Republicans Determined to Create a New Apartheid America

The White Right's revolutionary strategy to return America to the distant and largely imaginary past has picked up steam this election year.

The party of Trump is wallowing in vile accusations and outright lies about minority communities to attract their supporters.

The idea is to foment a moral panic around the false claim that the LGBTQ community somehow poses a "threat" to the "traditional family."

The strategy is to claim, "real Americans" - meaning white, supposedly Christian conservatives - are somehow being oppressed or "discriminated against" in "their own country." 

Efforts have recently intensified the GOPs culture-war legislations attacking LGBTQ rights, "critical race theory" school curricula and other related issues.

The goal is to go after women's rights, the LGBTQ community, Black and brown people and other marginalized groups who will have their most fundamental rights taken away from them.

This new Apartheid America is a winning strategy for the party of Trump because it's feeding the basest desires of the "base" prior to the midterms.

Republicans have embraced antisemitic QAnon conspiracies like out-of-control children in a candy store. 

They're particularly interested in pedophiles and accuse Democrats and "leftists" of kidnapping and abusing children without a shred of evidence. 

Why are pedos a favorite target among the right-wing assholes pushing the lies? It's simple. It's the most disgusting and vile attack they can come up with. As usual, there doesn't have to be any evidence or proof when they attack people.

Mix in the fact that Trump is convincing gutless conservatives into accepting an authoritarian regime, and that becomes a recipe for a disaster.

Authoritarian biopolitics is not just about encouraging the "right elements" of the population to procreate - fearmongering about declining White Christian birthrates recurs from the Fascists to Orban and Tucker Carlson - but also about removing the "wrong elements" from the public sphere, by silencing them, locking them up, or worse.

To my utter dismay, the Democrats have offered no effective defense against such culture-war moral panic attacks.

Democrats have made the mistake of assuming these culture-war attacks are the stuff of fools and unsophisticated thinkers. They've been operating under the illusion that the Republicans can be defeated with facts and reason.

Their assumptions are going to guarantee defeat for them and others who believe in a pluralistic society and real democracy.

The defenders of democracy must go beyond superficial critiques. They must substantively engage, expose and discredit how and why such attacks resonate for Republicans and "conservatives."

It's important to know that authoritarian regimes always cast themselves as the guardians of morality, and cast all who oppose them as perversely evil, deserving the severest of punishments.

"Biblical morality," and GOP politics are the stuff that divides Americans, opening the door to an authoritarian regime.