but in our case, the GOP has gone all in w/ boldfaced lies to either ignore or exploit them, appealing to existing resentment and anger. BLM and Antifa stand in here for Hamas, and false flags leading mostly white people away from peace abound. The previous president came into politics as a birther disputing a Black man’s legitimacy, and his first important speech was a breathtaking vilification of brown people. He tapped underground veins of fear and scarcity, exploiting aberrant beliefs about race as disturbing as is anti-semitism.
Trump surprised even himself by finding an eager audience willing to brush aside the many more traditional, more mature Republicans. He won a race to the bottom handily, overcoming opponents with tactics of baseness, braggadocio, dishonesty, and cruelty. Most nonsensical was his scorn for the “elites” in a class war which by any measure he’d already won, as reality TV host and member of the 1%, firing underlings at will. Lifestyles of the Rich and Shameless, indeed. Trump is the figurehead of a scratch-off sycophancy, willing to buy ticket after ticket in hopes of cashing in. You can bet a great many of his shiny object admirers fulfill the Steinbeckian trope of envisioning themselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
Any state which has established a lottery balances their budgets on the backs of an unshakeable constituency, no different from those putting meager earnings and even grocery money in church collection plates for the promise of riches to come. Oceans of snake oil have been sold to people forking over their last dollar. That’s Trumpism at its core. It’s not about facts, it’s about faith. Truth doesn’t stand a chance. Today’s GOP has made its peace w/ whole cloth fiction and a Machiavellian eschewal of all principle in its quest for raw power, while the Dems were focused on the wrong witch hunt all along. Bi-partisans are the targets in the minds of Republican faithful. They may meet a less-graphic end than those of 17th century Salem, but the motives of conspiracy mongers are no different. If Liz Cheney floats, she’s guilty. If she drowns, she’s still guilty. Meanwhile, all hail the Warlock of Mar-A-Lago.
Hypocrisy is the life blood of today’s version of the Walking Dead, shambling the halls of Congress and red state capitols throughout the country. How else to explain the brazenness of the lies of McCarthy and Co., or the much-too-strange-to-be-fiction recount going on in Arizona? The zombie apocalypse took place under the last president, and while it differs from Hollywood portrayals, watch footage of any MAGA rally. He still heads up an army willing to follow orders and perhaps even die in the attempt. In movies, yowling clamoring hordes scale walls which are the last hope for those behind them. Look and listen to the denizens in videos from Jan 6th. These aren’t voters anymore. They’ve been transformed, smearing blood on the walls and looking to make a meal of lawmakers and the last vice president. Except they’re not after brains this time, they’re after democracy itself.