In today's GOP, the scum rises to the top. And Dems should stop letting it slide

I saw a series of tweets from David Rothkopf, a longtime DC journalist, Cabinet member and lobbyist this morning. I'll give you a taste of it, as it summed things up perfectly to me, and why a lot of the last few years feel so sickening and depressing.

Asshole Culture has carved out a very clear, unsavory role in American film, literature and life. Entitled, wealthy, bros who take what they want, treat everyone around them like shit and then rise to positions of power is practically a cliche it's so common.

— David Rothkopf (@djrothkopf) September 22, 2018

Kavanaugh, Judge, the GOP leaders in the Senate and above all Donald Trump embody this subset of the ugliest Americans to such a degree you can hardly believe they are real. Cartoonishly smug and convinced that morality is for poor people...

— David Rothkopf (@djrothkopf) September 22, 2018

Despite their sense they are the heirs to America, raised to take the reins of power, of course it is their moral and ethical emptiness and their greed and ambition that has corroded what's best about the country and led to institutionalized inequality & corruption of today.

— David Rothkopf (@djrothkopf) September 22, 2018

Our revulsion at Kavanaugh is therefore compounded not just by his lying to the Senate or his extremism, not just by his callous abuse of women but by the reflexive response of Asshole Culture to come to his defense to protect themselves and their past and future transgressions.

— David Rothkopf (@djrothkopf) September 22, 2018

It's true. In today's GOP, the scum rises to the top. And the less moral you are, the better off you become.



Look at this week, and all of the stories about what kind of the lowlifes exist in today's GOP World. This is just a small sample.

As Republicans were accusing Dems of "weaponizing" sexual assault accusations, the GOP was working with a right-wing PR firm to fabricate & peddle a false narrative implicating an innocent person to take the heat off Kavanaugh.

so yea. this is how disinformation operations work.

— Caroline O. (@RVAwonk) September 21, 2018

The Grassley staffer who just resigned for sexual harassment is also the staffer who works at CRC Public Relations, the same firm Whelan used to push his conspiracy theory. This entire charade is tainted. https://t.co/NrDquEh8yT

— Matt McDermott (@mattmfm) September 22, 2018

One Republican just canceled his campaign for inappropriate contact with his daughter while another was caught slippin’ his mistress an abortion pill.

This is the same party that considers Brett Kavanaugh “the victim.”

— Tea Pain (@TeaPainUSA) September 23, 2018

So why are these a-holes allowed to be in power and wreck things for the overwhleming majority of us who aren't evil bastards? The answer may lie in something I saw in a Michael Moore interview.

Moore mentioned that he got a chance to talk to former Trump campaign strategist Steve Bannon in the runup to the release of Moore's new movie, Farenheit 11/9. . And Bannon told Moore the reason GOPs end up winning more than they should - LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR.

[Moore:] What I really want to know is, How did you do this? [Bannon] said, “Look, it’s very simple — we go for the head wound and your side has pillow fights. The head wound will always win over the pillow fight.” And that seemed so true and so honest, because liberals and Democrats are constantly about compromising. Never about having real health care that’s universal like in other countries; half-measures like Obamacare. I knew what he said was true.

It's a sickening comment, but Bannon's got a point. Too many voters have been too weak to fight off these simplistic, gut appeals, and Dems haven't slapped back hard enough at the evil, racist, garbage that GOPs spew. And the other mistake too many Dems do, is that they let things drop, instead of pounding a meme of "the GOP are crooked bastards" into people's heads - a meme that would have the extra benefit of being true.

Whether we like it or not, many Americans are not going to think deeply about issues. And while they recognize things aren't right, they aren't going to examine why that might be. They're just unhappy and want things to get better. What Dems have to do is to isolate the evil that is in today's GOP, that they don't have anything in common with the everyday person that's just trying to get by.

And we need to show people that many of these men (gender intentional) at the top in our society didn't get there on merit, but they got there because they were willing to plumb depths most of us would not sink to. And that these men at the top are not worthy of the authority or respect that they believe their position gives them.