Conservative delegates voted Saturday to add some new social conservative policies to their policy playbook including a proposal to limit access to transgender health care for minors and to do away with vaccine mandates.
The Jekyll and Hyde routine continues. The reactionary, regressive policies are red meat for the more unsavoury parts of the party—the "grassroots" as they like to call them. Which, I might add, I don't entirely agree with the notion that those people are their 'grassroots.' They are extreme. They have little expertise. They are loud. They are so loud, in fact, that they run roughshod over their more civil peers. None of this means they need to be pandered to, or that they represent the 'true core' of the party.
All this considered, behind closed doors, the party panders to them and becomes as disagreeable as they are. When public facing, they adopt a softer and more tolerant tone—they want to seem even-handed and composed. We are then told that these two identities are the same, as if our eyes and ears have been lying to us.
What an embarrassing state of affairs for the more moderate members.
Every conservative, from the outright Nazis, to the polite, moderate, “socially liberal, fiscally conservative” types, is equally responsible for the monstrosity of this party.
I actually respect the fascists and extremists more. They’re not lying about what they want, to themselves or anyone else. They acknowledge the hatred, they openly live for it. They disgust me, but at least they’re up front about their monstrosity. They don’t hide it behind polite smiles. They don’t pretend to care about other people while voting for heartless, regressive policies that will still condemn people to suffering and death.
They’re not better people because they vote to cut social programs and privatise healthcare, instead of dragging people into the streets and lynching them. They’re still causing the same death and misery, they’re just doing it at safe distance to make their hands look clean.
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