The Madness of King Joe

 

Recently on an internet forum I follow, an English teacher asked for podcasts she could use to teach English. Someone suggested Joe Rogan—an obvious choice. By far the most popular podcast in the world, currently. She rejected the idea: she could not introduce her students to such extreme right-wing opinions.

Joe Rogan supported Bernie Sanders in 2020.

A New York Times article I used in my own class referred to Oath Keepers as an extreme right-wing militia. I go to their web site. The oath they say they keep is to “defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” This is the oath all members of the military, and most police forces, take. Are they all extreme right-wing organizations? And is everyone but the “extreme right” now not prepared to defend the Constitution?

And how can everyone but a small minority be “extreme right”? Isn’t any very large proportion of the population, by definition, not “extreme”?

In a recent speech, Joe Biden began by saying that on January 6, 2021, “a dagger was literally held at the throat of American democracy.” Assuming Biden knows the English language, and is lucid enough to understand what he is saying, this is a –literally-- delusional claim.

And in the same speech in which he accuses Trump of insurrection for claiming an election could be stolen, he asserts that the Republicans are trying to steal elections by not consenting to his Voting Rights Act. If not blatantly dishonest, this is a level of lack of self-awareness that is delusional. And the latter seems the more likely explanation. Because otherwise it seems a dumb trick to try to pull.

I come to believe that the right is making a naïve mistake in taking the left seriously, and trying to argue such claims; as if they were even marginally reasonable. It might be time to simply, loudly, and at every opportunity point out that they are barking mad.