Zombie apocalypse overruns Pa. Republican Party
One of the many reasons I love October is the broad array of horror films on TV.
Halloween season means daylong retrospectives of Vincent Price, Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi and every manner of movie about werewolves, vampires, slashers, witches and monsters.
One day I watched the giant ant movie “Them!” and two of the three versions of “House of Wax.” Another day I caught parts of the first two “Halloween” movies and the tail end of “Predator.”
Then “Fright Night.” “Dracula Has Risen from the Grave.” “The Lost
Boys.” “The Curse of Frankenstein.” And, of course, “Hocus Pocus.”
It’s heaven. I love being retired. Zombie movies and TV shows are particularly popular at this time of year. As something of a student of this genre, I can tell you they generally fall into one of two categories.
The first is the general outbreak, where people turn mindlessly feral and start attacking everyone as the plague spreads and the survivors run for their lives. Sometimes there is a semiscientific explanation but, often, it just happens, and we never find out why.
The other branch of zombie movies features the living dead ruled by some powerful figure, through voodoo, vampirism, hypnosis or some other sort of mind control. The helpless minions can’t help but do the master’s evil bidding, at least until he’s destroyed.
I suspect many of you have noticed that both these zombie scenarios have been playing themselves out all over our troubled country, albeit with less biting.
What was the violent insurrection of Jan. 6 but a mindless zombie outbreak in our Capitol, spurred by traitorous leaders who desperately wanted to overthrow our election?
Did you see those crazed faces? Did you hear those deranged screams?
This chaotic threat to our democracy was far more frightening than anything we’ll see on TV this Halloween season.
More recently, if you’ve attended a local school board meeting or watched video from one of the many wild ones around the nation, you know that seemingly normal people have gone feral over the subjects of mask and vaccines, battering school officials with wild accusations peppered with all manner of threats, QAnon conspiracy theories and bad science.
I saw a video last week where adults were screaming at children and parents about masks and vaccinations as they approached a California school.
“This is rape! This is rape!” someone was screaming. “They’re trying to rape our children with this poison!”
Somehow we have become such a nation of gullible brain-haters that maybe a third of our citizens are more inclined to embrace a random video, a blowhard neighbor or a transparently dishonest media huckster than the overwhelming weight of science and almost every medical professional in our midst.
This anti-intellectual cultism prolonged a pandemic we should have under control, and it is making rational discussion of these important issues nearly impossible in many communities where they deserve a measured airing.
The madness of the Republican Party can be attributed to both forms of zombie infiltration. It’s a combination of being overrun by crackpot elected leaders and of more rational holdovers who are too mesmerized by or frightened of their delusional leader-in-exile to speak up about what they know in their hearts is wrong, including the Jan. 6 horror movie and those who set it in motion.
The handful of remaining GOP leaders who were willing to speak the truth about what happened continue to be mindlessly vilified by their party in Washington and back home.
The truth in general is under constant assault. There was a certain sad irony in watching recent video of Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of the most sniveling sellouts to Donald Trump, being mocked and booed at a Republican event in which he dared to encourage people to be vaccinated.
Our own state has become a poster child for the Republican living dead by supporting Trump’s efforts to overturn the election, most recently with the kind of election “audit” that made a joke of Arizona and is in the process of doing the same to us.
The idea that Trump still would be pulling our Legislature’s strings is appalling, not just to Democrats but to responsible Republicans and independents. In a state with so many crucial needs to be addressed, we are wasting time, money and our reputation promoting his Big Lie, almost a year after voters soundly rejected him.
I keep trying to envision a scenario in which informed voters and principled conservatives reseize control of their party, plunge a symbolic stake through Orange Dracula’s heart and restore the extreme elements of their base to their senses and our society to civil, statesmanlike discussion of important issues.
But we seem to be careening toward the alternative. It’s a Zombie Apocalypse.