It has always been a curiosity that most Americans understand far
less about America’s government, its society, and its flaws than most
citizens of foreign nations. It is not that foreigners have better
access to news coming out of America, they just pay attention to what is
happening to a country they at one time thought of as exceptional and
at least rational despite its history of war for entertainment and
corporate profits. It is no secret that the world’s opinion of America
changed drastically after the nation started invading and occupying muslim countries, but the world’s opinion began shifting with the
election of Barack Obama.
Obviously President Obama has elevated America’s status and
reputation around the world as he attempted, and still continues, to
clean up eight years of the shrub junta abominations that drove
international disdain for America. But after the past two midterm
elections, and the extremist field of candidates for the Republican
pretender nomination, people around the world are increasingly
convinced that the greatest threat to America is the Republican cabal.
It is important to note at the start that although the rest of the world
specifically cites Republican politicians by name, they certainly
comprehend that those Republicans threatening America are as much the
religious and racist base as the politicians serving their interests.
This little fact eludes many, many Americans who focus on a personality
and not who puts them in the spotlight and position of power and
influence; the voters.
An opinion piece in a New Zealand newspaper a few months ago gave
particular attention to the extremism being displayed by the Republican cabal
pretender candidates and actually cited the support they have from
voters. The authors
wrote that Republicans “
are now essentially a cabal of religious fundamentalism”
in citing Cruz’s typically Republican delusional mindset that America’s
darkest day was not 9/11, Pearl Harbor, presidential assassinations, or
the Civil War. No, according to Cruz and no small number of Republican
voters “
America’s darkest day was when the Supreme Court ruled that states cannot ban same-sex marriage.”
A citizen of Uganda and regular commuter to the United States recently noted that,
“
The U.S. Constitution says the government’s responsibility is to
provide welfare, security and safety to its population allowing every
person the opportunity to live in a dignified manner; Republicans
believe otherwise and have created a system that has become a rich man’s
plaything.”
A resident of an EU nation remarked that,
“
I am completely flabbergasted by what has become of America. In
the Republican cabal stupidity is admired and encouraged, intelligence
and education are viewed as ‘elitist’, money is their God and fear is
their motivator. If more people outside the US continue to speak very
loudly about this situation, it might help them turn things around. The
hate and fear that Fox (NOT news) promotes helped the Republican Party
create and fuel the atmosphere threatening America.
“
The takeover of American wingnuttery by evangelical 'christians',
Fox News and a handful of shady billionaires transformed Republicans
into the cabal of willful ignorance where doctrinal purity is more
valued than intelligence, tolerance has been supplanted by persecutory
moralizing, and paranoia has replaced realism.”
After living through the shrub years, and well over a decade of wars
against muslims, people around the world are astonished, and rightly alarmed, that Republicans and their bloodthirsty base are openly “
signaling
a frightening abandonment of diplomacy as a means of defusing tension,
avoiding conflict and managing international affairs. Instead they
remain disposed towards armed intervention despite it has accelerated,
not suppressed, Islamic militancy. Something which shouldn’t come as a
surprise since persisting with policies that achieve the exact opposite
of what was intended is something of an American speciality.”
Citizens of communist China “
compared the United States to lawless Somalia” and in Britain a leading newspaper
cited the “
racism the Republicans promote” as fueling the level and frequency of gun violence. Claire Taylor of Gun Free South Africa said, “
The USA is completely out of step with the rest of the world”
in promoting the proliferation of guns in an angry, racist, and
religiously extreme population. Closer to home, a Mexico City newspaper
wrote that “
the
U.S. has become a structurally violent state where force is frequently
used domestically and internationally to resolve differences. Such a
phenomenon reflects the feeling of extensive sectors about the supposed
legitimacy of violent methods.”
Americans on the left tend to reserve all their outrage and criticism
for whichever extremist Republican made the latest outrageous, racist,
or offensive statement during an interview or stump speech. However,
just the fact that Republican voters are comfortable with “
monumentally unqualified extremists in the Oval Office”
demonstrates the how twisted the cabal has become; that and that alone
is the real existential threat to the nation. It is simple to single out
any one, or all, of the Republican cabal pretender candidates as who is most
unqualified, most extreme, or most offensive, but that misses the point
that it is the base that is inherently extreme, offensive, and
unqualified to be regarded as anything other than a serious threat to
other Americans and the nation’s well-being.
Any and everything a Trump, Cruz, Rubio, Carson, Fiorina, Huckabee,
or Jeb might say or support is precisely what the base demands they say
and support. There are some Americans who understand that the
Republican cabal and its base are an existential threat to America and
they are joined by a substantial number of people from around the world.
An Australian opinion writer made an assumption a couple of weeks ago
that was only partly correct in saying that “
Trump
personifies everything the rest of the world despises about America;
racism, crass materialism, relentless self-aggrandizement, vulgarity on
an epic scale. He is the Ugly American.” Actually, the Republican
base is the Ugly American and the Republican pretender candidates
and politicians are simply acting, doing, and saying exactly what the
base demands and they are, without question, the greatest threat to
America.
