How many of you remember the satanic panic of the 1980s and 1990s? Remember that America was swept up in a moral panic that from coast to coast a secret network of satanic worshipers were sexually and physically abusing children? It seems insane to contemplate that thousands and thousands of people seriously believed that bloody murders and sacrifices were routinely performed by a secret cabal operating under everyone’s noses. Which in San Diego’s local case included accusation that a mentally and physical challenged man had not only abused child in his care but had also somehow managed to slaughter both a giraffe and an elephant as part of the satanic ritual.

These cases had no basis in reality. What they had were an easy method of isolating and directing hate towards others in ‘defense’ of mythical normalcy.

Which brings us to our current version of this deranged and dangerous mindset, Q Anon.

The Satanic Panic of the 80s and 90s had to grow slowly passing by word of mouth, rumor, and poorly sourced local reporting but Q Anon with its equally absurd assertions that a world-wide web of elites is secretly abusing and murdering children exploded across the nation and beyond with the speed of internet communications. I see the similarities between the satanic panic and Q Annon as quite important. Both were birthed from conservative culture, equally certain that secret insidious forces are at work and being ignored by authorities and possessed with the zealot’s zeal for their own righteousness.

The satanic panic of the 80s and 90s destroyed lives the moral panic of Q Anon may destroy democracy.

The GOP Doesn’t Care

The GOP doesn’t care if you contract and die from COVID 19.

The GOP does care about drag queens reading fairytales to kids.

The GOP doesn’t care if you a killed in a mass shooting.

The GOP does care which bathroom you use.

The GOP doesn’t care if you are poisoned by lead in in your drinking water.

The GOP does care if wealthy people pay more in taxes.

The GOP doesn’t care if you die because you cannot afford your insulin.

The GOP does care if children’s books with racism are withheld from the public.

The GOP doesn’t care if you get cancer from pollution.

The GOP does care that your employer can determine your healthcare.

The GOP doesn’t care for democracy.

But the GOP adores their golden god-king Trump.

It is difficult to judge a jury’s verdict from news reports. There is a vast difference between sitting the court room hearing all the testimony not hearing things that are reported and repeated to the public and coming to a conclusion based upon the fragments in reporting but with all that said to me it looks like they came to the right conclusion, guilty on all counts.

While some of my conservative friends try to dismiss race as any factor in police misconduct and some of my liberal friends seem to see it as the only factor, I try to have what I hope is a more holistic view.

To me there is no doubt that race and racism is a factor, an important one, but far from the only element that contributes to the terrible outcomes in the manner in which our nations police’s its population.

Another vital element is the legal precept of ‘Qualified Immunity’ which shields so many police officers from the consequences of their actions. If actions are free from consequences that there is no incentive to correct future behavior.

The culture of policing in this nation is also a factor in its abuse. Police do not behave as public servants but as an occupying force. The very concept that citizens are referred to as ‘civilians’ reenforces the mindset of an invasive military force. Coupled with the self-segregation and the ‘blue code’ of silence and you have a powerful cocktail for high-handed abuse.

But police culture is a sub-culture of the broader American culture and that is a major contributing factor as well.

American culture is violent. We engaged in violence more often than other western cultures, we celebrate violence in a media, we idolize its practitioners, it is no surprise that American Football is far more popular here than international version, so is it really that surprising that our police forces are also exceptionally violent? The police, for all their self-segregation and isolation remain products of our culture a culture whose dominate myth is the lone man taming a vast wilderness with violence.

There are no easy, fast solutions to our troubles and the road ahead remains difficult.

In Disney +’s first Marvel Cinematic Universe television series WandaVision Wanda Maximoff after a life of trauma and her world shattered by grief explodes with a power she never conceived of having transforming the dying town of Westview New Jersey in her escapist fantasy of reality where life became an endless procession of sitcom episodes. Actual reality intrudes forcing Wanda out of her delusional and her artificial reality.

The series sits as a perfect metaphor for the Republican party’s current madness and sadly we are the imprisoned citizens of Westview forced into another’s delusion of reality, trapped by their fears and inability to face facts that are too painful to admit.

The litany of GOP lies, and delusions is extensive; the January 6th attack and insurrection was the product of Antifa masquerading as Trump supporters, systemic voter fraud stole the election, mask mandates are tyranny, COVID-19 is an inconsequential flu, racism only exits against white people, thoughts and prayers prevent mass shootings, Christianity is oppressed and in danger of vanishing, and many many others. For some these are calculated lies used to seize and maintain power for far too many these are their reality, and it is a reality as valid as Wanda’s sitcom life.

Unlike the residents of the fictional Westview there is no outside force or agency coming to our rescue. We have the reclaim actual reality for ourselves. The GOP must be driven from the lever of power until they have expelled the delusions from their system. This did not begin with Trump and it did not end with his defeat. The long road to sanity’s recovery still is ahead of us.

Between H.R. 1, the fact that the current president had about 7 million votes more than his opponent and still only barely won the contest, and the deeply imbedded partisan in the system there has been a lot of talk about reforms needed to the USA’s election systems but there is another reason to enact reforms fast, to save the Republican Party.

Out system is a two-party system and the sort of ground up redesign to change that is simply not in the cards. Given that we locked into a two-party system it is essential that both parties be sane, viable, organizations fairly representing broad cross-sections of the American electorate. This is not the path we are on.

Our congressional districts having been gerrymandered into local one-party dominance enforces a drive for either party to the extremes. An incompetent, insane person like Marjorie Taylor Greene only has to win their primary to win a seat in government. As more gerrymandering draws more districts into this pattern the real election become the primary where fewer voters and more extreme voters decide the outcome. This was bad enough before 2016 but after Trump’s takeover of the Republican party and its commitment to a dwindling base of support and its adherence to lies and conspiracy theories, this is a design for disaster. As long as the primary process controls the outcome the situation will only get worse.

This is not an argument to kill off ‘conservatism’ however you might define that. This is the way to keep both parties, though the rot is far deeper on the right than on the left, responsive to the general electorate and not their fanatical bases. If we do not reform our election right now, we are headed for one of two futures, either the GOP, more insane and less connected to reality becomes the dominate political force by way of its current anti-democratic attacks on voting and the franchise or the Democratic Party becomes immune to challenge because the GOP has shrunk itself to a base unable to contest national elections completing its transformation into a regional rump party.

Both outcomes are bad for the Union. Our system requires two healthy sane parties and only by election reform can we return to that ideal.