rd<\/sup>, 2021<\/i><\/p>\nThree items this week show the problems with the fascist right in America: Matt Gaetz, the Georgia State Government, and how Fox News has reacted to those two.<\/p>\n
Gaetz and the Georgia lege have these things in common: both are despicable, dishonest, have scant regard for the rights of their victims, and are part of a larger pattern.<\/p>\n
Gaetz, of course, is at the heart of a mushrooming sex-and-corruption scandal, one that has allegations of sexual child abuse, whoremongering, mass identity fraud and a host of other items. Gaetz himself is a well-known scumbag who liked to show images of his sexual conquests in the halls of Congress and had a long history of being a wastrel playboy who was bailed out of various types of legal trouble by his rich and powerful Daddy, escaping two DUIs and racking up 15 speeding tickets in 12 years.<\/p>\n
Georgia was the first to pass voter restriction laws that effectively restored Jim Crow to Georgia. It was introduced in the State House at 9 am, passed in minutes without debate, sent to the state Senate at 1pm, passed in minutes, again without debate, and signed by the contemptible and corrupt Governor Brian Kemp by 4pm. A black legislator was arrested for daring to protest the signing.<\/p>\n
Then there is the Fox News reaction to each of those stories.<\/p>\n
For 48 hours Fox simply didn\u2019t mention Gaetz at all. They did have a story about a drummer in some southern rock band who was involved in some sort of sex scandal, but that was as close as they came to discussing any possible scandal involving a Republican Congressmen. Few drummers have the temperament to be Republican congressmen. They lack the necessary wildness, dementia and psychosis the job requires.<\/p>\n
It was only this morning, three days after the story broke, that far down on their website they had a squib reading, \u201cMatt Gaetz says he won\u2019t resign as pressure mounts\u201d The story made it clear they were writing old Matty off, with a featured quote from former GOP congressman David Jolly, \u201c”These scandals hit a certain point where there\u2019s no escape. We\u2019ve clearly hit that point for Matt in Florida politics.”<\/p>\n
The message is clear: Matt fucked up massively and got caught, so let\u2019s wash our paws of him and hope he goes away quickly. I\u2019m guessing there\u2019s a lot of Fox viewers who still aren\u2019t even aware of the scandal, despite it being headline news everywhere else for three days. It reminded me of nothing so much as the fates of politicians in the old USSR who fell out of favor with Stalin: they simply were disappeared, airbrushed out of state photos, their families ordered not to discuss them on pain of 20 years in the Gulag on a charge of Anti-Soviet Agitation.<\/p>\n
In any case, Fox can say that they\u2019ve written him off and thus have no more reason to discuss him. Not even if his scandalous behavior reaches out to other Republicans, including at least one possible ex-President. And quite possibly Fox\u2019s own Tucker Carlson, who was scandalized when Gaetz tried to drag him into the middle of the whole thing.<\/p>\n
To swipe an analogy from Robert Heinlein, the whole thing is as futile as a cat trying to cover up a mistake on a linoleum floor. The only reason they mentioned it at all was it was now impossible to hide, and now they\u2019re just trying to wave it away.<\/p>\n
Their response to the reinstatement of Jim Crow laws in Georgia is slightly more nuanced. Georgia, it seems, has nothing but the best interests of their voters at heart. Why, they even had a provision permitting counties to extend voting hours to 7 am to 7:30 pm, although the counties that (heh, heh) wanted to keep their hours to 9 to 5 to accommodate working people were free to do so. And they forbade giving water to people in line to vote because that could be possibly construed as bribery, and in this age of Trump, Republicans are horrified at the concept of bribery. And above all, we mustn\u2019t have voter fraud. There was vast voter fraud in the presidential election, you know. Over 60 court cases had rulings about that. That\u2019s right, 60. What does that tell you?<\/p>\n
And now that major corporations based in Georgia and Major League Baseball have reacted in horror, and in MLB\u2019s case pulled the All-Star game and draft scheduled for Atlanta this year, Fox\u2019s reaction is that this is the rise of Corporate \u201cCancel Culture\u201d designed to thwart democracy. That\u2019s right: protesting onerous voting restrictions is \u201cthwarting democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Only fascists could tell a lie that big and that bare-faced.<\/p>\n
One Republican defended the Georgia law, stating he was \u201cproud to oppose the will of the American people.\u201d I\u2019m sure it sounded better in his head.<\/p>\n
Unlike the Gaetz situation, there\u2019s no pretending this won\u2019t expand to engulf the party. Republicans have introduced a staggering 338 bills in 46 states designed to hinder people\u2019s ability to vote. They can\u2019t wave it away because it is the heart and soul of how they want to stage a bloodless coup and stage a fascist takeover of the land.<\/p>\n
To that end, they\u2019ve taken up attacking…corporations. Any student of political history knows that the main feature of fascism is that corporations and governments become one, and rule the people to their own benefit. Instead of E Pluribus Unum<\/i>, the motto is \u201cMake it Pay.\u201d You might guess who does the paying.<\/p>\n
So they\u2019re attacking corporations because of \u201ccancel culture\u201d \u2013 you know, masks, vaccine passports, Mister Potatohead, Dr. Seuss, all that. Corporate decisions all of them. Only they don\u2019t mention that they\u2019re corporate decisions, but create the impression that liberals and democrats are abusing government to deprive people of their rights to outdated commercial products and the right to ignore a pandemic.<\/p>\n
Now they\u2019re doing the same with the Jim Crow movement, pretending the poor beleaguered white race is being downtrodden by people who want to vote for someone else because it benefits them. Can\u2019t have that, you know.<\/p>\n
With any luck at all, by summer we\u2019ll see SR1 (a national voting rights act already passed by the House) become the law of the land, and Matt Gaetz will get his just reward.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mattgates and Jim Crow And how Faux News is massaging them April 3rd, 2021 Three items this week show the problems with the fascist right in America: Matt Gaetz, the Georgia State Government, and how Fox News has reacted to those two. Gaetz and the Georgia lege have these things in common: both are despicable, … <\/p>\n
Continue reading “Mattgates and Jim Crow — And how Faux News is massaging them”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[602,676,617,60],"tags":[257,284,1079,713,1183,1094],"class_list":["post-1076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-civil-war","category-congress","category-history","category-politics","tag-fascism","tag-fox-news","tag-georgia","tag-matt-gaetz","tag-scandal","tag-voter-suppression"],"yoast_head":"\nMattgates and Jim Crow -- And how Faux News is massaging them · Zepp's Commentaries<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/zeppscommentaries.online\/?p=1076\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mattgates and Jim Crow -- And how Faux News is massaging them · Zepp's Commentaries\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Mattgates and Jim Crow And how Faux News is massaging them April 3rd, 2021 Three items this week show the problems with the fascist right in America: Matt Gaetz, the Georgia State Government, and how Fox News has reacted to those two. 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