My spouse just forwarded this Facebook post from Aundre Bumgardner. As I’m not sure how to embed a Facebook post, I just took a screenshot.
Aundre is a former Republican state representative, who has come over from the dark side and is now a Democratic Town Councilor here in Groton. Roseanne is a Republican member of the Representative Town Meeting. Within living memory, even within the memory of someone born less that 20 years ago, the Groton Republicans were, by and large, a fairly moderate and responsible group, but those folks have slowly but surely been pushed to the sidelines by folks like Roseanne, who is, shall we say, a bit on the extreme edge.
When I first read this I toyed with the idea of answering each question in turn, but the absurdity sort of speaks for itself. As a bit of a side note, I just returned a few hours ago from a demonstration in Mystic, the fourth of five (all peaceful so far) being held in downtown Mystic on each day this week. There were at least a hundred of us, and since we were on the Stonington side of the river we were policed by two officers from the Stonington force, who spent most of their time chatting with the organizers and posing for pictures, except for a brief period when one of the officers had to gently intervene when an aggressive fellow in a Trump shirt got a bit too close for comfort to some of the demonstrators.
What struck me about Roseanne’s questions is her use of the word “dominant” in question four. It reminded me of Gail Collins’ column, entitled “Trump’s Magic Word”, in this morning’s New York Times, in which she notes the use of that word or its variants by the chicken in chief:
Have you noticed how almost every other word out of Donald Trump’s mouth lately seems to be some variation on “dominate?”
“If you don’t dominate, you’re wasting your time,” he told America’s governors. “They’re going to run all over you. You’ll look like a bunch of jerks.”
This, of course, was in that telephone rant about protesters. There is something about crowds of people willing to take to the streets to denounce racism that seems to make the president feel, um, unmanly.
“I will not allow angry mobs to dominate,” he told the country during his visit to the space launch.
Minneapolis authorities, he contended, were “weak and pathetic” until events spiraled out of control and the National Guard moved in. (“Domination … it’s a beautiful thing to watch.”)
Tweeting on the same subject, Trump reported: “Great job done by all. Overwhelming force. Domination. Likewise, Minneapolis was great. (thank you President Trump!)”
With Trump it’s yet another sign of his basic insecurity, his inner knowledge that while he’s an accomplished scam artist, he’s a failure at everything else and a physical coward to boot. But it’s interesting that Roseanne, and most likely a lot of other Trumpers, have picked up on it, since it has some fairly obvious fascistic implications.
You don’t need a degree in psychology to realize that when police show up at a demonstration looking like jackbooted thugs, as Roseanne urges they should, they are more likely to provoke a reaction than if they show up like the two cops from Stonington did. But, of course, that’s the whole point, as it serves to justify the police brutality that the folks like Roseanne find so reassuring. (Lest there be any doubt, as I’m sure there isn’t, Roseanne is white.) The fact is that mainstream Republicans these days are reflexively fascist.
Though I won’t be responding to each of Roseanne’s questions, I will respond to the last of them. No, Roseanne, you can’t tell people with whom you disagree that they can’t demonstrate because the town can’t afford it. We can’t afford the costs of the willfully misinterpreted Second Amendment, but I’m sure that you wouldn’t want to keep your right wing thugs from displaying their firepower. You see, the First Amendment actually does quite specifically say that people have the right to peacefully assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances. They still have that right, even if they disagree with a Republican president, though the present Supreme Court may soon have other ideas.
Of course, Roseanne knows very well that there won’t be any rioting or brick throwing during Sunday’s demonstration, though she sure would like there to be. It just bothers her that the demonstration is likely to draw a huge number of people, while she’d be lucky to get a handful if she tried to organize a Black Lives Don’t Matter rally. Maybe she should move to Alabama, where she’d have better luck with that.