#anti madison cawthorn

[thirst2]

I was going to reblog some further news I’d seen a few days ago regarding yet another anti-Trans bill being passed but I can’t find it; probably for the best: I don’t think anyone I follow is unaware or is remotely unsympathetic to what’s going on, right now.

But one of the thoughts that’s kept running through my head (other than the utter…disappointment I’ve been feeling for our own community turning on our own) is that, just a decade or two ago, we wouldn’t have been so defensive as it’s seemed we’ve been, thus far.

Maybe that’s a bit of a simplification; it took many years to get to that point (probably, at least, 3 decades) and we didn’t have to do it with the specter of full-blown fascism possibly arising in the process.

But I remember, in the late 90s (I think) and the 2000s, us outting closetted Republicans who passed anti-Queer legislation (https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/mike-rogers-outed-gay-republicans-108368/ is from 2014 but it covers some of what went on).

And – again, granted – that was a controversial decision within the community then, as well (even though it was as restrained as could be: the individual had to be actively foisting or helping pass anti-Queer legislation, etc.; if they were voting Republican but weren’t facilitating our destruction directly, they weren’t outted; but, again, I think the cravenness of today’s Republicans calls for more proactive measures).

It’s not like they’re acting smartly; they’re sloppy and the success of this trajectory is tenacious, at best.

We should be fucking burying them; Madison Cawthorn is example enough of how easy that should be.

Sure, I doubt many of them have done many of the social-conservative–transgressions that Cawthorn had but it’s not like they’re being any less hypocritical than when “Family Values” was their main cry.

We should be tarring them with every unsavory legal fight they have going on at any given moment; we should be (surreptitiously) invading their radio networks and pumping every “news” source they use with every passing rumor and image, the stuff we wouldn’t even begin to roll our eyes at but they rely on denouncing to keep up the charade of their political “platform”.

We should be keeping them in a state of disarray even further than they, already, naturally inflict upon themselves if for no other damn reason than they went after our own. I think it should be exactly the same tit-for-tat that outting was 2 decades ago – want to sponsor or cheer on a bill that bans hormone therapy? We make sure every OAN and Newsmax and smaller organization know about every story that ever made it to the light of day that would cut down any notion that you are what you say you are.

Ruin them; make them fucking terrified that, should they even start to talk about sticking their grubby hands into Trans issues, they can expect their past to get poured over and their currency amongst their base stamped the fuck out.

I know I don’t remotely have the spoons to begin figuring out where to start with something like this but, c’mon, it’s so obvious that the ground they stand on is shifting sand; they need a wedge issue to scapegoat because they have no idea how to govern or excite people; their base is getting smaller each year and they barely know how to keep captive their current one; and the majority of people just don’t care (which, admittedly, is a problem on its own) about whatever the Hell they’re blabberring on about.

And it was us who did it, 2 decades ago; not any kind of formal institution. Granted, it was in part because we were able to know who these people were because they wanted to have sex with us and then go write up bills that hunted us down; we don’t have that, right now.

But I don’t see us fighting back, in the same way; obviously, there’s groups working to get resources to those who need it (as usual) but that’s defensive, not offensive.

I feel like I definitely have more Queer friends and people around me, now, than I did in high school and I can still just be totally out of the loop but I don’t feel the same level of (informal) leadership we had back then. We have people out there providing insight and education (which is important!) but we don’t have…teeth.

I dunno; this is mostly just a train of thought, if anything; I wish I had something more substantial; but we need to do something different, soon.

[gxlden-angels]

Shiny Happy People Thoughts: Episode 4

TW: The Duggar Family and their crimes

- All gang here we go again

- To recap, we left off on the discovery of Josh Duggar's business hard drive with CSAM on it and the affects of anti-sex and strict enforcement of hierarchies

- The episode starts with the phone call about the investigation and the discovery of CSAM linked to Josh Duggar's business IP address

- This episode is known for being the hardest to get through so be warned if you decide to also watch

- They use the term "child pornography" but I will be using the terms CSAM or child sexual abuse material

- Jen of Fundie Fridays described the Snark community's look into the investigation

- Fucking Covenant Eyes

- I think I talked about it before, but it's an anti-pornography and accountability software program where your porn use is sent to a trusted program partner

- There's a lot of talk about having to be happy at all times, which was also enforced in my households. My dad never enforce it, but other family members would insist on me smiling or they'd make me smile (meant as a threat)

- Theres also clips of Josh and Anna's courtship and how they weren't even allowed to kiss before marriage

- Bobye, Jill, and all of the other victims are incredibly brave for speaking up both during the trial and now in this docuseries

- Jim Bob ran for senate in Arkansas during said trial, which is fucking wild. I knew he did, but I didn't realize it was during the trial. They genuinely believe the issue is Josh was caught and arrested rather than the fact that Josh did these horrible crimes

- There's a firm belief in individualism and handling issues at home so they don't have to acknowledge the greater patterns of abuse in these circles else they make their christianity look bad

- It explains the "Culture War" and what's essentially meant to be a new version of the crusade. Even in my small town black churches we sang song after song about being soldiers in the army of Christ and being willing to die for him

- The greater "Culture War" is for white, cishet evangelicals. My family might follow the exact same principles, but they would never be accepted by these groups in the same way because we're black

- A lot of black people hold the fear though that if they stop following these groups/mindsets, their children will be the next victims, rather than the black kid that got overlooked. There's no positive outcome, just a fear of the worst negative

- This is why there's been an attack on education as a whole, especially in places like Florida. They started with homeschooling, grew up and graduated, then became politicians and leaders and lawyers that could make public school just like their homeschooling or gut it so much that anyone not in these groups or people that can't homeschool their kids lose significant power and educational opportunities

- I was never homeschooled, but I was told by my churches that school will teach us things like evolution that we should ignore. The pastor and his wife at one church homeschooled their kids and advocated for it

- They are specifically referring to white, homeschooled, IBLP-trained evangelicals but this shit influenced the entire christian culture of the bible belt in the US

- There's a reason these people are gun-carrying, anti-choice conservatives and why they're making up lies and attacking schools for being "leftist indoctrination camps"

- Its all a fear tactic. I even got this talk when I was in high school and planning for college. We were told to keep close contact with the church and to not even join other christian groups your parents don't know in case they teach the "corrupted" versions of christianity

- Its Madison Cawthorn. It's Matt Walsh. It's the current Supreme Court. It's Donald Trump. It's all of these people that plan to take away autonomy from people so they can enforce this christian hierarchy throughout the world

- I'm at the Paul and Morgan part of the docuseries. Their interview was about their marriage and the role of the wife. They say it's a choice to submit to their husbands, though they feel like christian women always should

- The editing was incredible in this part. It goes from them talking about the role of the wife and being a light in the world to the jump cut of Morgan screaming about how it's impossible to "be a they/them"

- This part is what is making Paul and Morgan pitch a fit because they feel like it made christianity look bad, but all they did was edit in their own words from their YouTube channel

- "This is the Joshua Generation" gave me chills

- Its Girl Defined and the Rodrigues family and tiktok influencers and so on and so forth and all of them are white evangelicals who are trying to enforce this strict hierarchy and claiming it's the only way to save people

- Its why people say be careful when looking into cottagecore and tradcore and the "soft life" movement because a lot of it is ran by evangelicals trying to make strict hierarchies look trendy

- Its incredible to be a stay at home mom and traditional housewife, but only if it's your choice. All of the insistence that feminism is "destroying motherhood" and whatnot is all a ploy to take more women's autonomy. It's why feminism advocates for things like maternal leave, universal basic income with benefits for parents and children, universal daycare, universal healthcare especially for birthing parents. All of it should be a choice you can make for yourself

- The insistence on a family of a Working Father, a Housewife, and 2 or 20 kids was spread by a cult leader who never even had a wife or kids. Gothard sexually abused multiple minors during his time as an IBLP leader

- Josh Duggar was of course found guilty.

- It hurts knowing that his victims were expected to forgive him and let him back into their lives

- A lot of the family and friends are completely shut out of the picture now for advocating for Josh's arrest

- Amy Duggar reading from IBLP hurt, especially with the cut to Anna Duggar, Josh's wife

- They talk about why she still advocates for him and stays with him. She doesn't have a way to leave since this is all she was raised for. Find a nice, godly man and have his babies. No proper education. No source of stable income for herself. No privacy

- That goes double for her as the wife of a well-known person. She will never get privacy because she only sees herself as property of god, Josh, and the TV contracts Josh signed for her and unless she gets serious therapy and a safe, long term environment where someone takes care of her, thats all she'll ever see herself as

- My therapist pointed out to me today that whenever I burp, I completely change as a person for a split second. Despite all the work I've done and my transition as a transmasculine person, I still attempt to hide my burps, cover my mouth, completely straighten up, say excuse me very articulately, and even raise the pitch of my voice

- I know that seems like a weird tangent but it's an example of how even the smallest of things gets trained into you. Burping wasn't feminine so I got called a pig and a man in an insulting way when I burped loudly enough to be heard. I still burp in that polite way that makes me nauseous so I won't be heard unless I'm completely alone

- You can't just leave these cults. It comes with you. It stays with you even in these little habits and I was lucky enough to get the chillest parent of the family. Anna cannot and will not leave unless she is forced, and even then she will still be stuck. She won't suddenly have 12-13 years of education. She won't have the skills to get a good paying job in the current economic landscape. She won't have people to save her. This is what cults do. This is what they want. They want her to be helpless because it's a message: Next time, don't let him get caught

- "My only hope was to cling to my faith."

- That's all she has. It's all that belonged to her. Everything else was her father's or her husband's

- Tia Levings describing the situation of getting her kids and leaving the husband that was going to get his gun was honestly the hardest story to hear

- I never experienced abuse like that, but I remember hearing over and over "well why wasn't she under her father/husband's watch" "why didn't she just leave?" "Why didn't she just trust in god?" and have this fear set in me of what if I never left? Is this where I would've been?

- Around my teen years I got very uncomfortable around most couples in my family. The husband would joke about wives submitting and the wives would snap back about how it's a choice they could take away. The husband retorts with a bible verse about how they shouldn't. They laugh it off and the tension sits in the air. They seem to hate each other, but they made a promise to god.....

- The lawsuit against IBLP and Bill Gothard and it being dropped because of the statute of limitations leaves such a helpless feeling, but I hope this documentary helps at least a bit

- "His eyes were open"

- "It was just a man the whole time."

- Brook and Emily's stories really hit. There's a sudden realization that these people are not gods. They are people that wanted power and they got it. They abused and crushed people, not because they are powerful gods of knowledge, but because they wanted to abuse

- WAS

- "I ended up in jail anyways."

- That's how it goes. I felt the need to lash out when I first got out. I didn't do well with my therapist at the time. She was a practicing christian recommend by my doctor who used to go to our church and also treated all of my family with insurance she took. She thought my family was a lil strict but couldn't quite believe me when I said it was so much more than that

- I did lash out, mostly towards myself. I'm not going to talk about my self harm in detail here. Lara talks about lashing out via shoplifting. I will say this is normal. If you feel like you need to do a 180, I won't say do anything and everything, but you might have to. I am a firm believer in harm reduction over flat out denial at all times. Sometimes it all just needs to get out. Sometimes you need to regain a sense of control

- I didn't realize until I started seeing my current therapist that I realized what I was raised in. I made jokes about my family being a cult before then, but it never actually hit until I said "Oh. I never had a childhood, did I?" and teared up for the first time in his office

- I honestly couldn't say the stuff about deconstruction better myself. It's exhausting but so so freeing. A lot of the people in the docuseries used instagram and tiktok. I use tumblr as my platform of choice.

- I honestly have to thank the religious trauma tumblr tag for getting me to where I am today. If you look at my main blog, you can even see that my first few posts are scattered with bible verses if I didn't already delete them. I hope my blog helps someone else the same way that tag helped me

- I get a lil personal here sometimes and probably should save more of it for my therapist, but I think it's helpful sometimes. I think he'd agree. My therapist knows about this blog and thinks it's good

- I've heard about Jinger's book but never read it so I can't say anything about it. I also haven't seen any of the casts' tiktok pages so I can't say anything about them either. I might look later but this episode was a lot so Ill leave it for now

- I figured Bill Gothard would decline further comments. He denied everything and will most likely never see a single punishment. It's how these things are built

- I think the final statement from Jim Bob and Michelle help really seal just how terrible both of them are. They rather side with their child who abused than the victims that spoke out because it makes them look bad that all of this got out

- Final thoughts? Great series. Very therapeutic. Very validating.

- Its the small stuff that gets you. Hair needs to frame your face and honor your father. Be a soldier for Christ. Be fruitful and multiply. I still have awkward pictures of my permed hair and scratchy easter dresses

- I also told my therapist about this show and my recaps here and he thinks it's great. I'm glad I did it. It's really motivated me and helped me see just how far I've progressed

- I'm glad I also learned Nope is on Prime cause I rarely use prime video lol I mostly use it for twitch and prime delivery on cat supplies in bulk

- Good luck all you blasphemers, apostates, heretics, and sinners out there! Be good people, commit to the bit, and love without remorse!

[rebeleden]

Madison Cawthorn urges moms to raise their sons to be hyper-masculine “monsters” - Queerty

CC PIZZAGATE

STOP NAZI VANILLA ISIS

[aveyjones]

Hell (Republicans) in a Handbasket

Hell (Republicans) in a Handbasket

Hell in a Handbasket is a funny anti-Republican image that features the heads of the seven most-hated Republicans, most with mouths open, all in a hand basket presumably heading to hell, including Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, Ted Cruz, Marjorie Taylor Green, Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, and Madison Cawthorn. See it on 63 products, including T-shirts, hats, stickers, device skins and cases, home…

[o-kurwa]

[bigdadskypilot]

To be clear, no thinking person has a problem with Madison Cawthorn wearing women’s lingerie at a party, drinking alcohol, hanging with the ladies, or getting his picture snapped doing it. He is a grown up. It’s entirely legal, and it looked like a great party.

The problem is hypocrisy. I go off the rails when that son of a bitch and his phony Christian cronies legislate a religious agenda (and solely for votes as it is clear they don’t believe any of that crap) and pervert the republic with lies and bullshit. Fuck all of them.

[k-wame]

hate hate hate how madison cawthorn gave me a boner eating up that lingerie look

[dr-archeville]

Last week, newly elected North Carolina congressman Madison Cawthorn detailed his past attempts to convert Jews to Christianity.  For those who haven’t followed Cawthorn’s bumpy rise to prominence, he previously posted photos of himself visiting Adolf Hitler’s former vacation home, where he referred in the caption to “the Fuhrer” and “supreme evil.”  Meanwhile, as COVID-19 cases surged across the country, Mike Pompeo flew to Israel and became the first-ever United States Secretary of State to visit the Golan Heights or a settlement in the West Bank — both of which are illegally occupied by Israel according to international law.  There, Pompeo issued a statement declaring the Palestinian-led movement to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israeli occupation, also known as BDS, to be antisemitic.

The State Department later tweeted a photo that read “Anti-Zionism is Anti-Semitism” — a statement that mischaracterizes both BDS and antisemitism.  Together, Cawthorn and Pompeo’s actions are emblematic of a growing contradictory threat: The right is emboldening antisemitism while hurling bad-faith accusations of antisemitism at liberation movements.

We have spent years learning from and with Palestinians and Israelis.   As members of an organization grounded in anti-Zionist politics and Jewish community, we combat both antisemitism and those who seek to suppress criticism of Israel through false accusations of antisemitism.  We refuse to let the Jewish community be used as a right-wing talking point at the expense of Palestinian freedom.

Boycott is a time-honored tactic used by marginalized people in the U.S. and across the globe.  The American South has a long tradition of Black-led boycotts against Jim Crow laws, and a rich history of Black-Palestinian solidarity against apartheid.  The South African Anti-Apartheid Movement, first established as the Boycott Movement, inspired the Palestinian call for international boycott, divestment, and sanctions.  BDS is a tactic to fight an undemocratic occupying power that refuses to comply with international law, giving people of conscience around the world a way to act collectively to defend human rights and reject complicity with injustice.

For those who would characterize BDS as antisemitic for “singling out” Israel, Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. Foreign Aid since World War II.  To date, the U.S. has provided Israel $146 billion in bilateral assistance and missile defense funding.  Much of this money has been used to fund Israel as an international hub of military technology development.  These technologies are used to surveil, cage, and suppress people in Palestine — and they have been exported to the U.S. as well.  This exchange of military aid and weaponry is antithetical to justice and human life.

Meanwhile, as the State Department seeks to weaken the Palestine solidarity movement, the president is emboldening white nationalism and antisemitism, its “theoretical core.” In the U.S., we have witnessed Nazis, Klan members, and their sympathizers assemble on the streets of our cities and gain seats in Congress.  Yet the right is able to effectively use antisemitism as a wedge issue — not only because they’ve diluted the true meaning of antisemitism with false attacks, but also because true antisemitism eludes easy explanation.

To be clear, like all oppressions, antisemitism surfaces across the political spectrum.  According to journalist Talia Lavin, author of Culture Warlords: My Journey into the Dark Web of White Supremacy, antisemitism, which originated in Europe, is essentially “the oldest conspiracy.”  At its core rests a centuries-old myth that a global cabal of Jews has plotted to control institutions such as the banks, the media, and Hollywood.  This enduring and false idea fueled regimes that then diverted blame onto Jews, leading to pogroms and mass murder.  While antisemitism has no political allegiance, it is most dangerous when it is weaponized by those in power, in part because it distracts people from recognizing that it is actually capitalism that creates scarcity.  That is why the rise of QAnon as a mainstream conspiracy theory (with new congressional adherents) should worry anyone who claims to care about antisemitism.

By fostering antisemitic conspiracy while hurling bad-faith accusations of antisemitism at liberation movements, the right presents a dangerous contradiction for freedom fighters.  Accusing pro-Palestinian activists of being antisemitic creates a chilling effect, just as red-baiting did in the 1950s and criminalizing anti-fascism does today.  Furthermore, defining BDS as antisemitic positions Jewish people as arbiters on whether fighting for Palestinian freedom is antisemitic — an inherently racist premise.  This tactic silences Palestinians in the occupied territories and in the diaspora who are fighting for their own freedom and dignity; it endangers Palestinian, Black, Indigenous, and Muslim organizers, leaders, and elected officials in the U.S. who speak out against injustice, only to face racist death threats.  Yet Madison Cawthorn’s antisemitic statements and actions have hardly threatened his nascent political career.

If we seek to fight antisemitism, we need true solidarity.  Antisemitism is most dangerous when fascists weaponize it to fracture multiracial working-class movements and divert blame for society’s problems — capitalism’s problems — to Jews.  We know that Cawthorn, Pompeo, and their ilk threaten our community’s survival, and we envision a future beyond the conditions of scarcity and extraction produced by capitalism and white Christian supremacy, both of which provide fertile ground for antisemitism to flourish.  Our tax dollars should not fund a racist and profit-driven military occupation of Palestinian land.  As Jewish people, we refuse to be divided from other people seeking freedom and will continue to support Palestinians in their fight for liberation.

Emerson Goldstein, Sandra Korn, and Carol Prince are members of the leadership team of Jewish Voice for Peace – Triangle NC.

Comment on this story at backtalk@indyweek.com.

Support independent local journalism. Join the INDY Press Club to help us keep fearless watchdog reporting and essential arts and culture coverage viable in the Triangle.

---

[gettothestabbing]

As a Jew, I’ve had several Christian friends try to turn me toward Jesus—Lutherans, Catholics, and evangelicals. Though denominations seem to adopt different philosophies on how best to proselytize in a secular world, they have all been exceptionally polite about it.

I assume that they wouldn’t be very good Christians if they weren’t spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is, from what I gather, one of the central premises of the enterprise. To be honest, I’m often surprised at how shy Christians are at this task.

As a heathen, though, I am flattered by the attention. And as a person in possession of free will, I am also unconcerned. Never once have I found such efforts to be “anti-Semitic.” . . . The notion that Jews should be offended by Christians approaching us with theological ideas is un-American. Trust me, Jews are not helpless in the face of arguments.

And Christians do not have the power to compel us to believe. Unlike progressives—who try to force nuns to fund abortions or evangelicals to participate in same-sex weddings—no Christian has ever endeavored to coerce me to perform any of their rites.

[radfemtaquito]

Source: (x)

[kvetchlandia]

I Haven’t...

regaled all of you folks with a rant in a while.  Well, here comes one.  You’ve been warned.

Those of you innocents who don’t live in the United States might very fortunately never have encountered a horrid creature called Marjorie Taylor Greene.  Consider yourselves lucky.  We in the US have had to deal with her almost constantly for the past 18 months, much to the dismay of at least some of us.  She first entered public view for most of us back in late 2018, when she stated that the wildfires then devastating California, a product of global climate change, were actually caused by top secret space lasers controlled by the Rothschilds, who wanted to burn down California for reasons she didn’t make clear since it was enough just to invoke the name of a Jewish banking family in order to cause her reactionary, racist and anti-Semitic posse in Trumpworld to shudder and gasp  Well, today she came up with another doozy.  She was whining about the power of Nancy Peolsi and what she thinks of as the persecution of poor Donald Trump and his minions who attempted a fascistic putsch against the government on Jan 6 of last year.  In Taylor Greene’s shpiel, she made reference to Pelosi and, I kid you not, her “gazpacho police!”  Seriously.  These are Taylor Greene’s actual words:

“Not only do we have the D.C. jail, which is the D.C. Gulag, but now we have Nancy Pelosi’s gazpacho police, spying on members of Congress, spying on the legislative work that we do, spying on our staff and spying on American citizens who want to come talk to their representatives.”  

Lest you want to give her a pass, thinking she was perhaps the victim of an autocorrect run wild, which has probably happened to most of us, kindly remember that Marjorie Taylor Greene is a semi-literate buffoon and because of that, she didn’t actually write those words.  They’re a transcription of comments she made on a right wing propaganda television outlet, and here’s the link to her complete comments, should you want to torture yourself by viewing them:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/marjorie-taylor-greene-rants-to-oan-about-nancy-pelosis-gazpacho-police?fbclid=IwAR0vHG0rqssXufdkxWnHaTk4H0m2RT3BpgPJBrSWlV7-jEr9dubmeth3xAU

So, we in the US are dealing with a drooling knuckle-walker, a hairy-palmed moron, a cretinous mouth-breather who is actually an elected member of our government, a woman whose place in that government gives her a role in the writing of laws that will effect the lives of tens of millions of people and who doesn’t know the difference between a chilled Spanish tomato soup and the murderous members of the nazi gestapo.  Marjorie Taylor Greene is a member of the House of Represents from Georgia.  Among her Trump-worshipping colleagues are the child-molester Matt Gaetz, a Representative from Florida; Jim Jordan, a member of the House from Ohio who previously worked as an assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State University and who covered up the sexual abuse of 8 members of his team by their coach; Madison Cawthorn, a nut job Representative from North Carolina who is one of the fanatics who worked up the putschist Jan 6 crowd from the podium, and too many others to waste my time naming.  Oh, and it’s almost a forgone conclusion that His Wannabe Imperial Highness, Generalissimo, Field Marshall and Smartest Person Ever Born, Pussy Grabber Donald Trump I, will run for president again and could very possibly be elected.  We in this country are so screwed...and sadly, on account of the position of the United States in the world, so are all the rest of you who don’t live here. 

OK, rant is completed.  After that, I really don’t have much desire to post any photos.  I’ll probably get back to that tomorrow.  For those of you who actually read my rant, thanks for indulging me.

[aveyjones]

Hell in a Handbasket Anti-Republican T-shirt

Hell in a Handbasket Anti-Republican T-shirt

Hell in a Handbasket Updated 2022 Political T-Shirt by vicesandverses

[demoisverysexy]

Crazy to me whenever that tumblr post goes around saying that its homophobic to say that some of the most homophobic/transphobic/queerphobic people out there are repressed queer folks, and then you have whole batches of conservative bigots being shown to be queer or interested in queer stuff (Madison Cawthorne, Nick Fuentes, etc.). So while I think it is wrong to say that these people compose the entirety of the most homophobic people out there, I would say that a disproportionate percent of the most anti lgbtq bigots are repressed queer folks. Maybe 50% of them or something.

[bigassbowlingballhead]

I also have thoughts on the Madison Cawthorn leaked video

like I don’t care if he’s closeted or not, it’s a nonissue, for me. 

But it’s interesting HOW they’re targeting him. They’re making him undesirable to his base by making him seem gay. 

And that’s scary. The GOP is villainizing homosexuality, as they always have. 

They’re not attacking him on his lies, his sexual harassment past, his pushing on of the big lie, they’re outing him.

Madison Cawthorn is a horrible, despicable human who’s used his platform to push dangerous anti-LGBTQ rhetoric. But no one deserves their private life to be used as a political play.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

If you wanted to show your support for the right-wing Trump rioters who assaulted the Capitol on January 6th, today was your day.  But the crowd that turned out for the “Justice for J6” rally in front of the Capitol this afternoon was pathetic.  There were fewer supporters of the insurrectionists than there were police or members of the media, both of which appeared to outnumber those attending the rally.

The Washington Post reported that a total of four people were arrested and two weapons were confiscated, one of which was a knife.

Matt Braynard, who was a staffer on the 2016 Trump campaign, heads up a group called “Look Ahead America” which organized the rally.  He has been giving interviews all week making the case that those arrested on January 6th were simply exercising their First Amendment rights and are being punished for their political beliefs. He has called the arrestees held in federal custody “political prisoners.”

A total of 643 January 6 insurrectionists have been arrested so far. Fifty of them have pled guilty.  Sixty-three are currently being held without bail pending trial.  All or most of them are being held on charges of assaulting police, physically destroying federal property by breaking through doors and windows, theft of government property, or being involved in organizing the insurrection.  Rioters who entered the Capitol but were not involved in violence against police officers or the Capitol building itself or accused of theft are not being held in federal custody pending trial.

Cable news shows have been remarking all day on the fact that none of the usual right-wing suspects, many of them members of congress, showed up for the rally.  Among those absent were Matt Gaetz, Madison Cawthorn, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Mo Brooks (who spoke at the January 6 rally), Paul Gosar, Andy Biggs, Lauren Boebert, Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz.  All voted on January 6 to object to the certification of electoral college ballots in an attempt to overturn the election.

But the failure of the right-wing rally at the Capitol today is just a small bump in the road for these authoritarian assholes.  Voter suppression continues apace in Republican-controlled states across the country. The entire Republican Party is on a campaign to claim that the assault on the Capitol on January 6th wasn’t an insurrection at all, but rather a legitimate protest against the theft of the election from Donald Trump.  A large majority of Republicans, 66 percent, believe the election was “rigged and stolen from Donald Trump” according to a recent Yahoo poll.  Just 18 percent of Republicans believe Joe Biden won the election “fair and square.”  

The tiny right-wing rally today in Washington may have been a joke, but the un-democratic nature of the Republican Party is not.  All these lunatics had to do was announce they were holding a rally at the Capitol today for the entire area to be turned into a military-style fortress.

This is the world we live in now: A world in which one of our two major political parties now stands firmly behind violence as a legitimate political tactic.  If this were not true, we wouldn’t have had to defend our nation’s Capitol building with anti-riot fencing and hundreds of police today.

Joe Biden didn’t cause this.  The Democratic Party didn’t cause this.  Supporters of Donald Trump and the Republican Party once again caused Capitol Hill to be turned into an armed camp.  Politics was not on display in Washington D.C. today.  It was evidence of a civil war.  

[Lucian Truscott]