How Do We Take Our Societies Back From the Lunatics, Fanatics, and Morons?

Authoritarians Big and Small Are Joining Hands to Wrest Control of Our Democracies — And It’s Up to Us To Stop Them

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I know, what even is that pic above? Yes, it’s real. It’s from…Trump’s Trading Cards. The MAGA masses collect this stuff. Trump announced a new set a few days ago, after this first set sold out in one day. This, my friends, is the special calibre of flat-out lunacy and moronitude we’re dealing with.

It’s a question I think about a lot, and maybe you do too. How do we take our societies back from the fanatics and lunatics who’ve overrun them? Take a hard look at America, and its cousin in collapse, Britain. Take a look at every corner of the globe, from India to Russia and beyond. What do you see?

You might not have ever heard the name Dominic Raab. He was an arch, super, ultra, mega Brexiter. A man if not single-handedly responsible for destroying an entire country’s future, then certainly on the short list. And as he did so, given how painfully broken our institutions are, he was rewarded. So he rose and rose, and today, he’s Britain’s Deputy Prime Minister.

Or was, anyways. He was forced to resign, after an inquiry found him guilty of…bullying. LOL. Destroying the nation’s future, totally cool. But bullying? That’s a step too far. I kid. This is an eminently good thing. Let’s give it some context.

Dominic Raab has resigned as the UK’s deputy prime minister and as justice secretary after an official report into bullying allegations found he had acted in an “intimidating” manner towards civil servants.

The investigation by Adam Tolley KC, a leading employment barrister, said Raab had on a number of occasions “gone further” than appropriate in delivering critical feedback and been insulting about work done by Ministry of Justice officials.

Tolley believed that while Raab did not intend to upset or humiliate officials, they found him “unreasonably difficult to deal with”, as he was sometimes “abrasive” — and while he had regulated his level of abrasiveness, “he should have altered his approach earlier”.

So how did Raab react? This is even funnier.

Raab released an angry resignation letter on Friday morning in which he said the conclusions of the report into his conduct set a “dangerous precedent” by setting the threshold for bullying “so low” — but that he wanted to “keep his word” to quit if it found against him.

Yeah, that’s totally not an apology. It’s reacting to being called out as bully…by being a bully. Double LOL.

Now, if you’re American, you might think, well, what does all this have to do with me? The answer is: everything. Let’s take another seemingly unrelated event. 

Scores of rightwing US extremists were defeated in school-board elections in April, in a victory for the left and what Democrats hope could be effective for running against Republicans in the year ahead.

In Illinois, Democrats said more than 70% of school-board candidates it had endorsed won their races, often defeating the kinds of anti-LGBTQ+ culture-warrior candidates who have taken control of school boards across the country.

Maybe you see the link already, If not, let me make it clear.

The fanatics and lunatics who’ve overrun our societies are bullies. Now, that’s a small word. It’s not a big one. It’s not a social scientific term of jargon. But you know what? It’s probably more accurate than anything in all the textbooks and papers I’ve ever read, to describe the problem we’re in.

Let’s go back to those school boards for a moment. What’s been happening? People who were once upon a time pretty average soccer moms have been institutionally radicalized. 

Moms for Liberty, a rightwing group linked to wealthy Republican donors which has been behind book-banning campaigns in the US, said only eight of its endorsed candidates won election to school boards, and other conservative groups also reported disappointing performances.

In other words, these moms, who used to probably be pretty normal people, underwent a careful and deliberate process of radicalization by this shadowy group, Moms for Liberty, and if that’s not already surreal enough, in it, they were taught to…hector…harass…intimidate…threaten…abuse…their fellow parents, teachers, principals, even kids.

You know the results, because America became famous for them. School board meetings in which these newly created lunatics — “Moms for Liberty” — would stand up and literally shout all kinds of horrific, toxic, poisonous stuff. Stuff of a certain kind. Hate, bigotry, prejudice. These are the folks who are the grass roots of a newly authoritarian fascist agenda, like banning books, banning classes in everything from history to sexuality, to erasing whole categories of kids from existing.

Bullies. A lot of people don’t like that word in our societies. And to me, at least, that says something. It’s why the bullies have had it so easy. We’ve been afraid to call it out for what it is. And that’s probably because in our societies, many of us have been at the receiving end of this sort of behavior for most of our lives.