Goose-steppers in the name of freedom: The nonsensical cult that now rules America

[marmar]

Goose-steppers in the name of freedom: The nonsensical cult that now rules America
Trump's followers have embraced so many absurd, illogical contradictions they have no way back to reality. Do we?

By Mike Lofgren
Contributing Writer
Published April 5, 2025 9:00AM (EDT)


(Salon) Credo quia absurdum: "I believe because it is absurd." This is the common paraphrase of an argument by Tertullian, an early church father. It has been repeated through the centuries in various forms by religious apologists, and exemplifies a thought-terminating cliché: an idea that is ridiculous on its face, but stated in such a boldly counterintuitive and in-your-face manner that arguing against the proposition is futile.

....(snip)....

I am referring to extreme right-wing or fascist ideology, which for all its local varieties has a common core of beliefs or, more accurately, attitudes and poses. In the multiparty systems of Europe, it is usually represented by recently created parties to the right of traditional conservative parties. In the U.S. two-party system, it has swallowed one of the two existing parties, usurping the role of conservatism and exploiting traditional party loyalties.

....(snip)....

How does this history of hyper-patriotism coexist with the Republicans’ revered, practically deified leader, Donald Trump, calling America "a garbage can for the world," a global "laughing stock" or a "third world country"? How does it square with a Republican president playing the sycophantic beta-sidekick to Vladimir Putin, whose hostility to the United States requires no underlining? If a Democratic president talked or acted like that, the cries of “treason” and relentless media and congressional scrutiny would sweep him out of office.

The answer is that Republicans’ endless harping on patriotism has been a performative camouflage and effective inoculation against un-American acts. Richard Nixon’s presidency was the first I recall in which wearing an enameled American flag lapel pin became the way to demonstrate you were a real American; yet candidate Nixon, by colluding with foreign interests to torpedo the 1968 Paris peace talks, almost certainly committed treason. ........................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2025/04/05/goose-steppers-in-the-name-of-freedom-the-nonsensical-that-now-rules-america/

[kimbutgar]

1. It feels like Germany 1930's 2.0 now and Hitler is orange

Grabbing people on the streets and putting them in prisons.