032 The Erickson Report for February 25 to March 10. Page 8: Know The Rules

032 The Erickson Report for February 25 to March 10. Page 8: Know The Rules

Okay, let's do this quick. Last time out I went through my Rules for Right-wingers, a look at the various ways the right wing avoids facing reality or dealing in honest debate or both. I figured just for the heck of it, this time I would offer a few examples, all from the last few weeks.

First. Sen Ted Ooze has repeatedly brayed about "fraud! fraud! fraud!" in the November elections.

And not just November: Campaigning for the GOPpers in the Georgia run-off in January, he claimed in so many words that the Democrats were going to try to "steal" the election.

He refused to refer to Joe Blahden “President-elect.” He made clear his intent to challenge the ceremonial certification of Electoral College votes.

And then after the mob attacked the Capitol, Ooze told a Houston TV station that he was not - his word - "remotely" responsible for what happened.

Rule #12: Never, never, never admit any responsibility for the meaning or impact of your own words.

Second: GOPpers in the House tried to amend the resolution calling for Rep. Marjorie Taylor ColorofNausea to be stripped of her committee assignments by in each case having ColorofNausea's name replaced with that of Ilhan Omar. This was based on Omar's remark some time back which some claimed was anti-Semitic, a remark for which she not only apologized, saying she was unaware of its anti-Semitic overtones, she thanked her critics for educating her on the matter.

Rule #16: Freely employ false equivalencies.

Third: Sen. Ron "My brains come from the" Johnson minimized the significance of the attack on the Capitol, just saying "nobody condones that" - which he actually did, recalling a meaning of "to condone" is "to overlook an offense with relative tolerance."

He then said that Democrats were hypocrites for not denouncing the occasional violence that occurred during last summer's protests.

Rule #4: Issue a lengthy, ranting denunciation of "the left," which should look to include the words "hypocrites" and/or "hypocrisy."

Fourth: Until an organizing resolution was finalized to deal with the 50-50 split in the Senate, Lindsay Grahamcracker was still chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. As such, he refused to allow a hearing for Merrick Garland's nomination at Attorney General.

Grahamcracker, who was part of Fishface McConnell's rush to get as many reactionary judges on the federal bench as possible and eagerly endorsed the breakneck race to get Amy BugsBunny Barrett on the Supreme Court, accused Democrats of wanting to "rush through Judge Garland's hearing."

Rule #19: Intellectual consistency and honesty are for wusses and losers.

And fifth: According to a new study from New York University, there is no evidence for the frequent claim from the right wing that social media platforms are suppressing or even censoring right-wing views. The study found the claim to be "itself a form of disinformation."

Rule #13: When all else has failed - and even when it hasn't - lie.
Rule #21: The right wing is always the victim.

We'll wrap this up with a new rule. I'm going to have to reorganize the list; it's getting kind of long, but for right now:

Rule #22: All progressive proposals "too radical."

This especially applies to proposals that are popular, such as a Green New Deal, national health care, having the rich pay more taxes, and a $15 minimum wage.