No longer surprised

Liz Truss addressed the CPAC conference which has increasingly become over the years a gathering of right wing fringe crackpots. In 2022 she was briefly the UK prime Minister and her speech did not miss the chance to repeat the word "woke" several times not did she miss the opportunity to attack transgender people while stopping short of endorsing the vile, odious and orange-tinged GOP front-runner.

Conservative movements all over the world have been polluted by cultural strawmen arguments because it helps attract less than brilliant voters. It does not matter what the politician believes but rather what they can sell to their electorate in order to gain power. Cultural shifts are stoking fear in people and this can be capitalized and since conservatism wasn't winning with more libertarian platforms preaching fiscal restraint which were increasingly lining the pockets of the already wealthy, they needed red meat for those easily duped to vote against their own interest.

The rise of Christian nationalists in the US is a good example of what happens when you court a segment of the population and give them a voice even if their views are deeply antithetical to what the majority believes. In Alabama embryos are now children and we don't have to imagine too hard a world that makes Margaret Atwood and her fictional vision of a twisted dystopia seem entirely plausible.

My father always told me how surprised I would be as I got older to discover the way the world really works; the machinations of the Machiavellian as well as the massive ignorance of the hopelessly gullible.

I'm not surprised any longer.