I finished the S-Town podcast earlier this week, before the GOP finished killing the filibuster in the Senate and the continuing parade of \u201cdo everything we threatened Obama over\u201d entered the bomb-Syria phase. All of which I expected. Last year, I said that this was unprecedented, the biggest blow yet to the established norms of American politics, and that it might not redound to the benefit of the GOP if the Democrats could make people aware of the consequences. Unfortunately, making people aware of the consequences would have required a media brighter than the average schnauzer, and here we are.<\/p>\n
Because make no mistake, this is a bell you can\u2019t unring. The GOP filibustered a Supreme Court vacancy for almost a year to prevent a Democrat filling that seat, and then destroyed the filibuster to fill it themselves. If there\u2019s one thing you can say about the 21st century, say this: this is when the Republican Party realized they could take over politics merely by ignoring the unwritten rules. In Republican-World, it\u2019s okay to steer the Titanic directly into the iceberg if you can be captain all the way down, and your opponents will blithely assume \u201cnobody would actually steer into an iceberg\u201d and just let you do it.<\/p>\n
Which was in the back of my head the whole time I was listening to this podcast. \u00a0See, there are things they tell you in the old country. Things about God and Jesus and how you treat your fellow man, about how important it is to do well in school, about how good it is that you\u2019re smart. But that matters less than the unwritten rules: God is for whatever everyone else already believes, you don\u2019t have to treat colored people the same as white ones, and – most importantly – never let your smart get in the way of being just like everyone else. Because the worst thing you can be if you want to participate in the South is different<\/em>.<\/p>\n And now here we are, after twenty-five years of the Southernization of national politics. The new unwritten rules are simple: our side wins no matter what and anything goes to make it happen. As one person put it, the Democrats and Republicans were playing a boardgames, the Republicans lit the house on fire, and the Democrats are still trying to win the boardgame. One side does whatever it wants, and fuck you if you think you can stop it, while the morons of the news media stare slack jawed and make goo goo eyes at cruise missile footage and say \u201cBUT HER EMAILS\u201d over and over as if they understood anything they were saying.<\/p>\n We might don\u2019t make it back from the next four years. If we do, we might not recognize what we get back. But it is extremely crucial to understand one thing: the old ways are gone. There\u2019s no going back to how things used to be. How we deal with that will determine what kind of a country we have in 2020, if any.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I finished the S-Town podcast earlier this week, before the GOP finished killing the filibuster in the Senate and the continuing parade of \u201cdo everything we threatened Obama over\u201d entered the bomb-Syria phase. All of which I expected. Last year, I said that this was unprecedented, the biggest blow yet to the established norms of … <\/p>\n