Eric Greitens is a Sociopath, and Sociopaths Should Not be in Office

 

None of us are brand-new here, so Eric Greitens' game of doing a big shooty-shoot ad is definitely for the signifying: he gets to get free media because it will be covered extensively, he gets CANCELLED BY THE SOCIAL MEDIA because there is a disclaimer on his post now, and he gets to turn around with a shit-eating grin and say "Aw shucks folks, why are you so heated? Can't you grasp a metaphor?" 

Which is good for him and all, except that he actually is a sociopath. Like, the documentation on this guy being a person who should not have custody of guns, kids, or like a whole state is very out there. He literally bound a woman up in a basement and took blackmail porn of her. He had to vacate the office of the Governor of the state he is now trying to run for US Senate in. He allegedly beat his wife and children. But there is just so much more to the Eric Greitens story. 

If other people want to play this game, hey. it's free speech, even if it's a bit despicable to encourage violence. Especially in today's climate, when elected officials are receiving death threats and paying for increased security. If you are Eric Greitens and people know you are a shabby person with violent tendencies, wow. great job highlighting that. Except we've gone through the looking glass on the right, haven't we? Encouraging violence isn't the bugbear it used to be in the olden days. And even being an admitted domestic violence practitioner doesn't seem to be a barrier to one's poll numbers.  

And apparently, a certain type of woman has no problem backing him. A low-quality sort who associates with obviously deranged people, you might say.

Greitens is a sociopath, but the Republican party seems to be normalizing sociopathy. Roy Moore was a pedo. Donald Trump is--a little bit of all kinds of things. The common thread I'm seeing though is getting ugly about misogyny. They might have certain women front and center in their party like Lauren Boebert or MTG (mascots), but they do not support women. A woman's life is not worth more to them than the right of an abusive man to have a gun. A woman's life is not worth more to them than the right of a rapist to be treated as a father. The religious right seems to be harbor for abusive men and a pillory for abused women. 

A man like Eric Greitens, who just unveiled a fantasy of hunting down insufficiently rigorous Republicans isn't automatically considered a problem for the GOP--becuse who knows, maybe he is still electable, and that's all that matters. And the rest of the party will have to deal with it. Maybe like how TX. Sen. John Cornyn was recently booed at an event for negotiating about guns? How Dan Crenshaw was booed for supporting Ukraine? What is insufficient conservatism--not Trumpism? Not-fascism? Not-misogynist and violent?  Not-sociopathic? 

I think it would be really great if the GOP could figure out how Greitens exists in their party before they try and tell Democrats any damn thing. Because between having this guy be the exact mascot of how the GOP is a moral shitshow and the GOP messaging being demonizing the Biden administration for stuff like saying it's bad when people or drugs are actually seized at the border (meaning the CBP is totally doing their job?) makes it seem like the zombie party is just out to eat brains and be disgusting. 

I don't know how any of that is supposed to be good government. It is just bullshit and the precursor to civil war level bullshit. Fascism's hallmark is violence legitimized as a political tool, and Greitens just tried to deploy it against his own party members to get them on board with being worse. And supporting him. The GOP needs to reject him, but I see the mechanics at work where they would not. And that is why the Republican party must fail.