Firebombing for Bigots
An article in this morning’s Tulsa World newspaper featured the firebombing of a local donut shop that had the audacity to host an artist’s gallery show with drag queens as servers. This is a local example of the rampant violence promoted and condoned by right-wing media spewing hate, lies, and misinformation to rally an ignorant and bigoted audience to savagery.
The campaign to demonize anyone, who is not a white supremacist or has the courage to stand for truth and justice or equal rights for all our citizens, has become the conspiratorial mantra of Republican candidates across the nation.
Bolstered by the fanatical Fox network megaphone, dark money is funding a slate of unqualified liars and vote-deniers making outrageous claims to demean legitimate aspirants for offices in every state. Those falsehoods have resulted in senseless threats and violent attacks on politicians, poll workers, and their families. The recent assault on Paul Pelosi is just one example in a rapidly growing trend.
In a 2020 lawsuit against the Fox Network, Fox lawyers claimed that they were not a news network but rather an “entertainment” organization. Admitting that “Fox News” was a misnomer, they inferred that their biased programming and blatant lies should not be judged against the standards maintained by real news networks.
Meanwhile, there are no FCC restraints to prevent cable “talk show hosts” from grooming and indoctrinating their audiences with permission to hate and attack anyone who represents actual facts or truth or common decency for that matter. Politically inspired murder and mob violence are perfectly acceptable outcomes for their carefully crafted propaganda.
Donald Trump and the radicals in today’s Republican Party have fashioned a legion of thugs and misfits who have been indoctrinated by an avalanche of false and misleading theories and lies. Given targets to hate and encouragement from radical politicians, assaulting a public figure is national news that makes the perpetrator famous for twenty-four hours and fosters more viscous and irrational attacks.
The question in all of this is, how far are we, the American people, going to allow this to go? What shocking tragedy has to occur before we join together to demand an end to the perpetual conspiracy theories and outright lies, the violent rhetoric and inconceivable crimes that have become ‘normal’ and even ‘acceptable’? Why are those of us who still possess a soul not outraged by every new barbarity?
The serpent that devoured the Republican Party of old has become a predator with an insatiable appetite for unrestricted power. If the diehard vote-deniers and militant white-nationalists win the coming elections, the nightmare will consume any hope for the resurrection of a civil society or even the basic concept of democracy.
This is the moment when real patriots must stand together to defend the principles and ideals that bind us into a nation of hope and honor. This is the opportunity to put our differences aside to ensure that our freedoms are passed on through generations and not extinguished by tyrants.
You have the power. Vote as if the future depends on your choices, because it does.
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