Gazpacho..Gestapo… let’s call the whole thing off….
In case you missed it, The Guardian has the story.
The extremist Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene triggered a wave of viral jokes on Wednesday after ranting about the “gazpacho police” patrolling the Capitol building in Washington DC.
Greene was apparently mixing up the famously cold Spanish soup gazpacho with the Gestapo – the brutal Nazi-era secret police in Germany….
“Not only do we have the DC jail which is the DC gulag, but now we have Nancy Pelosi’s gazpacho police spying on members of Congress, spying on the legislative work that we do, spying on our staff and spying on American citizens,” she said, referring to the Democratic speaker of the House.
Greene seems unperturbed by the fact that she’s become a joke–a punch line–for previous, widely-reported accusations that being made to wear a mask is equivalent to what Jews suffered during the Holocaust, and that California’s forest fires were started by “space lasers” funded by George Soros.
What is truly sad is that she is not an anomaly in today’s GOP.
The RNC has just labeled a violent insurrection meant to overturn an election as “legitimate political discourse.”
A Republican Congresswoman has quoted Hitler–approvingly–in a recent speech.
Billionaire Peter Thiel, a Trump ally, who is funding an effort to elect Trump-aligned candidates in 2022 says he “no longer believe[s] that freedom and democracy are compatible,” and has deplored the extension of the franchise to women.
In one of her recent “Letters From An American,” Heather Cox Richardson detailed the increasing hysteria of statements issued by various Republicans as the investigation into the insurrection tightens around them.
Richardson reports that Peter Navarro responded to receipt of a subpoena from the committee investigating January 6th with “a fire-eating statement “calling the members of the January 6 committee “domestic terrorists” engaged in a “partisan witch hunt.” He also tried to blame House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Capitol Police for the violence on January 6, and accused Mike Pence of treason for saying he lacked authority to overturn the election.
it isn’t just at the federal level.
In Nevada, that state’s “most notorious pimp” just won a Republican primary in a campaign for the state legislature.
In Utah, a bill to create a digital driver’s license program was derailed when dozens of protestors flocked to a House committee to share fears that the measure would result in a United Nations takeover or establishment of concentration camps.
One woman invoked the New Testament’s Book of Revelation when she called digital driver’s licenses “moving one step closer to the mark of the beast.”
In Florida, Senator Marco Rubio has apparently decided to join DeSantis in pandering to the GOP’s irrational and racist base.
On Face the Nation, he said: “This commission is a partisan scam. They’re going after—they’re—the purpose of that commission is to try to embarrass and smear and harass as many Republicans as they can get their hands on.”
Yesterday, he released a video saying “Biden is sending free meth & crack pipes to minority communities in the name of ‘racial equity’…. There is no end in sight for this lunacy.“
Well, there certainly doesn’t seem to be an end in sight for GOP lunacy. No one--and certainly not Biden–is sending “free meth and crack pipes” to anyone, and suggesting that such items are being directed to “minority communities” is clearly intended to play to the Republicans’ increasingly racist base.
Per Richardson:
Exaggeration and demonization of their opponents has been part of politics for years, as Republicans tried to fire up their base by describing their opponents as socialists, lazy “takers,” baby-killers, and so on. Now, though, these over-the-top attacks on the committee and on the Democratic administration seem to be part of a new political project.
The frantic edge to them suggests concern about what the January 6th committee might uncover.
But statements like those yesterday of Representative Louie Gohmert (R-TX), who claimed the Department of Justice was reading his mail; Nehls, who claimed that Pelosi was using the Capitol Police to spy on him; and Greene, who claims Pelosi has a “Gestapo,” normalize the practices of authoritarian government.
“Back in the day,” as we old folks might say, it would simply have been unthinkable that embarrassments like Greene, Gohmert, Gosar, Boebert and numerous others of their ilk would be elected to Congress. There were certainly undistinguished, patently ignorant and even evil people who brought shame and disrepute upon that body, but I am aware of nothing approaching the current multitude of profoundly unserious, bat-shit-crazy bigots that has aptly been dubbed (by former Republican Speaker of the House, John Boehner, if memory serves) “the lunatic caucus.”
From soup to nuts…..
And lets not forget the bat shit crazy Ron Johnson from WI (Who is on the ballet this year)
Well … (IT) happens, it seems more often with a lot of help from (S & H) Greene. So … you have to be old enough to appreciate sarcastic punditry.
“Back in the day,” as we old folks might say, it would simply have been unthinkable that embarrassments like Greene, Gohmert, Gosar, Boebert and numerous others of their ilk would be elected to Congress.”
America’s “back in the day” ended when “The Donald” rode that escalator down to his waiting crowd to announce he was running for president. Statistics show that he garnered 20% of the RNC vote; why didn’t the 80% against him end the fiasco before it could begin. I would gladly welcome “back in the day” prior to 2015, warts and all, to end the Fascist, pussy-grabbing, document shredding, government built on lies, racism and violence who continue holding this nation hostage. It took more than “The Donald” to convert democracy to Fascism; those minority Republicans sitting mute and idle wield more power than our elected Democrats and our slim majority.
“Well, there certainly doesn’t seem to be an end in sight for GOP lunacy.” We are all inmates in this asylum with no release date in sight.
You have MTG and Adam Kinzinger in the same party! MTG ran unopposed! We Democrats need to make sure that voters can select someone liberal even in the reddest counties in the country. Seriously folks, people are so divided that it is fracturing friendships and families all over the world. That’s why there are so many angry people out there making trouble. We have to get sanity on the ballot. First thing is we need to shit down the propaganda channels for our health. Truth must come back in fashion.
I can only dream at this point.
JoAnn,
I always enjoy your posts. In this one, I think “back in the day” ended with Reagan’s declaration that government was the problem. He began the continuing undermining of our peoples’ trust in our government – you know, the one they elected. Rove, Atwater, Gingrich, DeLay, Armie, et. al., were the dynamite hole drillers for what Trump has done and what the irrational (Haven’t they always been?) Republicans.
Maybe Todd will tell us again about how the oligarch-owned media gives these idiots all the platform they need to sow and continue that mistrust. I’m sure his outlets are willing to sell advertising to keep that ball rolling.
Yes, Vernon, plenty of outlets still cater to these fools. They use just enough near-truths to capture the imaginations of these lunatics.
It also provides great cover for the Oligarchs who continue robbing the country blind without any opposition from the so-called political left in this country.
It’s sleight of hand while you all chase the smokey cover. These idiots are being used intentionally because it works. While you’re watching these fools, the real thieves back up their semi-trucks to their local Fed or the government handouts going directly to corporations across the country.
For instance, Intel, a market failure by all accounts, just received billions in taxpayer money so they can build a new plant in Ohio and staff it up while we continue shoveling wheelbarrows full of money into the Pentagon coffers over the fears of WW3.
But, by all means, let’s chat about GOP idiocy. You’ve fallen for the bait, hook, line, and sinker…
How does it taste?
Yet the National Democratic Party remains silent! The party leadership should have been loudly speaking out against those crazies and labeling them for what they are.
When supposedly sane conservative members of congress are questioned about their fellow crazy news-grabbing associates they speak softly and refrain from condemning the crazies. Yet when those supposedly sane conservatives want to participate in false stories about their fellow Democrat members they easily speak out forcefully with harsh words. The games they play are sickening.
That’s really a thing!
MTG was referring to Soup Nazis, lol!
The problem with knowing history, is that you can see much farther back than Reagan. By the time Benjamin Harrison was President the GOP believed that the office was rightfully theirs.
AgingLGirl – I think the next to last sentence in the first paragraph of your comment has a misspelled word, but it actually does seem appropriate. Thanks for the laugh.
A pat on the back for your clever title to today’s missive, Sheila! I laughed out loud, knowing exactly what you were referring to, when I read the headline in my morning email. You have the gift, my dear; no doubt about it! Thanks for pouring yourself into these articles every day and sharing them with the world (or at least a little slice of the world). There are many days when you (and Heather Cox Richardson) keep me from losing heart.
Vernon; in what may have been Reagan’s first speech to the nation as president he began, “It is the best of times, it is the worst of times. As Charles Dickens said in his novel “A Christmas Carol”. I knew we were in trouble.
And we have never learned exactly when his symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease began.
Well, if the gazpacho police and Jewish space lasers don’t get you, the Luftwaffle will.
Sorry, JoAnn. That quote was from “A Tale of Two Cities”.
Todd,
No, I haven’t fallen for anything. It’s very clear that Marx was right about capitalism. All that we see and read these days is based on money, power and the weakest human traits embodied in our “leaders”. How is it that most of the world’s leaders are now war-mongering idiots? Start there and work you way back 200,000 years to a cave near you.
Oodles of red-state election district voters who unknowingly embrace nihilism are the only reason these soup nazis and nut balls have found a home in national and state elected offices. The vast majority, but not all, of them are angry and entitled white Boomers and GenXers.
And they are tragically lost to us…there’s nothing we can say or do to appease them or win them over to an alternative worldview or political stance because objective reason is not in their toolbox. The rest of us just need to press on and motivate our fellow rational citizens across the entire political spectrum to vote for candidates who promise to keep the democratic republic alive. We must beat them again and again and again…and arrest, try, convict and sentence those who break laws to overturn or overthrow legitimate election outcomes.
I wish there was more to it than that but I just can’t see it.
Why don’t they be honest and state the fact that freedom and democracy are not conducive to expanding corporate capitalism and the power of the ownership class. Freedom for us means less money for them and they would sacrifice every last one of us to protect their profits.
The GOP has become the party of malapropisms, “For all intensive porpoises.”
So Fox News is for entertainment and not news. After the riot in the Capitol, what will it take to wake people up ?
Who remembers the foolish ‘Front Porch’ Harmon – Democratic Rep from Muncie – who had his front porch named a post office substation. He was merely a fool and embarrassment and served ONE term. These current yay-hoos are in ‘safe’ GOP districts and their own party is complicit by its silence.
Vernon; I know that, it is the first line in the book “A Tale Of Two Cities”, the fact that he did not is why I knew we were in trouble.
We are in for 4-6 years of this lunacy, and by then the country will have come to its senses, or we will be engaged in a social, educational and economic civil war.
So, if the GQP is taken down by the nuts, and Donny-Boy, what kind of thing will replace it? I’m afraid that there are so many crazies out there,
and that they are so motivated, that we may never be free of their influence in politics.
JoAnn,
I’m sorry for misreading and thus misunderstanding your comment. I’ve gotta slow down in the mornings. This blog spins me up too quickly.
“Exaggeration and demonization of their opponents has been part of politics for years”
In my memory, this is true but in the past and still in the Senate Chambers, it was largely about policy disagreements.
The reason that our government now fails to work for anyone, is that it has become a completely open season on a personal level, and that includes the public in general.
The only way that it can get worse is civil war. The only way it can get better is if a majority of us make a personal commitment to return to the old standard.
I adopt Patrick’s “We start from where we are and press on” idea of how to weather this Know-Nothing storm. It is not enough to decry how we got here. Here we are, so what now? Keep on keeping on. Persevere. Elect those who have visions of service leading to the common good.
Not taking my own advice, I think how we got here involves the usual greedhogs but with a new twist, i.e., permission under the guise of “freedom” to pursue alternative realities, which when played out often denies any opportunity we may have had to communicate and debate what’s best for the country without reference to color, religion and other data points of hatred. How to survive the loss of a common platform from which to negotiate and debate? Until a better alternative becomes evident, what Patrick wrote.
P.S. Vern, you destroyed my plan to correct another contributor’s offering with “A Tail of Two Cities.” Uh. . .
Hey Nancy
Indeed it was a typo…but is it? Lol. I had a good laugh too.
It doesn’t feel like there’s any way to fight it either. When every reasoned fact-check is attributed to biased leftwing media or liberal elites (in academia) , then what can you do? It’s clear they are honestly convinced that WE are the deluded ones.
JoAnn, I agree with Vernon. “Back in the day” may have _ended_ with Trump’s appearance, but it was on its way well before that. And the progress towards the end was steady and increasing. Trump’s appearance just accelerated the process a little.
Todd, just discussing a particular issue doesn’t mean people are unaware of the rest of society’s problems. The fact that you jumped all over Vernon for this is more suggestive that your own biases are blinding you, not the other way around.
Good work on finding the following: “In Utah, a bill to create a digital driver’s license program was derailed when dozens of protestors flocked to a House committee to share fears that the measure would result in a United Nations takeover or establishment of concentration camps. One woman invoked the New Testament’s Book of Revelation when she called digital driver’s licenses ‘moving one step closer to the mark of the beast’.”
I’d like to be at the airline counter when these protestors try to board a plane by showing the “non-digital” driver’s license. I believe that very soon one won’t be able to board a domestic flight without a “passport” or a “digital driver’s license”. The enhanced “digital” license is, I believe, part of an attempt to make driver’s license more secure and less capable of being forged. That effort, of course, is a detriment to illegal immigration and underage drinking.
The current “issue” regarding crack pipes is another example of we liberals over-reacting to a GOP-frame (in other words, to a non-issue). It’s well-supported via research that providing safe environments and safe, clean equipment helps cut down on harm, deaths, disease, and can often lead to treatment and help for people suffering with drug addiction. Vancouver has had successful sites for years, and Europe has used them for decades. But the rightwing frames it as providing drugs (which is just not true) and crack pipes to people (especially pointing at minority groups), and once again we defend against THAT, to the detriment of the program. It is SO frustrating.
The real reason that the GOP attacks this issue in particular is equally infuriating. They don’t want to treat addiction and mental illness as a health issue. This may be due to a desire to quell anything that might lead to reform of the health system, but it’s also because they believe these are moral failings of the individuals suffering, so the sufferers deserve scorn and punishment, not empathy and aid. It’s despicable.
Vernon–
As someone who enjoys and appreciates your comments, but who was also a victim of a very harsh and vindictive response from you a while back when you misread and misinterpreted a comment I made (which I chose not to respond to since Sheila had already emailed me that morning that she agreed with me), I applaud your decision to “slow down in the mornings” before responding. Otherwise, I look forward to your interesting and illuminating takes on Sheila’s comments!
Vernon; all OK, I need to speed up most mornings so we are meeting somewhere in the middle.
Gerald; good to know we have read and remember the classics. I am in good company with you and Vern.
Nancy and ALG: I giggled, too! Nice Freudian slip, as in “It’s kistomary to cuss the bride”. We desperately need a few smiles these days. That was one!
Mike S.
Well, if the gazpacho police and Jewish space lasers don’t get you, the Luftwaffle will.
Thanks for the belly laugh. I laughed so loud, I think I woke my neighbor up!
Nancy and ALG/. No, wait, my example was a malapropism! Yours was a darned good belly-laugh of a typo. Have a good weekend, everyone!
Mike S -LOL – do the Luftwaffles come with whipped cream or maple syrup?
Now to be serious – the sad problem is a combination of ineptitude on the part of Democrats (and right-wing/money-grubbing Democrats like Sinema and Manchin) and —
“Independents” and “moderate” Republicans who don’t see what is happening and say – everything is fine – “They are coming for the Democrats, but I am a suburban Republican, so I don’t have to worry. I have nothing to lose.” — except perhaps democracy.
And other Republicans who say “Yes, they embarrass, me, but I couldn’t possibly vote for a Democrat.”
Until the Republicans get trounced in the polls, the “sane” Republicans have NO change to reclaim their party, we will become enured to the “lunatic caucus”, and the Overton Window will continue down the slippery slope as MTG becomes “too liberal”.
Oh – and there will be another reason ascribed to Tom Lehrer as to why political satire has become redundant.
I did mean to add one delusion that these “moderate suburbanites” seem to share. They believe that they can elect a Republican who won’t turn Trumpista once they are elected. The pressure on any Republican, once elected, will be to toe the line on abortion, LGBTQ rights, COVID, and book banning, not to mention voting rights.
Vernon, Kennedy/Richardson stir me up for the entire day.
Add in activist Harry Belafonte (you tube, 2006 Town Hall on Poverty at Yale)
I feel alive!!