It would be nice if I could treat the new species of Republican like a scientist would treat a newly discovered species. Rather than fighting some variation on the badger or the weasel or the tasmanian devil, I’d just like to study its curious and frenzied behaviors. Instead of claws, this creature wields a low-powered forcefield of stupidity and ignorance. To keep predators at bay, rather than arch its back or emit hissing sounds, it radiates hatred and lashes out with poorly-planned strikes. The randomness of its attacks confuses its adversaries, who are often attacked where they expect it least, in the areas of their greatest strength. This seeming lack of logic can sometimes stun and briefly bewilder anything it encounters. This creature’s strongest asset is its ability to put anything in its path immediately on the defensive. Faced with this beast that acts always with incredible aggression and transparent malice, while never acting in a rational manner, there is no choice but go into a defensive crouch and prepare for all potential lines of attack no matter how stupid or counterintuitive. This animal cannot be soothed or reasoned with. It will not accept food or other offers of peace and reconciliation. Its simple and constant call is the utter destruction of its enemies, and it considers everything its enemy.
Despite its unpredictable behaviors, predictability is actually its greatest weakness. It can be counted on to attack in all circumstances, to never retreat, and can therefore easily be lured into ambushes.
Yeah, it would be much cooler if these people weren’t actually attacking you and me and our country, and everything we value and cherish. They could be good entertainment.
i believe you’ll find the species republicana vulgaris in my 2008 taxonomy of republican wildlife, an update of the original 2006 classification.
we definitely need a 2010 update.
Passed on the link to my local political
croniesactivist group. Thanks!You know the way you describe the animal, it seems to me that if you were to find one in your garden your best course of action is to shoot it.
But the more entertaining course of action would be to bring another one in and watch them eat each other.
Yes. thinking just this evening how bizarre it is, all these years and we [progressives] making little headway against the billionaires club, but now they’re pitted against half of the GOP
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/07/club-for-growth-to-republicans-trigger-a-default-or-else.
php?ref=fpa
Nice metaphor, Booman. I think it dovetails well with another post you made a few days ago, about feeling exhausted. I think any sane person who has paid attention to politics over the last decade-and-change must feel the same way. It’s like, it’s hard enough to manage the affairs of the nation, without having to deal with a deranged elephant on top of that. Not to mention that the elephant has roughly par control of our electoral system. And the only thing we have to fend it off is a broken 3-legged stool.
it shits a lot in its own environment, and bullshits a lot with the aid of its News Corp Zoo handlers.
The interesting thing about this new species is to analyse the ecosystem it inhabits – what environmental niche does it occupy, and what evolutionary advantage does it have? Big business doesn’t seem to be it’s preferred habitat and it is allergic to the culture of give and take and negotiated compromise in Washington.
It seems to me that republicanus stupiditus is best suited to the rat-infested sewers of dead end racist and millenarian bigotry which is constantly looking for “the end of days” because it cannot stand the reality of the world it is actually living in. It can thus be classed with those parasites which prey on and ultimately destroy their hosts whilst all the time complaining that their hosts aren’t being generous enough with their blood and that it is due to their hosts own fault and weakness that they are infected.
Unfortunately the species propagates virulently and evolves rapidly to circumvent any new anti-bioidiotic counter measures invented to fight the infection. The Palinista strain has evolved rapidly into Bachmania and attacked the brainstem itself resulting in entirely delusional parallel universes where climate change, techtonic plates, and evolution itself is denied.
There is one constant however, an absolutely visceral and all-consuming hatred for black, librul, state loving, cheese eating surrender democrats who find it difficult to find their own spine. They may end up destroying their own hosts, but that is only in fulfilment of their own apocalyptic vision. The Beast is Back!
Props for the imagery, Frank.
Understanding the environment is a key thing. Because the behavior of this new species in favorable media, the behavior in Washington DC, and the behaviors within their own constituencies is somewhat different. The swamps of rightwing media is their favored habitat, where they preen with ever more flamboyant crazy in order to attract the attention of the perfect mate to ensure their survival with exposure and money. It is the diverse plumage they evolve in the media swamps that attracts our attention to them as objects of curiosity. And, as we all know, global economics, global secularization, and global climate change have caused the development of media swamps, big and small, that extend from our largest cities into extensive bayous in the middle and south of the country.
In DC, their first instinct is to perch on the back benches in Congress, hide in the many tunnels of K Street, or cloister themselves with their kind in small communities on C Street or in tinktanks, the environment in which they farm for hosts.
Among their constituents, they tend to be docile, almost pets, helping with domestic chores like obtaining money from the federal government, or seeing that some federal civil service employee gets right and properly beaten up. They rarely show their plumage except a meetings for training the fledglings who will take their place or assembling the herd of calves who will vote to be led to the slaughter. Locally, they are seen as caring, dignified, principled.
It is their ability to change their appearance and behavior to suit the requirements of these three environments that have caused the near metastatic growth and reproduction of this pest. And they can be controlled only with changes in one of those three environments.
One either has to drain the swamp, shine light on their doings in DC, or get them to show their full plumage among their constituents. The last item is best illustrated with Walkerii wisconsinensis.
I think these comments could even mutate into a diary at some point – don’t you? It is time these mutant strains were subjected to proper scientific analysis because that is what they hate and fear most…
this title is too funny for words
Should it not be Tea Party Animal Farm?
…we could feed the hungry masses with Soylent Stupid.
I get the feeling that even Marlin Perkins would be afraid to have an encounter in the wild with the Tea Party Animal.