Election 2020: Dinner with the McCloskeys

Monday night, August 24, during the opening of the Republican Party’s Presidential nominating convention, TV viewers were treated to a couple from St. Louis “doin’ whiteface.”

Let me explain. “Whiteface” is when white racists don their white privilege and whine about how they have been maligned: ‘And you will be too if the Democrats win.’

This couple stands out because hubby flaunted his military style weapon in front of passerby protestors, white and black, during a BLM demonstration in St. Louis. The couple like many of Trump’s sycophants auditioned for the job of Democrat bashing. Their passerby “confrontation,” first aired back in July, went “viral” on cable Sunday, and then the RNC came a-knocking. TV klieg lights invaded their 18,000 sq. ft. bungalow and the rest is media history — the McCloskeys qualified for prime time. And the nation received their message, gun rack in the background.

“Whiteface” is politely referred to in the media these days as “pushback.” This is like putting lipstick on a deranged gorilla. On closer analysis “doin’ whiteface” shields more than fear. “Whiteface” provides cover for “revulsion,” the final stage before another human becomes a target to be discarded. In report after police report of black men and women killing, the “elephant in the room” is not “self-defense” but “revulsion.” “Self-defense” arguments support the perpetrator-victim reconstruction of events. “Revulsion” begins to look at triggers to presuming “right to kill.”

The McCloskeys know this. Former Governor Nikki Haley another of Trump’s sycophants who spoke Monday evening knows this. And so does the RNC.

The McCloskeys claim not that the Dems if elected won’t come up with better policing protocols and accountability but that at the end of the day “it doesn’t matter.” Right to kill, to murder, is paramount. What’s missing from this sociopathy is “motivation.” Motivation goes unmentioned.

Why do we highlight “fear” as the prime “mover and shaker” of voter antipathies? Why not throw in “revulsion?” Voter “absenteeism” can be blamed in part on “voter revulsion.” Indeed, not with the “system” per se but with another human being.

August 26, 2020