"THE KRAKEN" HAS BEEN RELEASED

It turns out, President Ulysses S. Grant saw our future, way back in 1875: “If we are to have another contest in the near future of our national existence, I predict that the dividing line will not be Mason and Dixon's but between patriotism and intelligence on the one side, and superstition, ambition and ignorance on the other.”

Donald Trump got booed by his supporters this past Saturday night at his mini-Nuremberg rally in Alabama, when he mentioned the vaccines his administration pushed to develop and told people he’d taken it and they ought to, too. As modest as his statement was, it was the furthest he’s gone on the topic. And clearly demonstrates that all those who thought his endorsement of the vaccines would be decisive in convincing his supporters to get the shot.

For a significant minority the answer was Nope! No way! Not even! And Hell No! On Sunday, InfoWars nutcase Alex Jones railed against Trump for “surrendering to CNN” and saying what he did at his rally, calling him a “disappointment.”

Folks, “the Kraken” whose release Trump’s supporters were calling for back in December, has been released.

On thing is certain, Donald Trump will not be saying anything remotely like that again. He was obviously surprised, from his expression and response, to the boos. He’ll never cross even the craziest ones again, because he knows without them, his future is the rest of his life spent wearing an orange jumpsuit in a windowless 8 x 10 in Sing-Sing.

At this point, it is useful to point out that recent polling in the wake of the major increase in the spread of the Delta variant has led to 51% of the vaccine hesitant self-identified “Republicans” telling poll takers that they either had been, or planned to get, vaccinated; 50% of self-identified “Conservatives” said this, and even 47% of those who primarily identified as “Trump supporters” said so. That’s good news.

But there’s that other half of those three demographics who say “No!” that have to be considered. They are the hard core Far Right, and while they are an overall minority of under 20% of the total U.S. population, that’s enough to cause serious trouble. As we saw last week when the North Carolina bubba showed up outside the Library of Congress with his bomb-that-wasn’t in his pick’m-up truck. I’m glad to see they took him at his word and charged him with threatening to use a “weapon of mass destruction”- a charge that has some considerable time in the slammer attached.

This bozo couldn’t put together a bomb, though he could gather the necessary materials for one that could have been dangerous.

What happens when the next one does know what he’s doing?

Because the one certainty now is, there WILL be a next one.

Back in 1875, President Ulysses S. Grant foresaw the future: “If we are to have another contest in the near future of our national existence, I predict that the dividing line will not be Mason and Dixon's but between patriotism and intelligence on the one side, and superstition, ambition and ignorance on the other.”

If we aren’t “there” now, we’re down the block and maybe around the corner from “there.”

Here is a thing that is true: The optimal mode for a democratic political systyem is the possession of (at least) two healthy political parties in competition for the support of a majority of voters.

That’s how you get the yin and yang cycle of progress followed by reform.

America is not currently in this mode.

What we have is one normal, responsible political party and one dangerous, anti-democratic party. As a result, we’re looking at a future of either: minority rule imposed by the anti-democratic party; or one-party rule if the responsible political party is able to assemble a majority coalition strong enough to deny the anti-democratic party power.

The first option is very bad. And in the long run, the second option isn’t good, either. The only solution is returning to a viable two-party system, which raises the question, how do you get from here to there? At any number of Never Trump sites run by conservatives, one can read dreams about elites reforming the party from within. Or future electoral failure and a drop into the kind of one-party system described above reforming the Republican party from outside the organization.

I wish my Never Trump friends well, but I think they don’t get just exactly how awful what used to be their Republican Party as become. At present, we’ve reached a place in American politics where the two parties are largely projections of the desires of their members.

Since a large number of Democrats want a center-left party that prioritizes middle-class economics, that’s what the Democratic party is. It may be boring, there’s not a lot of drama to fill up the 24/7 cable news cycle as there was for the previous four years, but it works.

Unfortunately, a large number of Republicans want a party that prioritizes white grievance culture and is at least open to the possible use of political violence. And that is what the party now is. I call them “white wingers.” And that can create even more drama and upset for the news cycle than happened before.

The problem for the actual conservatives, both the Never Trump folks and the people still in the party who await the imminent return of sanity, is that an appeal to “conservative principles” doesn’t seem to work.

These past two weeks have seen the right-wing media of the MAGAverse Entertainment Complex become increasingly rabid as they agitate to keep Afghan refugees out of our country. In response, the Wall Street Journal editorial board - which used to be the center of the Conservative Intellectual Universe - recently put out a new call for sanity on the subject. The editorial calls for resettling refugees here on the grounds that “conservative principles” require it: “It isn’t conservative to betray a promise to those who fought for us.” Indeed it isn’t, and it used to be that it was the conservatives who were the ones pointing out U.S. failure to protect our South Vietnamese allies after 1975, who agitated for us to protect anti-Soviet resisters and help them come here. The WSJ editorial concludes: Conservatives claim to believe in American exceptionalism, and they once took pride in welcoming exiles from authoritarian lands. They still court the votes of Cuban, Venezuelan, Korean and Vietnamese immigrants — all as American as anyone. Afghans who fought with us deserve no less.”

What the Afghans have been getting is called “invaders” by Tucker Carlson, or having the promise made to them by the U.S. government questioned by Laura Ingraham.

Never Trumper Megan McArdle writes: “For years, conservatives have explained that public health efforts are a legitimate exercise of government power. But back on July 9, evolutionary biologist and anti-vaxx leader Bret Weinstein claimed on "Tucker Carlson Today" that the anti-malarial drug Ivermectin, a drug used for the treatment of worms in both humans and animals, is effective against COVID-19, and is a superior treatment to vaccination. Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham have repeated the claim. Today, it was reported in Alabama that its now reported by the Mississippi Poison Control Center that they have received calls from people who had purchased Ivermectin for livestock and ingested it to treat and prevent COVID-19. Animal drugs are highly concentrated and can be highly toxic in humans.

The price of Ivermectin for cattle is $89.00 for 50 5mg pills according to an advertisement by the California Pet Pharmacy. A vaccination is free.

MAGA true believers have invested anti-mask and anti-vaxx sentiment with a kind of higher significance. In their world, all mandates as tyrannical by definition - selectively - applying this almost exclusively to mandates involving COVID which have taken on anti-totemic power.

We saw that on Saturday night.

The MAGAverse now opposes anti-covid mandates in direct contradiction to conservative principles, showing contempt for local control over schools and the right of individuals to run private businesses as they see fit. It wouldn’t surprise me to find they no longer believe in driver’s licenses and drunk-driving laws.

These people are not “conservative,” by any definition of that term. But these people are undeniably what the conservative movement is now.

The “Kraken” has been loosed, and anyone who sees these people as anything but a direct threat to the future of our constitutional democratic republic (lookin’ at you, Senators Manchin and Sinema) is a fool.

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