Tribalism Today
Republican senator Ron Johnson, apparently eager to demonstrate the extremes to which a human mind may be reduced by cult idolatry and tribal allegiance, told a radio interviewer this week that he was not frightened of the rioters at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, because — wrap what is left of your rational mind around this one — “I knew those were people who love this country, that truly respect law enforcement, would never do anything to break the law, so I wasn’t concerned.”
Actually, Senator, they were people who have made it abundantly clear that they love Donald Trump far more than they ever loved America, who explicitly rallied that day against the rule of law, and who are (accurately) referred to as “rioters” and “insurrectionists” because they willingly, knowingly, broke into the U.S. Congress, forcibly and destructively entered and occupied chambers and offices against the resistance of law enforcement officers, stole personal property, and, in many cases, loudly chanted for the violent capture and/or death of Vice President Pence. Furthermore, since their arrests, some of these rioters have stated on the record that they wanted to do damage and to harm elected officials. And they did all of this, let us recall, as a direct attempt to overturn an election the result of which was in the process of being officially certified — and which result their god’s legal representatives had repeatedly been laughed out of court by conservative judges (including Trump appointees) for daring to challenge on the basis of nothing but Alex-Jones-level kook nonsense.
Senator Johnson, you were right not to be afraid — because the violent fanatics and cultists were not there to get you, knowing you to be one of their own.
The Associated Press article, noted above, in which I read that Senator Johnson has abandoned all semblance of rationality, conveniently frames the story as a matter of race, since Johnson also said, idiotically, that he might have been afraid of the rioters had they been members of Black Lives Matter or Antifa. Note to Republican tribesmen: And if that alternative had indeed been the case, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders had said after the fact that they were not afraid of the rioters, because they knew those people loved America and would never do anything bad, how would the “conservatives” inclined to defend Johnson’s comments today have responded?
The problem with tribalism is that everyone instantly loses fifty IQ points.
The AP story, furthermore, begins with a sentence all too typical in this age of progressive collectivist propaganda: “Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson is being called racist for an interview in which the white Republican said he wasn’t worried about the predominantly white supporters of President Donald Trump during the deadly insurrection at the Capitol….”
Framing the story this way from the outset, with Johnson and the people he is defending both being explicitly defined as “white,” immediately and gratuitously forces the reader to view the story through the artificially imposed prism of racial prejudice. Without having provided any context, let alone any opportunity for readers to assess the unfiltered events and statements for themselves — remember what journalism used to pretend to be, back in the imaginary good old days? — the Associated Press has, shall we say, prejudged the events as an instance of white-against-black bigotry, rather than what it really is, namely cult-against-reason stupidity.
But the AP, being an especially “forward”-looking news organization, pushes moral hypocrisy to the breaking point further along in the same article, with this:
Johnson’s comments sparked outrage among Wisconsin Democrats, including state Sen. LaTonya Johnson, of Milwaukee.
“For him to say something as racist as that — it’s ridiculous,” said the state senator, who is Black.
“…said the state senator, who is Black.” AP’s rules demand that “black,” as a racial descriptor, always be spelled incorrectly, i.e., capitalized even in the middle of a sentence, as though it were a proper name or an official title. The racial descriptor “white,” by contrast, is afforded no such titular treatment, which bespeaks not merely inconsistency, of course, but…well, what would be the right word? Oh yes; in the moral lexicon of the age, we would call that racism, wouldn’t we? Or rather, we would have called it that until a couple of years ago, when the last threadbare rags of pseudo-rational semi-objectivity were dropped by the progressive indoctrinators at last, revealing the naked injustice and life-hating thuggery that always formed the true heart of their “philosophy.”
