Writer Damon Runyan rephrased a passage from Ecclesiastes 9:11-12 when he wrote, “The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that's how the smart money bets.” Currently, singer/composer and football wag Taylor Swift has Republicans busted at the twenty-one table. As much as I tried to stay out of the Taylor/Travis fray, it has become like swimming against the current. I feel Michael Corleone’s pain when he lamented, “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!” Taylor Swift has the GOP in a frenzy; they have accused her of being everything from Joe Biden’s disciple to a Pentagon psyop. Even her current beau, Travis Kelce—the tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs has been named a Pfizer shill for having the nerve to get the Covid 19 vaccine and wanting others to avoid illness and death.
Her fans are called idolaters and told not to believe anything she says. One pundit advocating for the country to give up sports and turn to GOD, where we all would be better off. Even going so far as to say she is not natural. The question has to be asked: what nerve has this singer and dancer struck that has conservatives so upset? All the things the conservatives told us they love are now all the things they hate. Taylor Swift is a southern-born blue-eyed blonde who brings families together at her concerts. Teens and parents went to see her movies. Republicans looked at her initially like an Archie Comics character, the popular cheerleader at All-American Riverdale High, dating a football hero. Conservatives’ desperation has reached a level that has them suggesting that their followers root for San Francisco.
Former President Obama had a name for the frivolity and uselessness of GOP politics; he called it “Silly Season.” Republicans have mastered the art of distraction when they have no policy. They had no literal policy for the 2020 election year other than whatever Donald Trump says. You can chronicle the nonsense: the late Jerry Falwell went on a campaign to outlaw Tink Winky the Teletubby he labeled as gay. Mister Potato Head was lambasted for dropping the contraction Mr. The de-feminization of female M&Ms became a cause célèbre for Tucker Carlson. Florida governor and failed presidential candidate Ron DeSantis got into a policy fight with Disney. Silly Season is becoming the GOP mantra. Instead of working to help fix what the GOP calls a crisis at the border that Republicans on the committee want their colleagues to read before they condemn it, they have decided again their policy will be whatever Trump says.
It is easier to steal hearts and minds in chaos, and Republicans want a crisis at the border to get voters’ minds. The last threat to Mr. Trump’s march to the Republican nomination is Nikki Haley, who cannot decide if she wants to be Mother Theresa or Lizzy Borden, cradling our sensibilities or chopping away at our common sense. Haley wanted to portray Mother Theresa by appearing on The Breakfast Club broadcast, which has become a must-stop on the campaign trail for Black votes. She then proceeded to become Lizzy Borden, butchering history. Using her well-worn, down-the-middle explanation of the horrific racist shooting in her home state was another disaster. She cannot tell herself or her constituency the truth. Questioned about the slaughter of nine black parishioners at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church (known as Mother Emanuel) in 2015, Haley said this almost nine years later:
Haley: “They wanted to make it about guns, they wanted to make it about racism, they wanted to make it about the death penalty."
Host Charlamagne the God: “It was about racism, though.”
Haley pushed back, saying, “It wasn't.”
Charlamagne: It was a “racist mass killing.”
Haley “But the point was I strong-armed them and said there will be a time we talk about all that. But right now, we have nine souls we need to put to rest. I didn't have that luxury. Because two days later, the killer came out draped in the Confederate flag ....”
I am unsure when Haley will find the luxury to find or admit the truth, but the fantasyland where she and the rest of the GOP reside is dangerous.
Vote Against Guns