The consensus is growing among Democrats that the Republican Party is fundamentally insane. It’s not they disagree with us on policy. It’s that they do not abide by the basic rules of debate and argument. They aren’t just impervious to logic; they actually have no use for it. Let me go back to this exchange between David Gergen and Matt Taibbi:
Gergen: You just think they’re all crazy.
Taibbi: I do.
Gergen: So you’re arguing, Matt, that 40 percent of those who voted last night are crazy?
Taibbi: I interview these people. They’re not basing their positions on the facts — they’re completely uninterested in the facts. They’re voting completely on what they see and hear on Fox News and afternoon talk radio, and that’s enough for them.
Or, look at Jon Chait discussing Republican opposition to the securing of loose nukes through the New START Treaty:
What’s so hair-pulling about it is that our security apparatus is filled with wildly expensive and/or intrusive measures that bring minimal benefit, but the one security intervention with an enormous cost-benefit ratio may get held up because you need the consent of an intransigent and largely insane party.
Or Matt Yglesias referring to Rep. Paul Ryan as a “dangerous madman.”
Worth noting that Paul Ryan is a dangerous madman, with monetary views well to the right of Milton Friedman.
Or Steve Benen taking it a step further and accusing the Republicans of going beyond crazy to outright economic sabotage.
It’s obvious that a consensus is forming that we’re not dealing with some rational force than we compromise with. Are we all wrong? Are we missing something?
If you have carefully studied Paul Ryan’s positions, and conclude that he is a “madman”…
You ARE missing something…his policies are the sanest of sane, and are much more rooted in reality than the “nanny state” philosophy that has led Western Europe to the brink of bankruptcy.
Progressives…stop labeling your opponents as racist escapees from the local insane asylum, and engage in rational debate.
You deride anyone who argues against the Department of Education, for example, as “nuts”, yet cannot defend the expenditure of billions of dollars that has led to poorer levels of education among our population…disgraceful.
Your labeling of conservatives and Tea Partiers as “insane” sounds like projection based on the latest election results.
The teahadists are insane. “Get your government out of my Medicare!” Don’t you see what’s wrong with that statement? Better yet, nevermind.
Every movement has relatively ignorant members…didn’t a Democratic congressperson (Sheila Jackson Lee) mention “two Vietnams living side by side”?
One ignorant statement does not define a movement.
Ryan doesn’t care if his proposal isn’t even rhetorically supportable by wingers in his own party.
But, the point at hand is that he doesn’t give a shit about 10% unemployment and doesn’t want to do anything, or the Fed to do anything, to lower the rate.
Ryan’s position isn’t rhetorically supportable because he’s too honest…unfortunately, most Republicans are still afraid to speak the brutal truth for fear of Democrats demagoging their position and convincing senior citizens that they’ll be eating dog food.
Your statement regarding 10 percent unemployment reduces to a fundamentally different world view…nut jobs like Ryan and me believe that employment and wealth creation come from private sector innovation and work ethic, not from taxing rich people or printing more greenbacks. His proposed policies will give confidence to those who create jobs, which will consequently reduce unemployment.
Krugman keeps warning about how Germany’s “austerity” program will plunge us into the next Great Depression…yet their growth and employment rate exceed that of the United States, which is under the economic leadership of fiscal Keynesian Obama, and monetary Keynesian Bernake.
My point is that he doesn’t give a shit if his proposal is a political non-starter, He doesn’t care that the Senate and the president wouldn’t agree with it even if the House did, which they wouldn’t. His solution is no different from me ceaselessly calling for single-payer health care. Maybe I’m right, but my grousing wouldn’t save one life or prevent one person from going bankrupt.
He doesn’t care about lowering unemployment one little bit. He only cares for his ideology. He’ll let people suffer and lose their homes and their life’s savings and their dignity because he wants 100% or nothing at all. But he’s not the president. He doesn’t have the power to impose his ideology. So, he’ll let everyone pound sand and hope his party is rewarded for it. He’s an asshole.
I believe that “private sector innovation” is the moronic crap that got us into this destroyed position. Innovative ideas like CDOs, like substituting fees for account management, like cheating bank customers.
That’s the kind of innovation done best by Repukeliscum. It’s called fraud, theft, cheating, and simple lies.
Hey, Liberty for All: Germany must have a 40 percent top income tax bracket, definitely a 19 percent sales tax, safety nets that make anything in the US look like suicide nets, all kinds of protection for workers in relation to corporations, etc., etc. Germany is the ‘socialist’ state everyone in the US loves to cite to criticize Europe. What are you talking about man/girl? Go on Fox News. As if the US isn’t bankrupt financially and morally.
You might want to check out Steve Hill’s commentary on this topic in the Washington Monthly. Scroll down to the post “Amazing Germany…Declining Unemployment…How do they do it?”
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/hows_europe_doing/
Ryan’s proposals are crap from the start, and they only get worse when you actually read them, which you probably have not.
Ryan gets credit because he says 12 impossible things WITHOUT screaming. His proposals are insane, just uttered in moderate tones.
He gets credit from people who don’t read his proposals.
greetings dataguy!
I think you get to make that comment when your party stops calling anyone who disagrees with them socialists, Marxists, communists, evil, etc; when your party and its supporters stop insinuating or explicitly stating that the President is a secret Muslim, is not a citizen, etc; when your party and its supporters stop demonizing anyone who isn’t white enough, Christian enough, and conservative enough, as was the case with the demonizing of Muslim Americans during the contrived controversy over the NYC mosque or with the debate on immigration or faux controversies like the New Black Panther party or rubbish comments from GOP leaders like Newt Gingrich stating that the President has an “anti-colonial, Kenyan worldview” (ie he sees the world like a black man!).
It’s not as if your party has a lot of credibility on calling others out on this subject when your party has spent the last two years simply trumping up and amplifying the disgraceful smears propagated during the ’08 campaign.
And simply calling Ryan’s policies the “sanest of the sane” isn’t exactly engaging in reasonable debate or making a coherent argument. If you want to address why this country has a debt/deficit problem, let’s start with the simple fact that for 30 years we have been financing tax cuts to the wealthiest and corporations with public debt; that for 30 years we have enacted economic policies that have seen the richest 1% claim 24% of then nation’s wealth today as compared to only 9% in 1976 or that 4/5 of the income increases since 1980 have gone to the that 1%. It’s not exactly as if trickle down, supply-side economics has worked, as Americans are making less, getting taxed higher because of the shifting tax burden onto the middle class (one of the results of the useless Bush tax cuts that didn’t do one damn thing to create extraordinary job growth or stave off the recession), and getting crushed by rising education and health care costs (exactly when is the market going to correct that?). My God, you had a Republican congressman just a couple of weeks ago say that Ryan’s plan wouldn’t result in a single dime being cut from Social Security or Medicare. That is straight-up lunacy. And it’s said because you folks are too cowardly to tell Americans what you really want to do to the safety net in this country because you know they wouldn’t support it. But keep crippling our revenue base, keep cutting taxes for the wealthiest and corporations without ANY of the supposed economic benefits, and you create the conditions for doing just that. It’s basically a self-fulfilling prophecy manufactured by the rightwing.
And your pantomime attack on the Dept. of Ed. is fairly typical of the empty arguments that the rightwing offers up. Just attack the Department of Education and call for its abolition without any effort to make a connection between the quality of US education and the Department. It’s just banal, insipid rightwing claptrap.
Let’s “stick to facts”…not name calling
Please compare, and explain the correlation, between the following:
You can call all the names you want, but you can’t explain away the facts.
That’s still not an argument.
And, again, you get to call others out for namecalling when folks like you and the people you support aren’t engaged in the same.
Honestly…you want reasonable debate but you can’t even do that yourself.
It’s right wing lunacy on steroids. If it was enacted, the Repukeliscum would be tossed on their butts and it would take 20 years to come back. I almost say “Go ahead and try to enact this plan of morons.”
I am a right-wing lunatic…but proposal number 3 is THE single most important step this country needs to take to control health care costs.
Please explain how a voucher program that gives tax money to insurance companies is going to do anything to “control costs”.
When you give your explanation, please include enough of an explanation of how you think the insurance industry actually works to make sure that we all understand that you have some kind of grounding in what you are talking about. Specifically, explain how insurance companies turn a profit, how such companies will make a profit in a voucher scheme, and how doctors are going to spend less money filing paperwork with dozens of insurance companies for their Medicare patients than they currently are filing with a single agency – with clearly defined rules on what will and will not be covered – as they do now.
If your answer starts with “market economics dictates that competition lowers costs” you immediately fail. Because when you have an inelastic good (i.e. healthcare) market economics does not in fact dictate that competition lowers costs and may instead create massive amounts of duplication of effort that does nothing but raise expenses for customers. Likewise if you’re going to fall back on “it will reduce fraud” you need to explain how this is possible when the fraud rate for Medicare is actually lower than for private insurance companies (who find it too costly to pay people to investigate fraud and so for the petty stuff that Medicare actually catches they just build in a cost increase to pass along to customers on a yearly basis).
Mostly I’m curious to know if you even understand how insurance companies turn a profit and why you think that replacing a program that only needs to break even to survive (i.e. Medicare) with a program that hands taxpayer money over to corporations that generate waste in the form of profit for shareholders is going to save money. It’s far more likely that a voucher system for Medicare would end up being a bigger corporate feeding trough than Medicare Part D turned out to be. Which is what the insurance companies would love to see, of course.
Nonynony…needless to say, the word “competition” will play a role in my answer…and health care is nowhere as “inelastic” as you claim…
Your thoughtful response requires an equally thoughtful response on my part…
I will respond if I am not voted out of the “Pond”! (see below).
Living in Ireland, as I do, I won’t get involved in an intra – USA debate. However I couldn’t let that uniformed comment about Europe pass. Ireland is not doing badly because of a “nanny state” philosophy, but because it stupidly bailed out banks which had gone mad because of inadequate regulation and which had fuelled an unsustainable asset price bubble. Unregulated capitalism was the problem, not the solution.
The Eurozone as a whole, is doing fine, it is inequalities between core and peripheral members which are leading to instability, If anything a more expansive Keynesian fiscal stimulus is required to relieve those tensions and restore stability.
The Eurozone as a whole has a positive trade balance, moderate growth (in keeping with demographic trends), and an advanced infrastructure – all despite significantly lesser natural resources than other parts of the world.
The “nanny state” as you put it – has been very good at producing a better educated and more productive workforce – with a better quality of life than seems to be possible – for most people – living under more market based policies.
Europeans wanted to come here. Since the reconstruction which ended about 1970, you see few Europeans interested in emigrating.
They look at the US, with its terrible social differences between the rich and the poor, and they cannot understand why anyone would want to live here.
I’d move to Europe, but I have a good job and make pretty good money. Plus, I can’t speak German well enough to get a professional job there.
Yep a general perception of the US in Europe now would be that its a great place to live if you’re fit or rich and don’t mind screwing everyone else – be that economically, politically, militarily or in terms of a very dubious judicial system.
Its a crazy place to want to live if you’re poor, sick, old, or have an egalitarian bent.
Gross oversimplifications, I know, but national brands are build of over-simplifications…
I wrote this about a month ago:
I really see nothing to change my view of the TP/GOP (since that’s effectively what the GOP has become, and although the TP “brand” is new, what it represents is as old as the hills). It’s embraced a form of fundamentalism that reminds me in spirit of what the Mullahs and their puppets have put into practice in Iran or what Taliban tribal leaders practice in Afghanistan. You have “freedom” of a sort – to be like them, or to suffer the consequences if you are deemed an infidel (or “sinner” in our lingo).
Are we all wrong? Are we missing something?
Yes, and no. I can’t pinpoint when you first realized that Democrats were playing Charlie Brown to the GOP’s Lucy and the football. I do know that MY and Chait took a lot longer to come around. Probably because they were afraid of pissing off their DC buddies. Although both you and Benen weren’t on to the GOP as quick as Digby and Atrios were(who both didn’t trust the GOP from the jump). But it’s good that even establishmentarian types(like Chait) are beginning to see the light. Hopefully more do. Things will only get better once you break the back of the GOP. That means losing elections, especially for the House, Senate and Presidency.
have this epiphany?:
One of the signs that much of our current Republican Party is in fact fascist is the primacy of the political: the first question they ask is whether or not something will benefit them politically. Whether a proposal benefits or harms the nation is not a consideration. This is what turned Republican Romneycare into Communist Obamacare. They have abandoned evidence and reason for rhetorical opportunism – hence the constant hypocrisy – and their illiterate wish-projection onto the Bible, the Constitution and history. They value ignorance in the population, as evidenced by Palin-worship and climate denial.
They call themselves conservatives, but movement conservatives are in fact right-wing radicals – fascists. They do not care what shape the country is in that they take over, as long as they take over. Neither the news media nor the poobahs of the Democratic Party have caught on to their utter amorality. The news media think of this as being clever and do not see the disaster this strategy is leading us directly into. Democratic leaders are still trying to pretend it is the old “Will the Honorable Gentleman yield?” days. They can see better, but they don’t know what to do about it.
i like this post, you are exactly right, i agree with, we are going to loss in this way, we are missing important things which we dont take seriously.
http://www.padana.com
No, I don’t think you are wrong. Nor should it really surprise us. It’s human nature to decide what you believe first, and then come up with the “reasoning” post hoc. Mythos trumps logos almost every time. The right wing has some very powerful myths, and they are not going to let any data get in the way – especially if those myths just happened to coincide with their self-interest (white people are oppressed, businesses are too highly regulated, tax cuts on the wealthy are just the thing to stimulate growth).
Really, it’s kind of surprising we’ve had such good leadership for as long as we did. Look back at the Romans, the Maya, the French Capetians…self-serving denial has been the hallmark of the ruling classes throughout history.
This is not to say that we are completely helpless. It is not a worthless thing to have reason and facts on our side, especially in a society in which many people are still well educated. But I think we need a bit more mythos as well. This is why it does set me on edge when Obama says (this late in the game) that “the other side has a point”. He needs to say “we are right; they are wrong – pity their poor souls!”
Just noticing it, are you?
Ryan was a jewel in the conversations about the health care reform bill. If you did everything he wanted to do, nothing would happen but health care costs would have gone up even faster.
DeMint is single-mindedly pursuing Obama’s destruction since Obama succeeded in his health care reform bill not being Obama’s Waterloo but DeMint’s.
They’ve been this way all along. The difference is that more of the over-the-cliff gang go re-elected and more freshmen are from that same branch of the GOP.
And it has to do with the fact that Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck are the de facto leaders of the “factless” and the “truly nutso” wings of the Republican Party, respectively.
It is sad to see strong Reagan conservatives like Lindsay Graham and Goldwater conservatives like Dick Lugar and Lamar Alexander having to silently go along with this destructiveness. (Although the START opposition was a bridge too far for Lugar; he supports ratification.)
It’s not a rational force because it is being driven by ever more extreme outside propaganda that is well financed by vested interests. Republicans in Congress are no longer representatives of local constituencies but the result of manufactured constituencies put together by the same folks who are financing a candidate’s campaign. And it started before Dick Armey’s FreedomWorks. So Republicans in Congress because of all the money that put them there are little more than puppets and the puppet masters are calling the tune. And as puppets they try to outperform one another in sycophancy to their owners. And become more extreme in order to get attention.
What is interesting is that the local coverage of Republicans in Congress rarely show the constant flow of extreme talk that the representatives indulge in on the floor of the House or Senate or in interviews on national media. The puppets are playing to a national audience.
No, you are not wrong, but it’s not at all clear what anyone still on the sane side of the divide does about it. This is my fear: it doesn’t seem like Obama or the Dems really have a strategy for how to proceed when the center appears not to be holding, and the opposition has decided to ride the id at the country’s expense.
I think the GOP screwed up with START treaty. that pissed a lot of the establishment off. i think that should give Obama the opening he needs: “look folks, we’ve got a real problem here when one party is willing to put scoring political points over our country’s safety from a nuclear attack. I’m all for bipartisanship but not for the sake of bipartisanship but because its the best way to get things done.”
of course that’s way too confrontational for the guy. i imagine he’ll just thank the GOP for the patriotism.
I don’t believe they are all clinically insane, no. But they might as well be. It’s a calculated strategy of “reasons? I don’t need no stinkin’ reasons.” Yes, it is very important to admit it. “For the truth shall set you free.” Obama’s biggest mistake, and certainly the media’s, is to pretend the GOP hold rational positions. The fight against them will be much more effective once we admit, at least to ourselves, that that is simply not true. Just figure out what they’re scheme really is — which is not difficult, as they always trumpet it up and down the country.
Gergen has always had his head up his butt in that way. He evokes an almost cosmic, ultra-respectable 1950s Republican “middle” that simply doesn’t exist within today’s Republican Party, hence it is nothing but a bugbear, and Taibbi was right to call him on it.
One of the greatest advantages we have, if we understand this, is that our opponents become completely predictable. Unfortunately, so far, the Dems have also been very predictable.
(shrug) Like I’ve been saying for years, arguing is a lot funner when you simply don’t care about the difference between truth and falsity.
Glad to see you guys are starting to catch up. Maybe in a few years the lefty bloggers will say something useful. (Even after recognizing the fact of it, it’ll take you guys awhile to wrap your heads around the strategic rhetorical implications of alethic indifference.)
I have a question for your commenters: why do you keep responding to LFA?
Ignore the fucker. Damn.
Seabe…great point. I only enjoy it here because of the impassioned responses!
In fact, let’s take a vote…
Vote “Yea” if I should continue posting…
Vote “Nea” if I should leave forever…
I will adhere to your verdict.
Democracy in Action!
stay
Thank you for the support…the “Yeas” have it!
Talk about low voter turnout…
Nope. The ones who are missing it are the establishment media types and, unfortunately, quite possibly, our President.
It’s a great irony that a man who has some truly amazing negotiating skills is stuck with a bunch of absolutist morons for an opposition.
I think Steven Benen is on the right track here, as today’s Republican Party is more than happy to sacrifice the economic and national security of our nation for short term political gain.
After 9/11, it was the invasion of Iraq, which was politically popular, but which caused us to take our eye off the ball of catching Osama Bin Laden and strained our relationships with other nations that could help us root out terrorists.
Then it was torture, which once again was politically popular and made Republicans appear tough, but which does not lead to accurate information, makes it difficult to criminal prosecute terrorists, and has been a great recruiting tool for terrorist groups.
Then it was the deficit, which Republicans pretend to care about, but which they always drive up when they are in power by cutting taxes for the wealthy elite and increasing government spending so that they can increase pressure for even further cuts to government programs that benefit the middle class, working class, and the poor.
Then it was the economy, which Republicans drove into a ditch and then did everything they could to obstruct President Obama and the Democrats’ efforts to fix because Republicans knew they could make gains in the midterm elections if the economy was still struggling.
And now it is debt ceiling, which will be a financial debacle if it is not increased, and the START treaty, the defeat of which would be bad for our national security and our international standing.
Mitch McConnell promised during this past election that their number one priority was the defeat of President Obama, as opposed to reducing unemployment, helping people save their homes from the mortgage crisis, or increasing economic growth.
So, what can the Democrats do? Rather than pretending like they can negotiate with the Republicans, President Obama and the Democrats need to:
now that they’ve caught the beast, it looks like they’re going to do down with it …
Very good that this consensus is forming and it’s being discussed in the media. as long as it was “he said, she said” constructive solutions to our problems were blocked. Since I haven’t mentioned it for a while, everyone should [re]read the Easter Island chapter of Jared Diamond’s Collapse. Yes, ppl with wealth and power can drive a thriving advanced nation way past the stone age and they don’t have to be Nazis to do it.
..everyone should [re]read the Easter Island chapter of Jared Diamond’s Collapse.
Just finished the book – fascinating – well worth reading.
That looks really interesting, especially the second half of the book.
Absolutely.
I had read his earlier book – Guns, Germs, and Steel – a few years ago. Another must read!
yes! the diversity of outcomes is both encouraging and a warning. i’m interested in the question of when ideology blinds those with the most agency in a culture and prevents them from looking for workable solutions, pertinent to this post which imo shows progress in discounting the craziness as a basis for looking for actual creative solutions.
hell no, we aren’t missing anything. they are fucking crazy, and the problem is is that too many on the left don’t want to call a spade a spade.
I told you, I read that Rolling Stone interview and said AMEN with the frank, brutalness of Taibbi’s words.
Well the real question is what do we do about it? They’re not going to stop and they still have a huge propaganda machine. What can we do that is legal that can stop them?