On the Brink of Extinction?

The New York Times Magazine has just printed a long article (1) on the fate of the Northern White Rhinoceros. There are only two of them left—Najin and Fatu—both females. Thus, sometime in the near future, there will no longer be any Northern White Rhinos.

*

  

In the United States we have male and female RINOs (Republicans In Name Only), derisively called that by many right-wing members of that political party. Here are two entries on Google:

The latter attack on RINOs is especially suspect, as Trump, after registering as a Republican in 1987, subsequently changed his party affiliation five times:

In 1999, Trump changed his party affiliation to the Independence Party of New York. In August 2001, Trump changed his party affiliation to Democratic. In September 2009, Trump changed his party affiliation back to the Republican Party. In December 2011, Trump changed to "no party affiliation” (Independent). In April 2012, Trump again returned to the Republican Party. (2)

One’s suspicion must be that Trump is hardly a person to adhere to a rigorously-held ideological position.

Yet Trump and his minions have been quick to tar other members of the GOP (many of them past leaders and standard bearers who have espoused long-held Republican policies) as traitors to the party. 

Now if you were good boys and girls and read the previous post on this blog—“See Who Salutes” (3)—you should be able to identify what we have here. That’s right, a classic case of “No-True-Scotsman.”

Labeling those they disagree with as RINOs (read “Traitors”) is an attempt by fanatics to exclude others from the ranks of the party by means of re-definition and, thereby, presumably to purify its soul. The RINOs are not true Republicans, according to the fanatics. Only those who blindly follow Trump down every manhole and through every sewer (4) are true members of the GOP, they scream. 

Since Hamlet’s original quotation has often been misinterpreted, I will offer a paraphrase:

It is more honorable not to follow the Trumpian mishegas than to observe it. 

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(1)  

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/06/magazine/the-last-two-northern-white-rhinos-on-earth.html?searchResultPosition=6

(2)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Donald_Trump#:~:text=Trump%20registered%20as%20a%20Republican,his%20party%20affiliation%20five%20times.

(3)

https://drnormalvision.blogspot.com/2021/01/see-who-salutes.html

(4)

The GOP nominating convention didn’t publish a party platform. How the RINOs can be ideologically impure when there is no ideology—just the whims of DJT—is a conundrum I leave to others to deal with.

Don't Do Something--Just Stand There. PLEASE!

"I called an extra session of the 80th Congress in 1947 and asked them to take action on the housing shortage. They didn't do it. They didn't do it at the regular session.

"Then I called another special session of the 80th Congress, after they had given us a platform in Philadelphia. In that platform, they stated that they were for certain things. When I called them back into session in July, what did they do? Nothing. Nothing. That Congress never did anything the whole time it was in session . . ."

President Harry S Truman

San Diego, California

September 24, 1948 

*

With the collapse of the Republican attempt to strip at least 20 million Americans of their health care insurance, I was put in mind of President Harry S Truman’s excoriation of the 80th Congress. He contributed to the American lexicon the term “Do-nothing Congress.” 

In a fine turn of historical irony the GOP, which once claimed to be the party of ideas, has turned into the party of nihilism—or perhaps it might be called, more fittingly, the Marxist party. Groucho Marxist, that is. In the 1932 movie Horse Feathers Groucho sings the following song (written by Harry Ruby and Bert Kalmar):

I don't know what they have to say

It makes no difference anyway

Whatever it is, I'm against it

No matter what it is

Or who commenced it

I'm against it

Your proposition may be good

But let's have one thing understood

Whatever it is, I'm against it

And even when you've changed it

Or condensed it

I'm against it

I'm opposed to it

On general principles

I'm opposed to it

(He's opposed to it)

(In fact, he says he's opposed to it)

For months before my son was born

I used to yell from night to morn

"Whatever it is, I'm against it"

And I've kept yelling

Since I first commenced it

"I'm against it”*

Considering what an absolute shower** Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, the Freedom Caucus, and almost the entirety of the rest of the GOP congressional delegation are, I shout, “Thank goodness for a Do-nothing Congress!”

Because it’s what they want to DO that’s the danger.

***

* Here’s Groucho singing it in the movie:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29E6GbYdB1c

**Nobody surpassed Terry-Thomas in his rendition of this Briticism. Here he is in I'm Alright Jack:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8L5LNIi5bAs

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I will admit that calling a political party Groucho Marxist was used many years ago about the British Labour Party. I don’t recall who wrote it or what magazine it was in (it may have been Punch, and that dates it). I have never forgotten it (or used it before). I figured that it was so long ago that it’s in the Public Domain.