Josh Marshall points out how the press is really missing the main story with the Jack Teixeira story. They have tried to make sense of the "contradictions" of how a "patriotic" American who volunteered for the military could betray America's secrets. First of all, define "patriotic"? He owned an American Blue Lives Matter flag? This nugget from the WSJ begins to get the main point. Teixeira is part of a very online, very male, very angry cohort that hates "what America has become", which means tolerant and multicultural. Of course he loved Putin, that's a feature, not a bug.
Putin represents exactly what these power worshipping young miscreants want to be: "powerful", in charge, anti-woke whatever that means. Putin doesn't care about your pronouns, he's part and parcel of what I wrote about the other day: the sort of person who wants to cozy up to those who look powerful. There was actually a great example of this in 2020 when the GOP actually - and I am not making this up - shared a meme of Trump as Thanos in Endgame saying "I am inevitable." Did they not see what happened next? Plus...THANOS? You think you're THANOS?!! That's what you want people to associate with you? (I mean, if you want to do an Endgame meme, do it properly.)
This is the psychology of the modern anti-democratic Right around the world. It's a shallow form of masculinity pimping and parading itself around as "tough" while whinging and wetting their pants over a rainbow on a Bud Light can.
Fundamentally, this is a movement without ideas beyond a will to power and a desire to hurt their "enemies." And it was always there in the shadows. Timothy McVeigh and others dragged it in front of us on occasions, but Trump put klieg lights on it and made it run 24/7 on Fox.
Until we disenthrall the Right from this toxic and truly anti-American fetish for power over people different from themselves, the Republican Party shouldn't be put in charge of a one car parade.
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