Cults, not political parties, attack the heretic

Leah McElrath in Houston still doesn’t have power. It’s been two days. The mayor’s office says it could be “another few days” before power returns. Her food has spoiled so she and her daughter are eating crackers and peanut butter. Pipes are freezing and bursting (though not in her apartment) and renters are finding all their stuff ruined. Sewage lines have frozen. Water lines, when not frozen, are at low pressure due to failures of pumping equipment. Houston is under a boil water advisory (not that anyone has a way to boil it, sure hope you have bottled). The temps are dropping and it’s snowing again.

Houston, we have a problem.

Mark Sumner of Daily Kos reported on the situation in Texas. Governor Greg Abbott (with help from Fox News) is attacking the use of wind energy, saying green energy is “deadly” and Texas would be better off burning more fossil fuels. Sumner added the reality. The wind turbines in Texas are cranking out energy just fine, thank you. The cold doesn’t bother them – there are turbines working well in Antartica and northern Norway, even in North Dakota. What can’t stand the cold is fossil fuels, at least those above ground and uninsulated. That includes natural gas lines between storage facilities and power plants. They have enough moisture that what’s in the pipes turns to sludge when cold. Coal is stored outside and when frozen is hard to move around. Coal plants also need lots of water, which is frozen. Insulating the pipes and making the plants run in cold weather would reduce profits. Their ability to produce electricity has gone down while demand has gone up. Abbott and Fox are blaming green energy because the current system is operating as designed and is a showcase for GOP plans for deregulation and “free markets.” What’s “deadly” is GOP policy. Stephen King (yeah, the author) tweeted:

Hey, Texas! Keep voting for officials who don’t believe in climate change and supported privatization of the power grid! Maybe in 4 years you can vote for Trump again. He believes in the latter but not the former. Perfect.

Samantha Montaro, who has a PhD in emergency management and calls herself a disasterologist, responded:

A common genre of disaster tweet is someone making a snarky comment that blames disaster survivors for the disaster because of their state’s political affiliation. This is a problem for several reasons but the big one is that generally the same communities that tend to be most impacted by disasters are the same ones that are most likely to be kept from voting.

FishOutofWater of the Kos community wrote about the polar vortex freezing Texas and its consequences for weather for the next couple of months. I’ll leave that to the weather forecasters. I mention it because he included a world temperature map from early this morning showing deviations from average. There’s a big cold splotch covering America from the southern tip of Texas to Alabama up to eastern Pennsylvania, through Kansas and the Dakotas, and up into Canada. There’s an even bigger cold splotch covering the European part of Russia. Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are having a comparable heat wave, as is the Arctic. In another post Sumner discussed a good side effect of this cold snap. It’s keeping people home. As in not out socializing and spreading the virus. Sumner also discussed several other bits of virus news. There’s been a lot of talk about the UK variant of the virus (which is in Michigan), known to spread faster. It is now known to also make people sicker. Vaccines are getting into arms at a faster rate, but still not fast enough. Testing levels are declining, which is bad. Keep wearing a mask in public. And we’re getting close to a half million dead. Congressional rules for how bills get passed can be confusing. An example is the “budget reconciliation” process that prevents the GOP from using the filibuster in the Senate. David Nir of Kos explained how that affects the attempt to raise the minimum wage. Does that have anything to do with the federal budget? The Congressional Budget Office has now declared it does. It made the same declaration when the GOP added to their tax bill the elimination of the penalty for not maintaining health insurance (that individual mandate thing) and allowing oil drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. If there’s still doubt whether a particular provision fits the budget resolution the Senate parliamentarian is asked for a recommendation. That opinion can be overruled by the presiding officer, usually VP Harris, but any senator will do. And that can be overridden by a vote of 60 senators. Meaning the GOP would need ten Dem votes to keep the minimum wage part out of the package. A sort of filibuster in reverse. Nice when the rules work out in our favor. Greg Dworkin, in his pundit roundup for Kos, has a few items of interest. I had reported that Moscow Mitch voted to acquit the nasty guy then blasted him saying he was indeed responsible for inciting the attack on the Capitol. The nasty guy broke is silence to issue a statement firing back at Mitch, then hinting he will recruit someone to run in the GOP primary against Mitch. Bill Scher tweeted:

Assuming Trump means it, this is the important part of the statement. A bunch of Republican primary battles could greatly complicate their attempt to win back the Senate. This is where McConnell’s decisions on impeachment befuddle me. If you’re going to pick a fight with Trump, why not go all the way, convict him, disqualify him and excommunicate him?

Daniel Goldman of the Washington Post wrote about witnesses at the impeachment trial:

Instead, the problem is what the decision highlighted: that witness intimidation was yet again a factor in a proceeding intended to hold Trump accountable for his misconduct. Trump had tried to influence potential witnesses during the special counsel’s investigation; he had intimidated witnesses in his first impeachment; and at least one surrogate appeared to be engaged in witness intimidation this time around. Given this track record, it’s reasonable to worry that such intimidation will come into play in the various investigations now circling Trump.

From the New York Times:

In Michigan, one of the key battleground states Mr. Trump lost in the November election — and home to two of the 10 House Republicans who supported impeaching him — there are growing signs of a party not in flux, but united in doubling down on the same themes that defined Mr. Trump’s political style: conspiracy theories, fealty to the leader, a web of misinformation and intolerance.

David Drucker of the Washington Examiner:

The wave of party-sponsored censures greeting Republicans who cross former President Donald Trump reveals a GOP interested in pushing out heretics whose lone political sin is disloyalty to the vanquished party leader. More than a dozen prominent Republicans have been slapped with censure resolutions by state or county parties this year. Most were rebuked for voting to impeach Trump or to convict the former president at trial in the Senate because they hold him responsible for the Jan. 6 siege of the Capitol by his grassroots supporters. Some Republicans were censured because party activists decided they ignored Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen.

Kerry Eleveld of Kos discussed a recent poll showing the effect the nasty guy is having on the GOP.

What's both striking and problematic about recent polling among Republicans is that while Trump remains the most dominant figure in the GOP, he also divides conservative voters. For instance, while 57% of GOP voters wanted a major role for Trump, 17% favored a minor role for him, and 18% wanted no role for Trump at all. That's a deep split. The latest Civiqs polling notes a similar phenomenon. Of the 43% of respondents who said they voted for Trump, about two-thirds (28%) said they think of themselves as "Trump supporters" while the other third considers themselves "Republican Party supporters." So while Trump is bound to continue his role as a dominant force in the Republican Party, he’s also bound to divide the party amongst itself.

Dartagnan of the Kos community told the story of Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois. He is one of the 10 House Republicans who voted for impeachment. One of his cousins wrote a letter condemning him for the vote, saying such things as “What a disappointment you are to us and to God!” The letter intentionally pulls in the idea that Kinzinger has violated whatever God commanded. Dartagnan wrote:

If the reflexive censure of those senators—a punishment normally reserved by a political party for its most errant members—was insufficient evidence of the GOP’s transformation into an out-and-out cult, then the “shunning” of Congressman Kinzinger by his own family members should put any doubts to rest. … At the outset, it should be emphasized that the imposition of such mass censuring is not “typical” behavior for a political party or its adherents in addressing dissident voices within their ranks, nor is it at all typical for a politician’s own family to “disown” him. Rather, this is more akin to what cults do when faced with an “apostate” who questions the cult—or worse, seeks to leave. Cults, not political parties, close ranks and attack the person they perceive as the heretic. Cults, not political parties, attempt to isolate the offender, in order to make an example of him/her to the rest of the cult. … With shockingly few exceptions, members of the Republican Party have allowed themselves to be co-opted by a toxic cult mentality that is now dictating the actions of the party itself. The fact that this mentality is being driven by a powerful but largely unexamined religious fervor in our society makes it even more dangerous.

David Neiwert of Kos discussed an article by Marc Fisher in the Washington Post about the destabilizing social effects of pandemics. In general, more people are susceptible to the extreme ideas of supremacist movements. Neiwert concluded:

“Pandemics create insecurity, while extremism offers a kind of certainty,” University of Maryland social psychologist Arie Kruglanski told the Post. “Especially now, when trust is low in government, in Congress, in science, in medicine, the church—there’s nobody you can trust, so you trust your friends, your tribe. Extremists offer a black-and-white view,” he said. “There’s a culprit responsible for some evil plan to destroy the nation, and they have a plan for restoration that will bring back greatness.”

Lauren Floyd of Kos reported that now the impeachment trial is over and the nasty guy is no longer protected by being in office, Democrats are filing lawsuits against him. Floyd discussed one alleging that the nasty guy, personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, and hate groups Proud Boys and Oath Keepers “conspired to incite” the Capitol attack.