The GOP Convention Is an Absolute Shitshow

[Content Note: Transphobia.]

Racism. Misogyny. Homophobia. Islamophobia. Calls for Hillary Clinton to be thrown in prison. Calling her a cunt. Skeevy behavior. Plagiarism. And transphobia:

"For thousands of years, mankind has known what a man is and what a woman is," [former GOP presidential candidate and current Donald Trump supporter Dr. Ben Carson] said to applause Tuesday at the Florida delegation breakfast near the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. "And now all of a sudden we don't know anymore. Now, is that the height of absurdity? Because today you feel like a woman, even though everything about you genetically says that you're a man or vice versa?"

"Wouldn't that be the same as if you woke up tomorrow morning after seeing a movie about Afghanistan or reading some books and said, 'You know what? I'm Afghanistan. I know I don't look that way. My ancestors came from Sweden, or something, I don't know. But I really am. And if you say I'm not, (then) you're racist,'" the former presidential candidate continued.

..."Anytime the secular progressives want to get people on their side, they go back to the civil rights movement, and they say this is a civil rights issue and it's not a civil rights issue," he said. "But we have to be willing to stand up, we have to be willing to call out people for this absolutely ridiculous stuff that they're trying to put over on us, that they're trying to put over on our children."

No, Dr. Ben Carson. Being trans is not the same as waking up and deciding you're "Afghanistan."

I would be terrified that a medical doctor could be so ignorant, if I hadn't already had that particular circuit in my brain blown by Carson' stance on abortion.

This convention is utterly contemptible.

I recommend reading Josh Marshall: "Violence, Blood, and Betrayal Inside the Trump Potemkin Village."

The sort of ignorance and hatred expressed by Carson here is not a bug of Trump-era Republicanism. It's a feature. The central, defining feature.