At the Reagan Library debate, the crowd cheered Rick Perry for the sheer volume of people he has put to death. At the CNN/Tea Party debate, the crowd cheered the idea of letting the uninsured die rather than having the government pay subsidies to those who can’t afford health insurance. Last night, at the Fox News/Google debate, the audience booed a soldier in Iraq because he’s gay and cheered when Little Ricky Santorum said he would reinstate the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy.
It is now a pattern. However radically and aggressively stupid the Republican candidates try to be, they can’t match their audience. And they wind up distancing themselves from their own base after every debate. The point of debates is to learn about the candidates. But, so far, we’re learning more about what was left of the GOP after Bush and Cheney were done with it.
It isn’t pretty.
Which candidate on that stage wouldn’t try to repeal the repeal of DADT?
Gary Johnson.
Who?
I always thought “Gary Johnson” sounded like a euphemism for something. As in “Is that your Gary Johnson or are you just happy to see me?” Turns out he’s running for president.
Even more telling is that not a single one of the candidates either (a) chastized the audience or (b) thanked the serviceman for his service to the country.
Indeed. I found myself reflexively shouting “Hey!” when the booing started, like you might do at the ballgame when some drunk is shouting out obscene things in front your kid.
Not a single one of those candidates shared my reflex.
And not a single one of those candidates seeking the Republican nomination thought that saying something would be a good move.
This really demonstrates something about that party.
Tragically, it seems like it could work. I still refuse to entertain that notion personally, this far out, but the hatred for congress doesn’t seem to be translating to a partisan paradigm shift. Hopefully, Americans are just refusing to pay attention/refusing to believe what they’re seeing and hearing and will come around next year, but jesus fucking christ.
http://hotlineoncall.nationaljournal.com/archives/2011/09/dem-poll-obama.php
You know things are getting bad out there when you begin to worry about the electoral dynamism of Mitt Romney. Romney/Rubio could absolutely win Florida a year from now. Good thing the GOP would never go with a Massachusetts Mormon and a brown guy, right? …Right?
How about Romney/Perry? Seems almost inevitable …
Maybe if congressional Democrats got off their asses and joined the fight intead of bitchin’ to Politico that the Negro is dragging them down. And what’s stopping progressives from mobilizing?! I’m in DC, and I haven’t seen nare damn march on Washington for Jobs! I haven’t seen anything except the President out there on his own. Maybe after this week’s CBC festivities at 4 and 5 star hotels and restaurants have concluded, they’ll join him. Of course it’s going to be an uphill battle, but what are Democrats and Progressives doing but complaining–as usual?! At this time in 2003, Kerry was besting Bush by significant margins, but Karl Rove and Republicans were not sitting on their asses complaining.
I’m not even sure there’s a fight to be had anymore when congress can no longer function.
How do you even sustain political pressure on any topic or legislation when republicans can’t even keep the government functioning to provide disaster aid? The GOP no longer exists in a recognizable universe. And all the old rules of politics seem to have gone out the window.
I don’t know how the President gets through each day without stealing one of his secret service agents’ handguns and going on a rampage. Or offing himself. Either way.
I won’t pollute my mind by watching what’s essentially a special episode of Animal Planet’s “When Humans Attack”, but I DO thoroughly enjoy their capacity for doublethink. To wit:
Government is the enemy and can’t be trusted, but the more state executions the better;
Health Care Reform is to be prevented, lest the government murder participants via “death panels”; but people without insurance should be left to die; and this latest one: If you don’t support the troops, you’re a traitor, unless the soldier in question is gay and then you can boo freely.
The lack of core beliefs is awe-inspiring.
If you want to confuse a Republican, ask them to explain the logical consistency of being anti-choice and pro-death penalty.
The cognitive dissonance is astounding.
Not that they need any help from me, but there is an intellectually coherent (on its own terms) argument they can make there.
I once posted a response to a teabegger online about this kind of hypocrisy and I used the term “cognitive dissonance” in the post, which I thought was relatively common these days. He responded by haranguing me for being “elitist” by using “big college words.”
There are moments in your life when you encounter someone who meets every possible expectation of a stereotype, and there he was.
They’re against killing the purely innocent. They’re for killing the accused.
Yes, that’s the intellectually coherent argument that massappeal was talking about (I’m assuming).
In my experience, the next question is ‘But I thought only God could truly judge?’, and then the hemming and hawing begins.
This is where it’s really helpful to have a direct line to God. Then you do what you goddamn please because God said it’s OK. It’s like having a really powerful invisible playmate.
Ha! Does that actually work?
In my experience, even the ‘coherent’ argument I offered just doesn’t matter. I talked about this stuff with a wingnut family member, and at one point:
Me: Well, if A does lead to B, would that change your mind?
Her: I disagree.
Me: Okay, you might not agree that A leads to B, but if it does, would that change your mind?
Her: I disagree.
Me: So … um, what?
That’s not cognitive dissonance; that’s a short in the wiring.
Sometimes it works – depends who you’re talking to, of course.
In the example you gave, I find it amusing to pull out meta arguments. Instead of asking ‘would that change your mind?’, ask ‘is there any knowledge you could learn, or anything that could be discovered that WOULD make you change your mind?’.
If they say no, you know that you don’t need to continue the conversation. But it’s usually interesting to see the reaction, because we’re all so used to just butting heads with the same tired arguments that it can throw people for a loop when you start asking them to question the foundations on which their opinions are built.
I’d be happier if they were willing to be constrained to executing the guilty.
First mistake: looking for logical consistency. There isn’t any. It’s all gut emotion — so very easy to manipulate & the level of sophisication now at work, after a century of mass media, is a dictator’s wet dream.
Who needs logic?
Violent, stupid and armed to the teeth. I see a nightmare future for this nation.
Violent, stupid & armed to the teeth is what made America great! We’re not meant to progress beyond that; we’re supposed to ramp it up! Then when someone on the teevee points & says git ‘im, we git ‘im. Woof!
Fox News is destroying this country. Rupert Murdoch and all his bought Repug politicians. Enraging the dimwits over lies and half truths.
That’s why it’s worth so much money! It’s the fruit of a multi-generational experiment in social engineering. Mass control = mass profits.
It’s not just Fox, either. It’s corporate media as a whole — now including ‘public broadcasting’ (brought to you by Exxon, Monsanto & Merck, among others).
Ii will ask again how do candidates get away with lying in the information age where EVERYTHING is available at our fingertips? Romney lied! A quick search found that he in fact removed the line from his book as Perry charged. Romney is not Reagan; He’s Richard Nixon.
This is why we’ve gotta get rid of equal access on the internets. Equal access no good!
Basically the GOP base is now a pack of old dried up intolerant cretins who will soon (although far too late) be ushered from the world in national crisis or demographic swamping.