When cruelty is valued more than the common good
Donald Trump throwing paper towel rolls at hurricane victims was a hideous display of his lack of empathy and decency. Perhaps his handlers told him if he played football, his team would most definitely be competing in the Super Bowl. Best throw ever. Most muscular arms. A toss with the most precision. Right on the mark. Beautiful pass, just beautiful. Disastrous situation, lives in peril, but not a hint of concern on Trump’s face. He would head home to top-notch shelter and have someone else press a button for room service.
What happens to a country when one of the two major political groups designs a deliberate shift away from the ideal of The Common Good to policies of increasing cruelty? Not just increasing cruelty, but cruelty as the basic principle. Razor wire. Forced pregnancies. Neck kneeling. Eliminating child labor laws. Reducing access to voting. Denying history. Policies without a shred of compassion.
For nearly eight decades I believed that our Constitution was like a cast iron pillar which supported our country. Rock solid. Immovable. Constant. Now many Republicans treat it with utter disregard. Same with our laws. Same with our traditions. Utter disregard. Win at all cost. Flat out lie on national television. Lie to voters. Lie to children. Lie to judges. Whatever it takes.
It’s like Republicans believe they are the entitled to the land, the money, the positions of authority. They alone, by way of their superior white heritage, have the right to lay claim to it all. When people of color, women, poor folks try to gain access to the group, stop them any way you can….even if it’s cruel. Yank children from their parents. Force a 10 year old to have her rapist’s baby. Throw a six year old back into the river. Get the ballot boxes out of black communities. Shame food stamp recipients.
We can march, protest, speak out, volunteer, vote….but we can’t grow accustomed to what has happened to our country. I’ve stopped laughing at Trump jokes. He’s not funny. He’s dead-serious dangerous, the most dangerous person to ever rise to power in this country. Imagine being in his Cult of Cruelty and wearing a MAGA hat with pride. You can’t get much lower.
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Was it the 00s? Oh, wait. That's when the traitor party screeched about "with us or against us" "freedom fries," and otherwise demonized wide swaths of Americans. It was also the decade that gave rise to the teabaggers who lost their minds over a black guy becoming president. Do tell me what was civil about accusing him of not being a "real" American because he was (not) born in another country. And what was civil about saying his wife was actually a man?
Was it the 90s? Oh, wait. That's when Newt Gingrich decided to go scorched earth on everyone he hated--and wasn't shy about trashing them in public.
Was it the 80s? Oh, wait. That's when that scumbag reagan went out of his way to trash "welfare queens" and give states right speeches a stone's throw from where civil righs marchers were murdered. His party jumped right in beside him to trash women, minorities, gay people, liberals--well, anyone who didn't agree with them 100%.
Was it the 70s? Oh, wait. Remember this?
Is that what qualifies as civil discourse?
Do I even need to go back through the previous decades, with the Jim Crow South and its Northern sympathizers, McCarthyism and the John Birch Society nutters in the 50s, the support for Nazi Germany in this country before WWII, or the decades of open KKK support, North and South, in the early 20th century?
There has never been some glorious past of civil discourse in America. Hate has been baked right into the very foundation of the country. That's why it's naive in the extreme to think it's ever been otherwise.
But the propaganda is a massive part of the problem as to how we got here in the first place. The right wing has a monopoly on talk radio and news talk shows. They have multiple streams running 24 hours a day. We don't have anything even remotely close to that. Fox, Sinclair, Infowars, 2500 AM radio stations, Newsmax, OAN, every single megachurch in the country. There's no end to this shit. It's a massive part of the problem and unless we start addressing it, things will get worse. Trump is but a symptom of an even greater problem plaguing this country. 
