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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsA Political Party Unhinged From Truth
Link to tweet
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/10/weapons-of-mass-delusion-book-excerpt-republican-party-trump/671907/
No paywall
https://archive.ph/VhlHN
In March of 2020, I sat in a federal courtroom in Utah and watched a man stand before the judge and murmur through sobs, This wasnt me. This wasnt me.
The defendant, a 55-year-old health-insurance salesman named Scott Brian Haven, wasnt protesting his innocence. He openly acknowledged that over the two-year period before his arrest in the summer of 2019, he had placed 3,950 calls to the Washington offices of various Democratic members of Congress, spewing profanities and threatening violence against them.
But as the prosecutor listed a sampling of Havens vile threats in the courtroom, the defendanta devout Mormon who served meals to homeless people in downtown Salt Lake Cityseemed unable to recognize those sentiments as his own. One of the objects of his harassment had been Jerrold Nadler, the chair of the House Judiciary Committee. Im at his office, Haven had said in one call to Nadlers office. Im right behind him now. Im going to shoot him in the head. Im going to do it now. Are you ready?
After his arrest, while languishing in a federal jail cell, Haven learned that the Democratic representative was a father and grandfather, just like he was. When he shared this revelation with the judge during his sentencing, he marveled, Theres so much more to know about people than we hear about in the news.
That stuck with me as I began work, a few months later, on a book about the state of the Republican Party. Haven, as it turned out, got his news from the conservative talk-radio-show hosts Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaughand, of course, from the president he so admired, Donald Trump. But as my reporting proceeded through the tumultuous end of Trumps presidency and beyond the madness of January 6, 2021, I frequently encountered Republicans who, like Haven, could not conceive of Trumps adversaries possessing human attributes. Instead, they viewed Democrats, government bureaucrats, and members of the media like me as any combination of Communists, traitors, swamp creatures, and human scum.
*snip*
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A Political Party Unhinged From Truth (Original Post)
Nevilledog
Oct 2022
OP
The Republican party is a terrorist organization, directed by Fascist Oligarch eXtremists.
Hermit-The-Prog
Oct 2022
#2
RockRaven
(15,002 posts)1. Truth... And morality.
They aren't just adrift in a sea of bullshit. So many of them are total moral failures even in light of that bullshit.
For example, what dumbassed misinformation -- either a specific point or a collection of them -- was in this guy's skewed world view that would have made his thousands of harrassing phone calls and death threats morally acceptable?
Hermit-The-Prog
(33,430 posts)2. The Republican party is a terrorist organization, directed by Fascist Oligarch eXtremists.