https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/march-10-2024
"As predicted, last week was an important one for the Republican Party.
The Republicans’ rebuttal to the State of the Union on Thursday stayed in the
news throughout the weekend. On Friday, independent journalist Jonathan Katz
figured out that a key story in it was false. Senator Katie Britt (R-AL)
described a twelve-year-old child sex trafficked by Mexican cartel members,
implying that the young girl was trafficked because of President Joe Biden’s
border policies.
Katz tracked down the facts. Britt was describing the life of Karla Jacinto,
who was indeed trafficked as a child, but not in the present and not in the
U.S. and not by cartels. She was trafficked from 2004 to 2008—during the George
W. Bush administration—in Mexico, at the hands of a pimp who entrapped
vulnerable girls. Jacinto has become an advocate for child victims and has told
her story before Congress, and she met Britt at an event for government
officials and anti-trafficking advocates.
Britt’s dramatic delivery of the rebuttal had already invited parody and
concern about the religious themes she demonstrated. The news that a central
image in it was a lie just made things worse. “Everyone’s f*cking losing it,” a
Republican strategist told
The New Republic’s Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling.
“It’s one of our biggest disasters ever.”
On Friday, the Republican National Committee (RNC) voted to replace former RNC
chair Ronna McDaniel, who resigned effective Friday, with Trump loyalist
Michael Whatley and Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump. They will co-chair the
organization and have made it clear their primary goal is to put Trump back in
the White House.
Friday night, on Newsmax, Donald Trump Jr. recorded a video announcing that the
old Republican Party “no longer exists outside of the D.C. beltway…. The move
that happened today…that’s the final blow. People have to understand that
America First, the MAGA movement is the new Republican Party. That is
conservatism today.”
Just what that means was crystal clear on Friday night, when Trump hosted
Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán at the Trump Organization’s Florida
property, Mar-a-Lago. The darling of the radical right, Orbán has spoken at the
Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) and hosted former
Fox News
Channel personality Tucker Carlson, and his policies inspired the anti-LGBTQ+
legislation Florida governor Ron DeSantis has championed.
The right wing’s fondness for Orbán springs from his having rejected democracy
and replaced it in Hungary with what he calls an “illiberal state.” Orbán and
other far-right leaders working against democracy maintain that the central
principle of democracy, equality before the law, undermines society. It permits
immigration, which, in their minds, dilutes the “purity” of a people, and it
requires that LGBTQ+ individuals and women have the same rights as heterosexual
men. Such a world challenges the heteronormative patriarchal world
traditionalists crave.
Orbán’s takeover of the press, elimination of rival political parties, partisan
gerrymandering, capture of the courts, and control of Hungary’s government are
not just ideological, though, but also economic. Corruption and the capture of
valuable factories and properties for cronies have allowed Orbán and his allies
to amass fortunes.
“There’s nobody that’s better, smarter or a better leader than Viktor Orbán.
He’s fantastic,” Trump said on Friday. Trump said that Orbán simply says,
“‘This is the way it’s going to be,’ and that’s the end of it, right? He’s the
boss and…he’s a great leader, fantastic leader. In Europe and around the world,
they respect him.”"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
