The Right-Cheek Ass Clown for February, 2022

You really have to wonder how we allowed ourselves to get to a place like this. 

Yes, friends, it's time to name

The Right-Cheek Ass Clown for February, 2022

and - without the least doubt or hesitation, the award goes to

The Republican National Committee

Beginning with the ascent of Ronald Reagan in the 80's, the Republican Party has become increasingly conservative, nativist, and intolerant. This rightward drift sped up with conservative anger at the election of President Obama in 2008 and 2012, and skyrocketed with the rise of Der Furor and his election in 2016. His boorish, crude, and openly racist demeanor allowed angry religious and political conservatives to come out into the open and express the ugly beliefs that had been suppressed in times of better leadership.

The extreme swing of the GOP to the ultra-authoritarian right was on full display this past week, when the Republican National Committee officially disowned two of the party's last remaining members with any dignity, sense of responsibility, or moral compass. In a shocking formal resolution, the RNC formally and officially denounced Representatives Liz Cheney (R, WY-1) and Adam Kinzinger (R, IL-16) for their roles in investigating the horrific Capitol riots and violence of January 6th, 2021. The official statement actually said that the mob on January 6th - which caused more than a million dollars in damage to the Capitol Building and smeared its halls with feces, erected a gallows and called for the Vice President to be hanged, beat police officers with crude weapons (including an American flag on a pole) and caused the deaths of five people and injuries to more than 140 police officers - consisted of "ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse."

You would think that the party's shameless obeisance to a crude would-be tyrant like Der Furor, who has spent his life breaking laws and avoiding any consequences for doing so, would be enough to turn the stomachs of traditionally conservative* voters, but you would be wrong. The RNC continues to pay legal fees for a self-described billionaire and business genius with multiple bankruptcies, and a disgraced president who was twice impeached and who every day loudly and proudly admits to more and more crimes he has committed ... to the cheers of those who lost the most from his inept administration. The RNC has the unmitigated gall to claim that it supports a Constitution that its own actions routinely violate, and is focused only on the accumulation of power and wealth for its wealthiest and most powerful supporters, while thundering that any programs which benefit ordinary American workers and their families equate to the horror of "socialism." 

I encourage each of you who has not actually read the RNC declaration to do so right now. Here again is the link to it, in case you missed the one I included earlier in this post. If you can read it and not be profoundly disgusted, I have to question whether you actually understand the concept of American democracy, the words of the Constitution, and the rule of law.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Readers, the Republican National Committee, an organization diminished by its servile bootlicking of Der Furor and unquestioning support of his blatant criminality, is designated as the Right-Cheek Ass Clown for February, 2022. It is an organization truly beyond hope or redemption.

More thoughts coming tomorrow, when Cartoon Saturday brings us some much-needed laughs.

Bilbo

* Whatever that means any more.