FAKE QUOTES, KLANNED KARENHOOD, AND YOKELRY

For those of you who may have missed Senator Josh Hawley’s Independence Day tweet, the ‘Manhood‘ author raised his right-wing fist once again by misquoting Patrick ‘Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death’ Henry regarding the importance of Christianity in the founding of this nation. “It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ,” he babbled. Further, Hawley claimed Henry said, “For this reason, peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.” That stretches it a bit about slaveholder Henry’s sentiments, but it’s also telling about the senator who is regarded as one of the GOP’s brilliant minds, being a Stanford University grad, thanks to his mother’s alumna status, and a product of Yale Law School, afterwards clerking on the Supreme Court.

The fake quote from Patrick Henry was sourced from the April 1956 edition of the hostile, antisemitic, white nationalist magazine, ‘The Virginian‘, later reprinted in ‘The American Mercury’, a publication co-founded by H.L. Mencken, which featured top writers from the 1920s and 1930s. Mencken described the work as “a serious review, the gaudiest and damnedest ever seen in the Republic. What we need is something that looks highly respectable outwardly. The American Mercury is almost perfect for the purpose. What will go inside the tent is another story. You will recall the late P.T. Barnum got away with burlesque shows by calling them moral lectures.” The magazine’s subscription form featured the Mencken quote, “The dead hand of the yokelry on the instinct for beauty cannot be so heavy if the handsome green and black cover of The American Mercury exists.” 

Ownership changed in the 1940s, attracting conservative writers, one of whom was William F. Buckley. Another change in ownership in the 1950s provided a voice for far-right and anti-Semitic proponents, with George Lincoln Rockwell being a featured writer. Rockwell went on to found the American Nazi Party…enuf said? Later, the magazine sold to the Defenders of the Christian Faith, owned by Reverend Gerald Burton Winrod of Wichita, Kansas. The reverend had charges dropped for violating the Sedition Act of 1918, but he earned the nickname of ‘The Jayhawk Nazi’ during the Second World War. The magazine saw several transitions and mergers, eventually becoming a quarterly, and an article in 1978 praised Adolf Hitler as the greatest Spenglerian, while lamenting his death. The final issue in 1980 lamented the passing of Mencken’s time, “before the virus of social, racial, and sexual equality” grew in “fertile soil in the minds of most Americans,” while pleading for contributions to establish a computer index holding information on the 15,000 most dangerous political activists in the US. The website created in 2010 was condemned by the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2013, calling it a ‘Leo Frank Propaganda Site,’ deeply anti-semitic while retaining H.L. Mencken’s original magazine name. Frank was a Jewish factory worker in Atlanta, wrongfully convicted of murder, and hanged by a mob which removed him from his imprisonment. Senator Hawley knows how to access information to further incite the GOP base as he attempts to tailor himself as a mentor of masculinity, affirming that he is just as dangerous as Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene, Paul Gosar, and Lauren Boebert. The false vision they hold, the perverted version of our history they put forth must be defeated and called out in every instance!

Another case in point, is the recent Moms for Liberty ‘Blessings of the Liberty’ prayer breakfast during which North Carolina Lt. Governor Mark Robinson defended the group’s use of a Hitler quote in their newsletter, arguing that we should be re-reading the quotes of Der Fuehrer and other dictators. How convenient that the anti-LGBTQ hate group is living up to their nickname of ‘Klanned Karenhood’ by inviting Robinson, and coincidentally, a Rabbi as well! The Lt. governor had the chutzpah to reference Josef Stalin, Chairman Mao, Pol Pot and Castro as worthy of our attention, even as he runs for the governorship of his state. Need it be mentioned that he has endorsed Donald Trump’s run for a pardon, along with the GOP nomination for president? Former Senator Claire McCaskill said on Morning Joe, “I think it’s time we realize that Donald Trump is not running for president, he’s running for pardon. I think it’s time we realize that the Republicans are afraid of him, and the base that supports him, no matter what.” Sounds logical since The Don hasn’t come up with a platform that any one cares about…no mention of trade, foreign policy, healthcare costs, abortion, guns, the economy…only his victimhood – for another year and a half? Somebody help us!

Charles Blow, in his New York Times column headlined ‘Republicans’ Anti-Woke, Anti-Vote Crusade Has Crashed into the Constitution’, writes, “The same party that argues for parental rights when haranguing and harassing educators about what is being taught and read in the classroom couldn’t care less about the parental rights of those trying to provide the best care for their children or who want their children to have an awareness and understanding of the broad spectrum of humanity and its expressions of love. The Republican politicians pushing these un-American laws aren’t constitutional absolutists; they are constitutional opportunists. The same is true when it comes to elections, where the Republican strategy has become clear: Rather than change their party to appeal more broadly to the electorate, many Republican politicians are whittling away at the electorate and our election architecture, trying to remove or hamstring those aspects of the process that could lead them to losing. They want to change the very meaning of democracy, shrinking to a government chosen by the chosen, a more originalist version of our system in which only certain people participate.” 

When the GOP says ‘woke,’ they mean ‘Black.’ When they say ‘Soros‘ or ‘globalist,’ they mean ‘Jewish,’ When they mention parent’s rights, they mean Christian zealots’ rights to overrule all other parents. ‘Freedom‘ means freedom to indoctrinate and impose agendas, freedom to restrict voting and overturn elections, freedom to deny medical treatment, freedom to inspect children’s genitals, freedom to wield state power while encouraging vigilante violence against those who disagree or look different. The GOP today caters to three groups: the NRA, untaxed billionaires, and white supremacist theocratic bigots, leaving them with only two values: privilege and hate, while being chained to a grifting fraudster, a chronic liar who has no respect for the rule of law.

Though The Former Guy’s hopes for a pardon can’t be initiated by him should he be seated in the Oval Office again…power of the pardon to protect oneself from criminal liability is a no-no, at least at present. He was asked in the recent CNN Town Hall whether he would pardon the J6 Insurrectionists if he wins in 2024. He told Kaitlan Collins next to nothing as he gave one of his noncommittal answers, “strongly considering it, but some of them got carried away.” The ones who “got carried away,” in particular, are the Proud Boys who point their fingers at Trump as their boss, calling themselves the foot soldiers who were only following orders, so it’s too early (or is it too late…who can tell?) to be showing favoritism in the game. But what’s a president to do if some of the J6ers are BLM or Antifa, as many in his Base claim? Or if some participants were FBI who tricked Patriots into committing crimes? And why didn’t DJT use some of the $250k he grifted from his minions, to ‘stop the steal,’ in defense of his followers before they went to trial? But then, why did 500 or so people plead guilty if they were only ‘touring’ the Capitol on a normal day…as some of Trump’s Base followers claim?

Too late we find out about the J6 Truth and Light Festival held last Friday through Sunday in Rogersville, MO, near Springfield, featuring numerous speakers, live and via Zoom, some of whom are facing multiple felony charges in connection with the January 6, 2021 assault on Washington, DC, one recently being sentenced to eighteen years in prison. The website promised “An amazing weekend of love and support for our J6 community! Bring your RV, tent, lawn chairs and the whole family for this annual gathering of the Jan6 community!” A weekend family pass was priced at $150.00, an individual pass was $75.00, the daily pass was $37.50, and the J6 defendant pass was a bargain at $0.00! Opportunity for a donation to the American Patriot Relief fund was provided as well. Plus a fireworks display Saturday evening…what a bargain, and to think it’s an annual event, first held last year – be sure to get your photos taken with the detainees for the family album, an event to remember! However, the promo material specified it was a closed event, only for J6ers and families, with all funds raised going to honor those individuals charged. Seven of the 28 Missouri defendants are from the Springfield area, and those who monitor extremist groups say it only serves to promote future violence by framing the insurrectionists as martyrs and building toward a nationalist insurrection.

Sponsors of the festival included StopHate.com, J6Truth.org, and American Gulag Chronicles, with supporters being listed as J6 Patriot News, Patriot Mail Project, Tommy Tatum News, Freedom Express Media, Mel Hawley of Justice in Jeopardy and Patriots at Large. The organization claims it is raising money to help families attend court hearings and jail visitations, and care for children. Don Haider-Markel, a poli-sci professor at the University of Kansas, and expert on political extremism predicted the festival likely has “a pretty narrow appeal. But I definitely think its further evidence of the sort of radicalization of the far-right, allowing participants to essentially publicly express their identity. That not only reinforces those identities, but it also can tend to radicalize people further.” The professor called attention to Taylor Taranto who was arrested in DC last week, near Barack Obama’s home, in possession of two guns, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, and a machete. “I think we will see more and more incidents like that, where we have individuals who are part of this larger movement who sort of spin off and decide, ‘Hey, I’m gonna go do something.”

Senior Analyst Daryl Johnson, formerly of the Department of Homeland Security, says the J6 defendants and their advocates have hijacked the ‘patriot’ name as they attempt to create the historical view that these people did the right thing, standing up to government corruption, as they attempted to save the Constitution. He says, “These people believe that God’s on their side, and they are self-righteous truth-holders protecting our country. And celebrating these people who participated in the DC riot by calling them patriots is keeping that fervor alive for 2024.” As Aldous J. Pennyfarthing writes, “Nice to know J6 rioters are a ‘community’ now. Of course, it makes perfect sense. Bashing in cops’ heads with flagpoles is hard work, and everyone needs to pitch in. Sadly, conservatives have been doing their best to normalize the J6 events, pretty much since that evening when Fox News and others openly speculated that the riot had actually been launched by liberal agitators who had inexplicably decided to disrupt the election of the guy they’d voted for and desperately hoped would win. As the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) noted on the second anniversary of J6, the danger Trump and his followers posed to our democracy on that fateful day has arguably grown. We had that whole Civil War business in the mid-1800s, and that probably should have settled the issue once and for all. But we let Confederacy-Humpers hang around like a bad bathroom chandelier.”

Aldous J. continues, “We have also learned that white supremacy and hard-right extremism have been normalized and mainstreamed to a dangerous degree. According to a June 2022 poll jointly conducted by SPLC and Tulchin Research, the mainstreaming of hate and anti-government thought, and the willingness to engage in political violence, are now widely accepted on the right. And now, they’re so enamored with their bumblin’ coup, they’re holding events to honor the perpetrators. Because nothing says ‘I’m sorry’ like a $9 Costco sheet cake that actually says, ‘Nice Try, Traitor – Better Luck Next Time!”

Trump’s aide tells him, “Sir, I had a dream you got your parade! It was miles and miles long, winding through Washington, DC. Joyful Americans lining the route, literally in the millions. People were laughing, cheering, playing in the street, and you were riding in the most beautiful carriage!” Trump asks, “I must have been really pleased?” The aide answers, “I couldn’t tell, sir. It was a closed casket.”