Back in the 1990s the GOP regularly accused liberal or Democratic judges of ‘legislating from the bench.’ According to Republicans of that era, these ‘highly partisan,’ untrustworthy judges were using the courts — manipulating them, really — to make an end run around democracy, and remake our laws in progressive ways that American voters would never approve of or sanction.
The evil Democrats, they insisted, were using the courts to undermine and destroy American society and all its venerable political and social traditions.
Fast forward to the past decade, and lo and behold, now it’s the GOP that is constantly trying to use the courts to get its way, impose conservative values on America, and make an end run around democracy. The most egregious examples of this trend are the Supreme Court’s horrendous ‘Citizens United’ decision, its decision to eviscerate and hobble the Voting Rights Act, and of course, it’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and ‘cancel’ American women’s basic right to an abortion (despite their solemn promise not to ever do that).
The GOP is now openly oppressive and fascist
But there’s an even deeper, more ominous trend behind both of these types of Republican messaging and maneuvering — namely, the long-term transformation of the GOP into an oppressive, manipulative, and openly fascist political party. And one of the prime signs of this hideous transformation is the fact that today’s GOP openly embraces the proven fascist technique of ‘the Big Lie’ — while another obvious sign is the GOP’s intentional use/abuse of mass projection.
Between them, these two trends show that today’s GOP has fundamentally shifted toward a politics of oppression and public manipulation. As America’s population has grown over the past century and become more fully multi-racial and multicultural, the GOP has gradually been somewhat marginalized and its (mainly White) supporters have found themselves losing power and influence.
This is (they believe) an intolerable state of affairs for a major political party, as well as for the nation’s many resentful, angry Whites. Thus the GOP had to transform itself, and Republicans — if they were to start winning more elections again — had to become total masters of deception and projection. They’ve been working at this feverishly, and have now perfected these abhorrent capabilities.
As I’ve written before, the crucial foundation for this transformation was the GOP’s adoption of the ‘No Principles’ principle. The basic idea (thanks for nothing, Newt Gingrich!) was that winning at any cost was all-important, and this often required jettisoning moral scruples and doing whatever it takes to win, no matter how amoral or immoral.
The birth of the ‘culture wars’
The GOP’s underlying motivation shifted from preserving traditional American culture, and with it our long-time political and moral traditions, to using America’s (White-centric) traditions and using White American’s internalized racism to stir up fear and increased ‘other hating’ — and then win more elections.
Thus were born … the so-called ‘culture wars’ that have been consuming the GOP and U.S. politics for decades now. And the most prominent and effective aspects of the GOP’s intentional ‘culture wars’ revolve around those two ugly endeavors: mass deception and projection.
So just for fun — rather grim ‘fun,’ in truth — let’s run down a list of the many ways the GOP has been employing deception and projection in its bid to consolidate its power. First, though, a bit of definition is in order: when dealing with politics, the term ‘projection’ refers to the deliberate attempt to always portray the ‘other side’ or other party as doing all the creepy ‘evil’ deeds that you yourself are performing (but denying).
So, if we list all the ways the GOP is employing deception and projection, at the very top would be the examples I gave earlier. That is, while Republicans have been working mightily to use the courts to manipulate and bend the law in directions they favor, they also have a long-term strategy of loudly and constantly accusing liberals and Democrats of doing that exact same thing.
Deception, projection, and manipulation in action
So without further ado, here is my (partial) list of despicable GOP deceptions and projections:
1. Fiercely accusing liberals of manipulating the courts and ‘legislating from the bench’ — while the GOP is actually doing it, and very consistently! GOP-led lawsuits and legal challenges are coming so fast that our legal and legislative systems are reeling and ‘in shock,’ while many of our laws and societal rules are in legal limbo.
2. For decades the GOP accused the Dems of gumming up our courts and legal system with hundreds of ‘frivolous lawsuits’ — but since the rise of Trump and the new (fascist) GOP 2.0, Republicans have been flooding our courts with thousands of frivolous lawsuits aiming to overturn, delay, or interfere with election results, ‘liberal’ laws, and ongoing progressive actions to protect our environment and combat global warming. Bad-faith legal actions have largely replaced legislating and trying to enact the will of the American people.
3. Ever since the 2016 election, the GOP has been screaming about Democrat-led ‘voter fraud,’ and since November 2020 has been backing Trump’s claims of a ‘stolen’ election. Trump, of course, has never conceded the election, so he and the GOP keep yelling and agitating about it and constantly accusing the ‘evil Dems’ of massive fraud (“Stop the Steal!”).
But lo and behold, despite hundreds of recounts, legal battles, and more recounts, no significant voter fraud has been found. Or rather … the tiny amount of fraud that was found was committed by — wait for it — Trump supporters who were desperate to get their man elected and found ways to vote twice or vote in place of dead people!
4. Then, directly related to #3 above, the GOP is using all its phony-baloney claims of widespread ‘voter fraud’ to justify its nationwide campaign to restrict voting rights and make voting harder for people of color. This is a true master class in deception and projection: First Trump and the GOP keep spreading the Big Lie about voter fraud, then the GOP uses that lie to back up its fraudulent manipulation of our voting and election systems — all of which is intended to help the GOP dominate our election processes and commit actual voting and election fraud!
And all the while, of course, they’ll continue howling about Democrat-led fraud. Yikes: a master class in deception and projection, indeed.
5. The GOP and Fox ‘News’ are always accusing the Dems and liberals of ‘grooming’ our kids to be gay … or transgender … or socialists … or anti-American. Meanwhile, right-wing media have been busily grooming Americans to be more hateful, racist, and perpetually angry, and in fact have been grooming right-leaning Americans for decades to hate and overturn ‘modern’ America and to return it to its supposed glorious, White-centric past.
Once again, we see the same pattern of deception, Big Lies, and massive projection.
A major betrayal of our founding ideals
I could go on and on, but I think I’ve made my point. The truly insidious thing about all this is: it totally betrays Americans’ naive trust; it betrays our founding ideals; and it betrays politicians’ oath to be faithful to our Constitution.
The GOP has now morphed into The Party of Deception, Big Lies, and Mass Projection and Manipulation. That’s become its entire essence. If we simply and honestly examine the voluminous evidence for these assertions, we’ll find ourselves always returning to the same ugly place, and reaching the exact same frightening conclusions:
Today’s GOP truly is The Party of Deception, Big Lies, and Mass Projection. It just … is. It has no workable political platform, or really any platform at all — except for attacking the Dems and grabbing and holding on to power. And the power it seeks to grab and hold is … the power to ‘cancel’ modern America and remold the U.S. in its own twisted, racist, and deceitful image.
That’s why, now more than ever, truth matters — and holding the line against continual lying and manipulation is so crucial. We can’t let the liars, deceivers, manipulators, and oppressors win. And to hold the line, we have to keep on exposing their lies, deceptions, and oppressive manipulations.
We have to fight back with both our words and our actions.
As the old saying goes, the Truth and sunlight are the greatest disinfectants.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
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