Their inhumanity becomes normal

I’ve written a few times about how the nasty guy and a good deal of the GOP seems intent on killing us off. SemDem of the Daily Kos community traces where that idea came from.

It started with Friedrich Nietzsche’s Übermensch – his theory of superhumans. That means for some to be super, others have to be declared inferior. And the inferior are left to fend for themselves.

Hitler used that theory to declare some people to be “unfit,” those not able to contribute to society. They included the infirm, the physically disabled, the mentally ill, those with learning disabilities, and those with alcohol issues. Though the article doesn’t say so, I’m well aware that LGBTQ people were part of the “unfit.” The Nazi campaign started slowly, first with mocking them and declaring them “useless eaters.” Then they started classifying people. Then they started killing them.

Along the way they conditioned the German people by getting a little bit worse every day so their inhumanity would become normal. People got so used to the cruelty that murder of “the weak” was the next logical step.

“Sacrifice the weak” has recently appeared on protest signs in Nashville.

Another to borrow heavily from Nietzsche was author Ayn Rand. In her novels she applied the Übermensch theory to capitalism. The strong are supposed to plunder the weak, it’s the natural order of things. So society should focus on the strong and allow the weak to suffer and die.

Her ideas were pulled into the GOP in the 1980s. A government to work towards the collective good was no longer the goal. Since then the party has retooled to serve the interests of only the ultra-rich. It is hard to find a Republican who doesn’t speak fondly of Rand. And the nasty guy – known for hating to read – said Rand’s The Fountainhead is his favorite book.

And now we get voices like this, actually saying these things out loud, from Dick Kovacevich, former CEO of Wells Fargo:

We’ll gradually bring those people back and see what happens. Some of them will get sick, some may even die, I don’t know.

And from Tom Golisano of Paychex, Inc.:

The damages of keeping the economy closed as it is could be worse than losing a few more people.

Wrote SemDem:

Putting aside the immorality that making money for rich people should take precedence over a public health emergency, the very concept of allowing vast numbers of Americans to die to “save the economy” is completely illogical. By relaxing social restrictions too soon, the death rate will skyrocket. Our extremely fragile healthcare system will then collapse, and more businesses will crumble. Ironically, opening prematurely won't just kill more people, it will cause even more devastating economic harm.

I’m sure the smarter among them understand that irony. Which means this isn’t about restarting the economy. It’s about killing off more people. SemDem again:

For all of the screaming about individual freedom that the right does, including attacks on our party for being “socialist,” I find it ironic that the Trumpian right-wing is now demanding that people submit to death for the state: the expendable workers, the sick, the grandparents and great-grandparents who have already lived their lives. All should sacrifice to serve for Trump’s reelection bid.
…
Right now, the right is asking for voluntary sacrifices of the old and weak, but history shows it's just a few atrocities away from being made mandatory.

The “unfit” probably now includes the poor, those who work in menial jobs (now called “essential”), and anyone not ultra-rich.



Another week of the pandemic, another week of new unemployment claims. Yesterday’s number was 3.9 million, for a six week total of 30.1 million. That brings the unemployment level to about 23%. The peak of the unemployment rate in the Great Depression was 24.9%.



Cities and states are getting into deep financial trouble due to extra expenses of the pandemic and falling income and sales taxes. They’re starting to lay off workers. These workers are being held hostage by Moscow Mitch and his demand the next relief bill include a liability shield for companies that endanger their workers, which I discussed a couple days ago.

Those hostages include people such as police, firemen, teachers, garbage collectors, and water workers. Cuts would mean slower response for 911 calls.



Greg Dworkin sometimes compiles a pundit roundup for Kos. The one for today includes a paragraph from The Washington Post (author not listed) that implies “endanger your life or starve.”

The threats have been loudest among Republican leaders in recent days, reflecting their anxious attempts to jump-start local economic recovery roughly two months after most businesses shut their doors. In Iowa, for example, state officials even have posted a public call for companies to get in touch if an “employee refuses to return to work.”

In response to Elon Musk of Tesla tweeting “Free America Now,” Benjamin Franklin tweeted

The most powerful people in the country are now conspiring about how to convince you to die on the job without too much fuss.

The way they've chosen to do it is to convince enough of their followers that they're fighting overreaching bureaucrats or worse such that their followers will demand the economy reopen. Then enough people will go along with being forced back to work to fire anyone who won't go.

Alexandra Erin tweeted a thread in response to meat plants being ordered to reopen. She thinks we are only a few steps away from them becoming forced labor camps where prisoners are worked to death.

The nasty guy has declared these plants must operate. There is already a culture of prison labor for private companies, such as using immigrants in detention to harvest crops. We’ve also seen public indifference to incarcerated people dying of COVID-19 – if someone is locked up, they deserve it and whatever else happens, even if not a part of their sentence.

Companies would see that prison labor is cheaper and “safer” from a PR view. The companies would never spend to keep employees safe. Neither would the public – if it becomes normal quickly. Which means the virus would run freely. And a lot of deaths. It’s short steps from the plants must run to staffing with prison labor to keeping up the pool of prison labor. That’s a pretext for mass round-ups of immigrants with the excuse of “putting them to work for America.”



Sarah Kendzior tweeted about the nasty guy:

What he's trying to do is force officials in sanctuary cities to abuse their own residents. He wants to test them, see how low they'll go, what trades they'll make, then crow about their hypocrisy. To fight back, officials must be blunt and transparent with unyielding ethics.

He gets off on forcing people to compromise their values publicly. And he's been successful -- we see it with media and with officials. It's ritualized humiliation designed to hollow people out. But if you're honest about him *and* honest about institutional flaws, you can fight.