Send in the Conservative Clowns, Never Mind They’re Already Here

By David Starr

Politics in the United States nowadays has produced lowered expectations. There are quite a number of individuals running for office that are grossly unqualified. And they are mainly from the Republican camp.

To name all the individuals would be a marathon endeavor. So, this article will look at five of the worst.

Marjorie Taylor Greene is a real piece of work. She doesn’t seem to possess the ability for civil discussion. Greene is so full of accusations against Democrats, she has been called a conspiracy theorist and a serial liar. (Not that the Democrats are totally innocent.)

Greene, like other followers of the MAGA cult, has repeatedly claimed that Joe Biden isn’t the legitimate president; that election fraud was committed on his behalf. This in the face of overwhelming evidence that the 2020 U.S. presidential election was conducted fairly. But Greene and the other MAGA followers are so hell-bent on anointing Donald Trump as president to correct the “injustice” against him, insisting he won reelection.

Is Greene a white supremacist? Maybe, maybe not. But she has nevertheless called herself a Christian nationalist. And there are no doubt ties between Christian nationalism and white supremacy. Taking the religion to the extreme, it actually compliments white supremacy. U.S. history has shown that fanatical Christians embraced white supremacy. Early in U.S. history, racism among these entities was more overt than today.

Which means that there are Christian nationalists and white supremacists today that do not admit to being racist, seeing this as a political liability. Some will accept those few conservatives of color, as long as the latter behave as tokens. Is this a generalization? Not when nonwhite conservatives embrace a right-wing agenda that happens to be tainted with racism and ultra-nationalism.

Besides the reactionary Greene, there is a reactionary named Kari Lake, who is relatively new among Republican circles. Lake lost the Arizona governorship to Kattie Hobbs, and has been hell-bent on calling this election fraudulent. She is in the process of taking “legal” measures to correct this “wrong.”

Lake has taken a strange political journey. At age eighteen, Lake registered as a Republican but kept her political views to herself. She was a news anchor on FOX (where else?). But Lake did support Democrats John Kerry and Barack Obama in their respective presidential election runs in order to protest the Bush Jr. regime’s wars against Iraq and Afghanistan. She was a Democrat for a span of four years.

Lake then found out about Donald Trump and his “no-nonsense” demeanor. This impressed Lake so much that she revoked her Democratic membership. Another individual became enthralled with the Trump cult.

Lake thought that the media coverage of COVID-19 amounted to fear-mongering, even though there were an estimated one million deaths of U.S. citizens due to the virus. In Trumpite fashion, Lake became fed up with working in the media. Revolted by it, Lake no longer was enthused by journalism and, whether she knew it or not, began to rely on negative propaganda.

In ironic fashion, Lake told a journalist she would give an interview on CNN+, although the service no longer existed, and proceeded to make that known to the journalist, adding that she thought it was peddling propaganda. This became Lake’s overall view of the media. (Depending on the issue, the media is generally unreliable but not for the reasons Lake thinks. Like other right-wingers, Lake would probably use a familiar cliché, claiming that the media has a “liberal” bias, when it is just as conservative as it is liberal.)

As with other right-wingers, Lake wants to toughen Arizona’s voting laws, meaning the use of voter suppression in the guise of protecting “election integrity.”  Those affected would mostly be Democratic voters; particularly voters of color.

Lake’s mindset now is to parrot Trump’s views and embrace his particular agenda.

Lauren Boebert is another reactionary who is fond of calling herself, “The Tip of the Spear.” It is immature, right-wing lingo where she tries to present herself as “dangerous,” notably to Democrats.

Boebert has been inflammatory in her remarks, whether the issue is gun rights, immigration or border security. She insanely said she would carry a handgun on the floor of Congress; Boebert heckled Joseph Biden during his first State of the Union address, and said she was proud of attempting to block the certification of Biden’s ascent to the presidency; and Boebert showed her racist stripes with a remark directed at Minnesota representative Ilhan Omar.

Boebert’s reactionary rhetoric has turned off even some Republicans. One Colorado state official said that she can’t be taken seriously. And she can’t. Boebert is a throwback to earlier times in the U.S. when white privilege wasn’t really challenged. Nowadays, those who benefit from it, try to come off sounding like a victim of oppression when they generally got it ass-backwards. Boebert, like other Trumpites,  qualifies as a poster child for fake victimhood.

Not meaning to bring just women into this, there is Josh Hawley, who has the Trumpite characteristics as the others above do. Hawley has consistently been on Fox “News” and has ranted about “cancel culture,” another rhetorical label made up by the right. Hawley also trots out the usual rhetoric about being a victim of liberal “censorship.” That’s strange considering how many media outlets the right has operating. Like other right-wingers, Hawley conjures up a liberal bogeyman that’s out to mercilessly destroy the “American” way of life.

Hawley is a dyed-in-the-wool anti-liberal. He thinks liberalism is a major threat, one reason being that Hawley lumps liberalism and “big gubberment” together. Government is another “demon” hated by the right. But sometimes it’s not government that’s necessarily the problem. It’s the individuals in it and what kind of ideological agenda they have. With liberalism and government, Hawley employs a purely B/W vision of the two. (But with liberalism, it’s not the answer to solve all of society’s problems, and government does not have a perfect framework.)

Hawley had a grandiose goal of taking the place of Trump, that is, trading one tyrant for another. But it turned out to be a pipe dream.

Then there’s Herschel Walker. He rivals the other Trumpites in incompetence and hypocrisy. Walker may be the worst individual in GOP history to run for office. What he says most of time comes out incoherent and just plain absurd.

Republicans like to say they oppose violent crime and abortion, but it’s precisely those flaws that Walker embodies. Walker has been known to have a temper to the point of being rather unstable. His ex-wife and other women have come out accusing Walker of making violent threats and going beyond that. Two women accused him of forcing them to get abortions. It’s also been said that Walker has fathered several children out of wedlock, something the Republicans, especially the religious right, disapprove of since they want sex to come after marriage.

On December 6, there was the Georgia senatorial runoff election which pitted Walker against Democrat Raphael Warnock. Fortunately, it was a victory for Warnock, which means that Georgia will have someone responsible as their senator, and not someone who would be a disaster.

On the abortion issue, right-wing commentator Dana Loesch apparently violated the precious, moral stance of “pro-lifers” by saying that he doesn’t care if Walker had pushed women to have abortions, couching this with an analogy about eagles having “endangered, baby eagles.” Contrary to the right’s position on family values, Loesch only cares about the GOP controlling the Senate. And this turned out to be a failure.

If Walker is insane enough to try and make a comeback and runs in future elections, Donald Trump just may stand by his side. But common sense will prevail if Walker fails again….and again.

And so, the conservative clowns will no doubt continue to push their agenda. But this is no laughing matter.