In the news today: Republican-held states like Texas and Alabama continue their attacks on democracy with new restrictions intended to make voting more difficult, more time consuming, and (during a pandemic) more dangerous. And an anti-vaccine shop owner in Nashville has gotten a blistering national response for comparing pandemic vaccination programs to … the Holocaust. Really.

As the country deals with continuing controversies over gun-related violence, racial divisions tied to police actions, and bigotry against members of Asian American and Pacific Islander communities, the embrace of firearms and rationalizations of killing people in the street by some is tied to power narratives that have long, deep roots in American culture. The fear of being a victim of crime drives people to accept some truly awful ideas as truth.

All Republicans are awful. They are greedy, selfish, death-worshipping assholes. Let’s just stipulate that because it’s objectively true—it’s no accident that while they were happy to toss aside their supposed fealty to “family values” and “national security” during the Trump years, the one thing they got accomplished was tax cuts for the über-wealthy. Their priorities have always been clear.

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Through what the Texas Tribune described as “closed-door negotiations” between the state House and Senate, Texas Republicans worked late into the night on Saturday to pass sweeping legislation to cut early voting hours and increase access for “partisan poll watchers,” the newspaper reported.