An Uncivil War
For months now, I’ve been seeing all these stories on the web about people doing or saying really stupid things; things that were so stupid , it made me wonder if these people had any brains at all. A few weeks back, I started a new website, https://www.spotthebraincell.com and designed the logo, one of my favorite things to do.
to record the stupidity and draw attention to it. I didn’t expect to get an audience other than a few friends, so it was more of a fun thing for me to do than something I expected to catch on or be much of a thing.
The first example of stupidity was Rep. Elise Stefanik, one of the highest ranking Republicans in Congress going on Twitter to celebrate the birthday of Medicare and Medicaid, ‘the critical role these programs have played to protect the healthcare of millions of families’. Then she went on to say “To safeguard our future, we must reject socialist, healthcare schemes.” Duh! Spot the brain cell. Er, none!
The site was born, but then I went looking for more material, scouring the news headlines for material. I thought I might find one or two examples a week. I was wrong; there were dozens of them.
I found a lot of outright stupidity, but I also found a lot of nastiness. Mean-spirited people saying, and doing, really mean things.
I didn’t care whether the stories I was capturing featured Democrats or Republicans; I’m somewhat agnostic when it comes to this and both sides are fair game.
Within a few days,I had captured dozens of stories and created different pages on the site, one of which was Covid deaths, mostly anti-vaxxers. A somewhat surprising number of which were religious leaders, many of whom had openly defied social distancing guidelines and encouraged people to come to their places of worship on the basis that God would protect them. In reality, and in all likelihood, they were more concerned with keeping the flow of donations coming in to support their extravagant lifestyles. Anyway, God wasn’t listening, and religious leaders started dying off.
How many of their congregants died from this act of arrogance and stupidity, we will never know, but I suspect the number is in the tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds.
And then there the other deaths that I found, all of whom were anti-vaxxers.
I feel sympathy for their families, but these were stupid people and they get no sympathy from me whatsoever. They made a bad decision and paid the price for it. But why did they make that decision?
They made it because the extreme right-wingers (and I include Fox News, and its stars, in this group) have done, and continue to do, everything possible to convince people that COVID-19 was a fraud and that vaccines were evil. The message has been successful because large numbers of Americans get their news from Fox or Facebook, and are not smart enough to question what it is they are being fed. Thus, they take a position and die.
Now the extreme right doesn’t care how many people die; all they care about is attacking the liberals and that means the left. The Hatemongers are out in force, and they are winning.
Thus, the US is now in the middle of an Uncivil War. If you think I’m exaggerating, consider the number of mass shootings. Not only are they occurring every day, but there are multiple shootings. Over the July 4th weekend, there were over 400 shooting incidents and 600 people died. If that isn’t war, then I don’t know what is!
Republicans and Democrats are now the equivalent of the Union and the Confederacy. All each care about is demonizing the other side and trying to shout each other down. There is no civil discourse, no being willing to listen to the other side’s ideas or concerns, no middle ground; just incivility.
In this uncivil war, it appears the right are winning. I say this because, almost without exception, every story I find, and add to the site, every instance of stupidity and hate (which is stupidity in my opinion) is coming from the right. I keep looking for stories about left-wingers but, so far, the pickings are slim to none.
It is my opinion that Covid-19 has driven many people completely and utterly insane, and these people believe all the conspiracy theories (QAnon, etc.) that are circulating constantly. How else do you explain
With the massive gap between right and left, the increasing number of mass shooting incidents and people stocking up with guns and ammunition, it is only time before this erupts into a full-fledged war with casualties in the millions.
Donald Trump has got a lot to do with this. Here’s where you say I’m a hater and stop reading, but that’s okay. If you believe that he is a great man and that the election was stolen from him, then you are already firmly entrenched on the extreme right and nothing I say will make any difference.
The truth is that Donald Trump is a sociopath, a fraud and a failure, but he is absolutely brilliant at manipulating people. He has convinced the Republican Party to back him unreservedly. I actually don’t believe they like him very much, but they are afraid of him and terrified of his supporters who are, mostly, crazy racist and white supremacists. Members of Congress were absolutely terrified when the mob stormed the Capitol on January 6, incited by Trump, but now they are in absolute denial about this because they believe that Trump’s supporters are likely to lynch them if they as much as say one word against their beloved leader.
Trump’s supporters, the really vehement ones, are certainly not smart. To see how amazingly stupid many of them are, watch this video compilation from The Daily Show’s, Jordan Klepper.
If you don’t find this funny and disturbing at the same time, then I feel really sorry for you.
For your sake and your families' sake; for the sake of the entire country, stop the hating and start talking, and listening, to people across the aisle. You won’t change each other's minds, but you will find some common ground and that will be a good start and maybe, just maybe, it will stop this Uncivil War before it actually turns into one.
