There is a horrible disease gripping the United States. It affects mostly right-wing politicians and radio-talk-show hosts. It is called “logorrhea,” a pathological inability to stop talking. The victims talk and talk and talk because they need to speak in order to feel safe and be in control. Too often, however, what they say is utter nonsense and/or outright falsehood, but the need to talk drives them on, lest they experience a mental break-down.
The United States faces a number of serious issues which require immediate attention: Climate change, school shootings, police brutality, and a divided polity, to name a few. But the victims of logorrhea ignore these issues and focus their attention on what they perceive as threats to the moral character of the country. They feel obliged to save America from itself.
What are these threats? To wit:
Voter fraud/stolen elections. It all began with that narcissist/egotist extraordinary, T. Rump, who believed he was entitled (just because) to be President-for-life of the United States. When he lost the election of 2020, he refused to concede and claimed that the election had been rigged against him. He then badgered election officials in key states to find votes favorable to him and to toss out votes not favorable to him. He has now set the standard for his loyal followers who have lost their bids for election/re-election. They must (1) demand a recount and/or (2) file a lawsuit against a suspect election official and/or (3) sue the manufacturer of so-called rigged voting machines, and, keep at it, ad infinitum.
“Tourists” to the U.S. Capitol, a large group of T. Rump’s loyal followers showed up in Washington D.C. at the time the 2020 election was being officially-legalized. These individuals stormed the U.S. Capitol and engaged in looting, vandalizing, and threatening to kill the vice president and the speaker of the House of Representatives. Many arrests were made on various charges; many Trumpites were subsequently sent to prison. But, hold on, say the victims of logorrhea. Those people were peaceful tourists, visiting the seat of their government, and should not have been arrested and sent to prison. They were the scapegoats of a defeated president seeking to establish a dictatorship.
Trans persons: If anything sets off Republicans and the Christian nationalists to dance on the ceiling, it is those who dare to ask questions of their birth gender and desire to change it. One could well believe that the Apocalypse was upon us to hear the Ultra-Right foam at the mouth and to condemn those grotesque creatures to eternal damnation. The victims of logorrhea have the same mentality of those who denied women the vote, opposed interracial marriage, and demanded that gay people be imprisoned. The war against the TGs began in bathrooms and locker rooms and expanded to athletic contests, medical clinics, and hospitals, and the halls of Congress where laws are being drafted making transgenderism illegal.
“Woke” education: Republicans would like to re-write American history. They would have us believe the U.S. is a Christian nation and should follow the dictates of the Judeo-Christian bible to the letter. They would have us believe that taking God out of the public schools was the basis of all our current social, economic, and political woes. They would have us believe that removing certain books and curricula from the classrooms will put America on the path to righteousness.
Baloney!
Just a thought.