The previous few weeks of conservative politics have been jam-packed with demonstrations of concern and cowardice, poking holes of their facade as powerful guys (and gals).
As an illustration, senior White Home aide Stephen Miller took a break from creating insurance policies meant to harm immigrants and appeared within the Oval Workplace, alongside President Donald Trump, to tell the world how afraid he’s of parks in Washington, D.C.
Praising Trump’s set up of federal legislation enforcement and Nationwide Guard members within the nation’s capital, Miller defined, “For the first time in their lives, they can use the parks, they can walk on the streets. You have people who can walk freely at night without having to worry about being robbed or mugged. They are wearing their watches again.”
Yearly, tens of millions of individuals go to Washington and don’t have any drawback with the parks. Little infants are fantastic there. Folks put on watches.
Trump’s deployment to town has been a severe affront to locals, notably town’s massive Black inhabitants, however it has additionally uncovered a falsehood on the heart of Republican fearmongering. The Nationwide Guard on the bottom is essentially specializing in trash pickup and responding to site visitors accidents, regardless of the administration’s apocalyptic rhetoric.
Essentially the most high-profile crime the deployment has dealt with to this point is a sandwich thrower they couldn’t persuade a grand jury to indict.
The precise has quite a bit invested of their picture because the strongest folks in American politics. From MAGA purple hats to George W. Bush fanboys sporting cowboy hats, the conservative motion has embraced “macho” as its aesthetic for many years.
However as a rule they’ve been utter cowards, displaying weak spot on a bunch of points dealing with People.
Then-President Ronald Reagan, proven in 1987.
As an illustration, when the AIDS/HIV disaster started to hang-out the nation within the Eighties, then-President Ronald Reagan didn’t confront the issue instantly. As a result of the illness first surfaced within the LGBTQ+ group, and that was the place a majority of the deaths initially occurred, Reagan ignored the issue.
Behind closed doorways, his staff laughed on the tragedy. In public, he would barely say a phrase, refusing to have the braveness to exhibit fundamental compassion and humanity for his fellow People as a result of they had been homosexual.
The spiritual proper additionally embraced homophobia, attacking LGBTQ+ folks for the purported sin of their existence. Some of the distinguished bigots within the motion was Rev. Jerry Falwell, a key ally of the Republican Occasion who whipped up a homophobic frenzy whereas pushing to ship votes for the social gathering.
However Falwell was a coward. In 1991, after being confronted by counterprotesters, Falwell whined to the Los Angeles Occasions, “Everyone in the hotel was frightened. I think they intended to do me harm.” A decade later, Falwell (and fellow coward Pat Robertson) was busy blaming the 9/11 terrorist assaults on homosexual folks, abortion, and feminists.
Former President George W. Bush, on whose watch 9/11 occurred, liked to embrace the tough-guy aesthetic. He posed in a cowboy hat on his ranch and described al-Qaida terrorists as “evildoers.” However same-sex marriage terrified him.
Then-candidate George W. Bush tries on a cowboy hat in St. Louis, in October 2000.
Years later, when the Supreme Court docket legalized same-sex marriage, the one “serious matter” has been the dimensions and scope of wedding ceremony desserts.
Bush was additionally on the forefront of sharing his concern with the general public. His administration pushed a color-coded terrorism alert system. It was a manifestation of cowardice that permeated his administration, leaving the seize of 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden to his successor, President Barack Obama.
Bush’s signature coverage—the disastrous invasion of Iraq—was about concern of al-Qaida and their nonexistent alliance with the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein.
The conservative Nationwide Rifle Affiliation echoed Bush-style cowardice greater than a decade later, telling their supporters in 2014 that they wanted weapons as a result of militants from the Islamic State group, generally referred to as ISIS, could possibly be exterior their properties.
Trump’s cowardice has been on show for his complete profession as a political determine. He launched his first presidential marketing campaign by speaking about his concern of Mexican immigrants, citing the absurd want for a border wall to guard in opposition to them. There appears to be nothing Trump is extra afraid of than brown-skinned folks, particularly if that individual is former President Barack Obama. Trump nonetheless invokes Obama as a boogeyman greater than eight years after the Democrat left workplace.
Extra lately, trying to bolster Trump’s actions in opposition to D.C., Republican Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee claimed he sleeps in his workplace as a result of he’s so afraid of Washington residents. Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin bragged that he breaks native legal guidelines and doesn’t drive with a seatbelt in D.C., as a result of he’s supposedly dwelling in fixed terror of being carjacked.
Armed members of the South Carolina Nationwide Guard discuss with a person exterior of Union Station in Washington on Aug. 24.
Conservatism is about tearing issues down, not constructing them up. The motion would relatively unfold wild fantasies about American cities as city hellscapes as a substitute of admitting that cities have been on the forefront of American innovation on a number of community-oriented points.
The precise may take a look at these insurance policies and leaders and provide you with methods to implement them in rural and suburban areas, however they’re too afraid to confess that their concepts merely haven’t labored. This can be a large purpose why they embrace concern and cowardice.
Demonizing the opposite has all the time been the straightforward approach out. Denigrating human beings, utilizing the facility of the state to close down exterior concepts and voices—that’s what cowards do.
And that’s what the conservative motion, from Trump on the high and all the best way down, does each day of its existence.
