From Out of the Woodwork

Now that we have an authoritarian in the White House who is ignoring court orders, ignoring the Constitution, and ignoring public opinion all kinds of “rats” are coming out of the woodwork.

“ICE should be allowed to shoot whomever they please as long as they continue to do God’s work.” (Jon Miller)

“You are one of the most corrupt and profane men to ever be elected to public office. This is nothing but an effort for you to once again deflect and dodge being held accountable for your own lifetime of misdeeds. Shame on you Bill Clinton.” (Jason Rapert on Bill Clinton’s response to Pretti’s murder, and yes Mr. Rapert (interesting name) is an ardent Trump supporter)

Far-right broadcaster Steve Deace says Trump must “stop trying to be reasonable” and make an example out of Minneapolis: “A community must be made an example out of so it’s a cautionary tale, so that everybody still knows what Sodom and Gomorrah means.” (Source Right Wing Watch)

None of these troglodytes were born yesterday, so they much have been in the woodwork all along, no? If you look at how we, as a society, dealt with public tobacco smoking you have an aide as to how society can change behavior. Similarly people using the N-word, out loud in public and bars, and meeting houses, etc. was almost eliminated but then along came the Internet allowing easy anonymous commentary and all that goes by the board. Defamatory language now rules.

Donald Trump has done us one small good service. He has exposed the underside of American culture. Now, what are we going to do about it … or is this how we want to live?

Postscript “There really is no ducking the observation that Christianity is being distorted and abused by some truly vile and deeply obnoxious individuals into something that is dark, superstitious, sinister, oppressive, fundamentally fascist, and filled with intolerance, violence and hatred. All thoughts regarding compassion, tolerance, and basic human decency, and the actual teachings of Jesus have been obliterated and replaced with something deeply dark and malicious.” (David Gamble)

While this is quite true, consider the fact that Christianity primes people to accept authority without question and is quite fine with extreme punishments for small infractions of rules. Christianity is not a victim here, more like a co-conspirator.)