Mordor In Orlando

 

CPAC is back, and it is more deranged and dishonest than ever.

With a golden idol of their messiah greeting them, CPAC has become nothing but a Trump rally by another name.

American conservatism has been subsumed by Trumpism. Conservatives who know Trump is a liar and criminal are shunned as weak RINOs.

Conservatism, like the Republican Party platform, is now whatever Trump says it is. The Republican Party is the Party of Trump. Trumpism is conservatism 

Conservatism has always been the myth that the status quo is superior to social progress, racial equality, equal justice under law. Conservative mythology has always been antagonistic towards Constitutional taxes, Constitutional regulation of commerce, and Constitutional provision for the general welfare. Conservative mythology embraces voter suppression, capital punishment and harsh law enforcement. Conservatives were the last people to resist ending slavery and segregation. Conservative mythology opposed women’s suffrage and the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act 

Conservative mythology has always required an authoritarian mentality, and is always ripe for being re-framed by an authoritarian leader.

Their mythology provides a ready built foundation for a tyrant and one-party despotism. It coddles the rich and punishes the poor. It demands conformity, as it reviles and demonizes dissent and opposition. It’s values are not democracy love, compassion and decency. Resentment, blame, and anger are their unifying emotions. Any lie that serves those tools of social leverage and emotional manipulation is acceptable. The means always justify the ends. Conservatism is supreme, and held above any other ideology and philosophy. Even their religion will bow to conservatism through tax cuts for the rich and stripping health care and food stamps from the poor. You don’t have to look far to see those who picture Jesus as a Republican, and he sent Trump to save America.

Conservatives value unquestioning obedience and loyalty to their leaders, and mindless acceptance of their propaganda.

Why? Because conservatism is always right. Conservatism never fails. Conservatives are the real patriots. Conservatives are moral and never lie. Conservatives are indoctrinated to believe those who don’t agree with them will fail, are not patriots, and are immoral liars.

The same lofty delusions also envelop Trumpism.

 They accept and revere these delusions as they “hold these truths to be self-evident”.

They believe that only conservatives truly know what the founders wanted for our country and our government. 

But how “self-evident” are their truths?

The Declaration of Independence says:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,”

Conservatism holds that conservatives are more entitled to “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” than lesser Americans. When it comes to minorities and immigrants, those values become quite flexible. The quaint notion of government “deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed” goes out the window when they repeatedly exercise minority rule by winning the presidency with fewer votes than the Democrat. This is what they call a “mandate” and the “will of the people”.

The Senate is rigged just for them as well. McConnell desecrated the Constitution by denying the appointment of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. “Too close to the election” that was eight months away. Ramming through Justice Barrett DURING an election was just fine, though. This is conservatism.

The 50 Democratic senators represent millions more Americans than do the 50 Republican senators.  It takes only 51Republican votes to give huge tax cuts to the rich, but it takes 60 votes to raise the minimum wage. Funny how that works. This is conservatism, and the government is held hostage to it. This is why they need to reject democracy and suppress voter rights

 But conservatives, especially white conservatives, don’t see it that way. They will incessantly whine that they are the real victims of racism, prejudice, injustice, and lost opportunity. Just ask one.

This weekend CPAC has gathered in “Mordor in Orlando”. Their Supreme Leader will speak Sunday, so his remarks will be addressed later.

The resentment, anger, hatred and lies are amplified and reinforced by the CPAC cult followers of Trump.

 CNN reported and fact checked the lies:

 - The segment was titled "YOUR VOTES CANCELED." They were denying the fact that Joe Biden gained ground late on election night in vote-counting in swing states, saying this was "statistically impossible".

We know all the mail in votes could not be counted on election day. In fact Republicans obstructed Pennsylvania from counting them before election day.

- "The reason that people stormed the Capitol was because they felt hopeless because of a rigged election."

Facts First: The election was not rigged. Joe Biden was the legitimate winner. There is no evidence of widespread fraud or malfeasance.

- "Democrats, not Republicans, installed ballot drop boxes on sidewalks, where nobody oversaw them. How many fraudulent ballots got deposited in these boxes unchecked and then got counted? Who knows."

There is no sign that these drop boxes were used fraudulently in the 2020 election. The boxes were secured in various ways: affixed to the ground, designed with anti-tampering measures, and, in many cases, subjected to 24-hour video surveillance. Also, some states and counties run by Republicans made use of ballot drop boxes.

- "...a lot of people there (Storming the Capitol.)-- Antifa was there, BLM was there, MAGA people were there, everybody was there. And if Joe Biden wants to talk unity, there was unity there on that day, because America is sick and tired of being pushed down."

No evidence supports this, of course.

- They (CNN)asked Joe Biden about it, (China’s Uygers) and he said it amounted to a mere cultural difference. I don't think that more disgusting words have ever left the lips of an American president."

“We must speak up for human rights. It's who we are." Biden said to President Xi Jinping on their February phone call that "no American president can be sustained as a president if he doesn't reflect the values of the United States. And so the idea I'm not going to speak out against what he's doing in Hong Kong, what he's doing with the Uyghurs in western mountains of China ...

- "The rest of the world almost exclusively does voting in person because of the opportunities for fraud in mail-in voting."

Approximately 1/4 of countries use mail-in voting. In the United States, evidence of mail ballot fraud is exceedingly rare.

- Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton claimed, "We have a border wall, partly along where El Paso is. Before that occurred, El Paso was one of the highest crime cities in America. When they put that up it actually made them one of the more safe cities. So we know they work."

According to an analysis of FBI crimes data and city law enforcement data analyzed by the El Paso Times, violent crime in El Paso peaked in 1993. Border fence construction didn't begin until 2008, and was completed in 2009. Violent crime in El Paso fell 34% between 1993 and 2006. And according to the El Paso Times, from 2006 to 2011, violent crime in El Paso actually increased by 17 percent.

- Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar said that 99 percent of undocumented immigrants don't attend court proceedings after they are released from US custody. "They're releasing 50 undocumented aliens into the streets and hoping they'll come back for their court appearances, but over 99% of them do not do that."

 According to the latest statistics from the Justice Department, 75% of the cases decided that year.

- California Rep. Devin Nunes complained, "When you go into the Department of Motor Vehicles, you're gonna register to vote. Even if you don't want to register to vote, they register you to vote.” (Gasp! The tyranny!)

California citizens are automatically registered to vote when filling out certain forms at the DMV, but are allowed to opt out if they so choose.

- "And wind and solar, as great as they may be, they are not reliable. You need that constant reliable source of coal and natural gas that has to be there. But that's not there if you have wind and solar, which is what we saw in Texas."

While all sources of power failed to some extent in Texas, the bulk of outages were due to fossil fuel sources going offline, in large part due to the lack of winterization in the state's energy infrastructure. According to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which manages the state's power grid, most of the power outages were due to losses in coal, natural gas and nuclear energy.

-  Former North Carolina Rep. Mark Walker -- who is a candidate to fill the state's US Senate seat after Sen. Richard Burr retires in 2023 -- said that Democrats have recently started supporting criminal justice reform. "The left, they're finally getting on board with criminal justice reform." Walker said.

Obama tried to get criminal justice reform passed during his second term in office, but a bipartisan bill failed in the Senate during the 2016 presidential election, when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell decided not to bring it up for a vote. The Obama administration took reform steps that did not require Republican approval, such as banning the use of solitary confinement for juveniles in federal prisons, working with state and local governments to reduce pre-trial incarceration and the incarceration of people with mental illnesses, and instructing federal prosecutors to try to avoid triggering mandatory minimum sentences for certain non-violent drug offenders.

This is conservatism as portrayed at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference. Sunday their lies will be Trumped up to even greater depths of deceit. Stay tuned.