A rebuttal to the blog https://www.blindowlblogs.com/post/the-political-movement-we-all-need
Since my avian friend is self-admittedly blind, it would be acceptable for him not to see the absurdity of the argument he has made regarding the political party being started by John Hinckley. He does however claim to be an owl, and this particular bird is supposed to possess some modicum of wisdom, making his analysis of the newly established National Redemption Party that much more unacceptable.
A brief aside about his somewhat deliberately flighty comments regarding the nation being on the brink of Civil War. I have seen the polls which do suggest that varying large percentages of people are willing to openly take arms against their neighbors if certain political events occur; the extremists certainly seem to have dominated the news cycle… really since the Trump effect went into full swing somewhere around the summer of 2015, but it is very much one thing to say you will do a thing, very much another to do it… So I don’t think I share the sentiment that actual armed conflict is looming quite so closely on the horizon as it suggested in my bird brained comrades piece.
More to the point, our current two party political system is in a state we have not seen for some centuries. However you may feel about Donald Trump, he is not what you would traditionally call a Republican, and certainly not a conservative. The most accurate descriptor is probably a populist. To say that he has any particular political platform at all would be to say that it is to support whatever position is most likely to gain him approval rating points, or loud cheers at rallies.
The same, or rather the inverse opposite, can be said of almost every major Democratic candidate, with the possible option of sleepy Joe Biden. Which is to say that none of them are traditional Democrats. Their somewhat alarming support for the restriction of free speech, and their predilection for preferring that ideology dictate the news cycle over facts, breaks from what would be considered historically democratic values.
The result of all this is a swath of candidates who under any normal set of circumstances would be considered dangerously unqualified to hold office. To list and describe them all would take more time than any of us have in a day. From the right we see people like Dr. Mehmet Oz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and of course Herschel Walker. From the left people like Stacey Abrams, Maxine Waters, and of course more prominently John Fetterman (whose credentials may be more moderate, but is literally recovering from a stroke).
A quick examination of the most extreme examples from both of those lists; starting with Stacey Abrams, in a less volatile climate a person with her somewhat inconsistent relationship with the truth would almost certainly be disqualified. This is a candidate who has repeatedly made claims concerning voter fraud that have not only been unsubstantiated by her, but have been candidly debunked through a clear examination of facts. The simple reality is she’s supported by the extreme left because her brand of victimhood capitalization is quite desirable amongst the loudest of annoying progressives, and if you don’t support her then you are some type of “ist” or “phobe”.
Which brings us at last, and certainly least, to Herschel Walker. Considering his long and somewhat storied career in the NFL it would be forgivable, knowing what we now know about the long-term impacts of playing football on one’s cognitive capacity, to allow for some of his more outrageous positions; not understanding the concept for example of how evolution works due to the presence of both chimpanzees and humans in the present day. Traditionally however this would be generally disqualifying for someone in a position of influence. This is a person who achieved some celebrity through football, and is basically unqualified for any government position at all. Why then is the issue in Georgia so close? It’s very simple, there is a large population in Georgia who prefer the things that Donald Trump says to the things that so-called “Libs”say. They like Trump, it’s an added bonus that voting for him [Walker] will stick it to the libs and ensure that they do not continue their less than secret agenda of corrupting society as we know it.
So what then is the thesis of this analysis of our current political system? Quite simply that John Hinckley is not in any way a more absurd candidate than any of those on the extremes currently running for, and in some lamentable cases holding, political office. The guiding principle of “trolling the Libs“ or “sticking it to the conservatives“ overrules any sense of propriety or duty to the country.
I am of the opinion that if John Hinckley simply said enough words that one party or the other liked better than the words the other party was saying, he could easily be a serious candidate for nearly any office in the nation. Thus rendering the piece as written by the Blind Owl, though admittedly lightly filled with sarcasm, to be sorely lacking in accurate analysis.