I remain awed by some Republicans - those quasi-sapient enough to dislike “all-7-deadly-sins” Trump, while claiming to love science and freedom – and yet who still clutch mantras of GOP loyalty. Even purported libertarians - who know that Republican policies and narratives are anti-freedom in all ways - recite incantations like ‘liberals are worse!’
(Libertarian hypocrisy is galling, since Dems score better on everything ‘freedom lovers’ should want, from debt and deficits, abortion rights and drug law reform to individual sexual choice, tort and contract law, separation of church/state and anything having to do with personal accountability. Plus this: red-run states (except Utah) average higher rates of every turpitude (e.g. gambling, murder, rape, STDs...) and parasitize budget support from blue America. Alas, none of that matters, apparently - only tax cuts for the nobility. That is the one and only determining issue, ever since the Party of Feudalism took over most libertarian institutions.)
We live in a complex era and ‘ostriches’ (those residually smart but in-denial Republicans and Libertarians) use modern complexity to scamper from one head-hole to the next, reciting cancellation incantations. For example, howling about “Hansen’s errors in the 90s!” in order to evade facing the current tsunami of proofs that a looming climate crisis threatens the very lives of our children.
(And yes, that one issue alone should be enough to break the spell! So the distraction incantations become frantic.)
I found one way past this tactic of frantic birds scurrying from one echo-hole to the next. Confront your semi-sapient ostrich with a list of distilled challenges, and stay focused on a few, tenaciously! Do not allow them to change the subject from that small set of fact-checkable assertions. And yes, here is where Brin repeats his challenge ad nauseam. It helps to demand wagers! Or else some other form of accountability for what’s factually and provably true.
(Here's a video by a savvy young man using wagers to gradually pry his own mom away from QAnon addiction.)
For example, if any ONE of the following is true, then today’s GOP is an insane criminal enterprise. If ALL are true (and they all are) then abetting that gang of mephistophelians is – in itself – treason to the only civilization that ever offered humanity a sliver of hope and progress.
HERE’S THAT LIST and I will accept wagers - with attorney-escrowed $$$ stakes -over any of them:
* Grand juries across the United States (mostly white retirees, mostly in red-run states) have indicted almost a hundred times as many top Repubs as Dems! And I mean that: almost one hundred times as many! With other juries delivering correlated convictions.
Now, in theory that fact could result from some grand conspiracy involving tens of thousands of Americans - from FBI agents to random citizens - conniving perfectly, without a single actual trace! That is, I suppose it could happen in a Hollywood thriller. Though shouldn't that blithe scenario demand a pretty darn steep burden of proof? Proof that is nonexistent. And I mean 100% nonexistent.
Or else, consider a simpler explanation: that this gusher of indicted/convicted felonies may result from subornation of the once-great party of Lincoln, Teddy R., Ike and Goldwater into a 'swamp' of systematic criminality. (Side bet: which party has >10x the rate of high officials nailed for child predation?)
* Pick any random 10 of Trump's 150,000 registered lies for us to wager-over. Or any non-vapor ‘evidence’ of any election 'steal.' Or name ONE fact-centered profession that’s NOT hated-on by Fox? (I can name one, but can you?)
* Now those hated fact professions include the FBI! Plus all the intel agencies and the US military officer corps. All of them used to be, not long ago, admired by all US conservatives! Now? Funny how that enemies list just happens to include all the Americans who are most hated by Vlad Putin, blaming them for the fall of his beloved USSR? Shouldn't that perfect overlap cause some concern?
Wager! Let's ask those heroes (the FBI/intel/military officers who won the Cold War & War on Terror, but who are now hated nightly on Fox) to weigh in on fact-related matters! Like the climate crisis, or January 6, or Russian influence in the GOP… or whether Vlad's “ex” commissar cronies in Moscow - and a slightly relabeled KGB - ever actually changed their stripes?
No, I mean it. Let’s ask them! Afraid that experiment might contradict what you suckle, nightly, from the Fox teat?
* Let's go together and ask a panel of those fact folks to compare Hunter Biden's whole life – assuming the worst! - vs. any random week of the Trump boys. Let's tally NDAs & hush payments! How about we join forces to demand all records from both families!
Can we agree - across party lines - to a national campaign to cancel all the NDAs, publish all the business records and let the chips fall where they may? No? Then how about at least solid metrics of who 'drained the swamp?' When do K Street lobbying firms to best? During Dem or GOP administrations?
* Come to sea with me and a pH meter! Personally and together and in person. Then let’s take our readings to a randomly chosen community college chemistry instructor for clear interpretation. Let’s bet right now whether acidification is killing the oceans that our children will need! And it can ONLY be caused by human CO2 pollution.
Are you man enough to put up wager stakes? Or even more manly… to start caring?
* Compare DEATH rates of those who took - or refused - vaccines! Side question: Were ANY Americans as beloved by the nation, ever, as FDR was and later Jonas Salk?
* Can we bet which party is ALWAYS more fiscally responsible regarding debt and deficits? And yes, I mean always! (In fact, national Republican administrations are always spendthrift wastrels, sending deficits skyrocketing, while Democratic ones are always fiscally responsible. Please rush to escrow those wager stakes. Big ones.
"Are you squirming now?" (Ask your MAGA.) "How about, as a grownup, you live with the death of a favorite meme cliché!"
* I mentioned this before, but it really hits home! Let's put up real stakes whether Red-run States (except Utah) average higher in every class of turpitude! From gambling, addiction, STDs, domestic violence and murder to teen sex, divorce and net tax parasitism on the rest of the nation.
* Throw in the failure of a single Rightist “supply side economics” prediction ever, ever to come true. Did I say ever? The sole tangible outcome of that cult has been rocketing wealth disparities favoring inheritance brats – now passing French Revolution levels - along with the deliberate war on science and the planet.
Of course, it’s futile to demand wagers from blowhard cowards, desperately repeating reassuring mantras and masturbatory incantations. No MAGA/Putinist ever shows manly guts to back up their blab, the way that our WWII grampas would've, with cash stakes slapped on the bar and an honest “let’s find out!”
Instead, alas, the blowhards always flee, amid the ruins of their macho.
So why do I recommend the tactic?
Because it is this very assertiveness of confident men and women that will cause the New Confederates to back down... especially those unhappy, uncomfortable ones with actual minds, who know that something has gone terribly wrong with their 'movement.' Those who cover their ears and eyes, or suckle from the glass bosom of Fox etc., murmuring "I know my party's gone insane, but... but... but DEMOCRATS ARE WORSE! Yeah, that's the ticket..."
It's these borderline cases who are worth the effort. And I can prove that.
Way back during Watergate, I saw the shift happen, when a critical mass of such folks - ostrich Republicans in refusal to recognize criminality - finally lifted their heads out of holes of denial, shook off the cobwebs and admitted:
"I care more about my children, the future, science, truth, America and the world than about an undead were-elephant that badly needs a stake through its heart...
".... so that a decent, loyal, factual and American conservatism* can be reborn from the ashes of this monster."
When that happens (and I have faith in my neighbors!) I will be among those who step up, congratulate them, welcome that phoenix back home... and then get back to negotiating with actual adults about our richly varied course into the future.
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* Do you know the State of Arizona now draws 7.3% of its electricity from the spinning in Barry Goldwater's grave?
Well, then, maybe if I hum a few bars....
