Good op-ed piece; thanks for bringing it my attention, BG.
Thank you for posting this, and for not jumping on my typo about the 1980 election. :smack:
Nice try.
But seriously, the most ardent conspiracy theorists are Libs and fringers, not Republicans.
That said, I agree that the GOP is now controlled by the lunatic fringe. Not because most of the leadership or the majority of the rank and file are CTers (they/we are not) but because Republicans can no longer risk alienating the torch-and-pitchfork crowd if they want to keep their seats.
We laid down with dogs, and now we’re stuck with the fleas.
Personally, I’d happily switch if there were a viable mainstream party to go to.
Since 2000, I’ve seen a lot more politicking based on deception and outright lies than I saw in the previous 20 years, mostly (but not all) from the GOP. I exhibit as Case A the kinds of lies the GOP has been spreading about healthcare reform. I exhibit as Case B the lies the GOP has spread about Obama himself (pertaining to his birth certificate, whether he is a Muslim, whether he has any actual ties to terrorists, whether gun control is on his agenda, etc.)
Case A: I have never seen the Democrats drum up popular opposition to a GOP bill based so largely on falsehoods, and so little on actual principled debate. Ever. I’ve never even seen the GOP do that so transparently, before Obama took office.
Case B: I have never seen such baseless attacks on the president’s right to be in office being echoed as high up as the U.S. Congress. At least in 2000, there was some (albeit not a lot) of reasonable doubt. And yet, was Bush was sworn in, the Democrat politicians in D.C. accepted his right to be in office, with no further illegitimate-style rhetoric. And yet, some GOP members of Congress actually said in public that Obama’s birth certificate deserved further investigation, and worse. A GOP vice-presidential candidate seriously tried to tie Obama to terrorists. Insane.
Bottom line, the lie-spewers (Rush, Coulter, etc.) control the GOP right now. Not principled conservatives. And a lot of people in the GOP believe those lies, more than I’ve ever seen from Democrats. There have been plenty of insane Democrats, but they have never been as dominant as the insane members of the GOP are now.
And I think that’s horrifying.
And I think that “oh, both sides are just the same” is a standard and baseless claim made by people trying to defend the excesses of the Right. No matter what the Republicans do, “the Democrats are just as bad” is the claim we hear. Regardless of how far off from reality such claims are.
You realize eventually we will have another Repubican president and then your heads will explode
And I think that “oh, both sides are just the same” is a standard and baseless claim made by people trying to defend the excesses of the Right. No matter what the Republicans do, “the Democrats are just as bad” is the claim we hear. Regardless of how far off from reality such claims are.
I agree that’s usually a cop-out.
Both sides do bad things, but they tend to be bad in different ways and it’s hard to judge who is worse. Usually if you are on one side, the other side seems to be worse.
One thing I will say though is that the Democrats’ health care sell is looking an awful lot like the Bush Iraq War sell: ever-shifting rationales, playing games with cost estimates, some even insisting it will pay for itself, overselling it as a crisis situation that must be dealt with at once(even though the health care bill is now scheduled to go into effect in 2014). Legitimate criticisms get attacked as vicious lies, possibly even unpatriotic lies. Attacking the most outrageous criticisms as a way to distract from the legitimate ones.
It depends on what kind of Republican president we have. Will it be an Olympia Snowe or a Michelle Bachman?
It is a crisis. And if it doesn’t pay for itself, the blame will be because it’s not likely to be much of a reform. They are much too right wing and much too cowardly to do the job right; they are more concerned with shielding the insurance companies and sucking up to the Republicans than reform.
And those would be? As far as I can tell the legitimate criticism is coming from the Left; the Right is just frothing at the mouth. And yes, lying. As for patriotism; the Right has been borderline treasonous for many years. Never hesitating to harm or endanger the country in the name of party, profit and ideology.
It is a crisis. And if it doesn’t pay for itself, the blame will be because it’s not likely to be much of a reform. They are much too right wing and much too cowardly to do the job right; they are more concerned with shielding the insurance companies and sucking up to the Republicans than reform.
Even this reform is being strongly resisted by the public. The only possible reform was one that didn’t upset anyone’s existing insurance arrangements. A more ambitious plan, like Wyden-Bennett, would have been nearly impossible to pass.
Of course, everything is impossible to pass when you don’t try to make your case to the people before starting the legislative process. The Democrats thought they had all the mandate they needed and tried to rush health care reform through by July. Turns out they had no such mandate, but they figure they’ll try to get it done anyway. Not too bright. If they had gotten the national debate going BEFORE starting the legislative process, this whole exercise would have gone a lot better.
And those would be? As far as I can tell the legitimate criticism is coming from the Left; the Right is just frothing at the mouth. And yes, lying. As for patriotism; the Right has been borderline treasonous for many years. Never hesitating to harm or endanger the country in the name of party, profit and ideology.
Cost for one thing. We can’t afford to expand health care access and almost all of the revenue and cost savings measures are illusionary. Congress will not cut Medicare and they will repeal most of the revenue measures as well at the first sign of pushback. We’ll be left with $100 billion/year in new spending, growing faster than inflation every year.
Even if we’re optimistic and assume that Congress will cut Medicare and raises taxes, that still leaves the serious political fallout from those actions. Seniors vote in midterms, in case the Democrats have forgotten. And the polls indicate a bloodletting for the Democrats worse than 1994. Before the bill even passes.
You’re wrong.
To the extent that’s true, it’s because it’s not perceived as going far enough, generally. And no, the frothing at the mouth “death panel” types are not “the public”; they are a small faction. Most of the public has consistently wanted health care reform, and is mainly angry at the attempts of the opposition to derail it; such as the constant attempts to prevent even something as mild as the public option.
And even if you were right…so what? Should the government just do nothing and let the situation degenerate until the system collapses?
That has nothing to do with the public, and everything to do with sucking up to the insurance companies and the Right.
Garbage. They had plenty of mandate; their problem was that they insist on coddling the insurance companies, and refuse to recognize the Republicans for what they are: implacable enemies. They should have forgotten their useless attempts at bipartisanship and just rammed real reform through instead of letting the right wing lunatics set the tone of the debate.
And you think that stabbing their base yet again in the back will help the Democrats? They’ve done that often enough. Greedy and stupid as most of them appear to be, those seniors will vote against the Democrats no matter what. They are too stupid to see that the Republicans are the ones who have been trying to gut their benefits for decades, and too greedy to care about anyone else. Not to mention heavily bigoted, and likely to vote Republican for that reason alone.
And if Congress refuses to pay for it, of course it’ll be a disaster. But that’s true for anything, and has nothing to do with health care. The real problem is likely to be that it won’t be nearly as much reform as it needs to be, and will instead be a sellout to the Right and the insurance companies.
Why would they enter into a dialogue where they start out on the defensive? Your OP didn’t ask a question with any degree of honesty as you’ve already come to your conclusion. That’s ok, but, were I a Republican, I wouldn’t see any reason to participate.
Odesio
I don’t necessarily think that misinformation, ignorance, and fallacy is the bread and butter of the Republican party. Nevertheless, with the weight of all that daily airtime for Limbaugh and the Fox News/Clear Channel shouters, along with the party’s unwillingness to distance itself from them, I can see why people might think that way.
Truth and honesty have a liberal slant and can not be trusted anymore. We must believe that every single republican in the senate and congress are 100 percent against every measure proposed by the dems. They are not acting under threats and fear of reprisal. Just doing what they believe.
It is possible to distill a nuanced position down into a soundbite, and there are some Democrats who can do it (I’d point to my governor, Brian Schweitzer, as an example), but it’s very difficult, and a very rare skill. It’s much easier to distill something down to a soundbite when it didn’t have the nuance to begin with.
Originally Posted by Try2B Comprehensive
It has been so long since I posted that, the sardonic tone has worn off.
No biggie.
That might be it but I doubt it. It seems more likely that the Republicans are simply better organized than the Democrats when it comes to getting their message out.
I think the reason for this may be that, among the pitchfork-wielding, anti-reality “base” themselves, the perception is that they are not getting their message out. They believe that they are victims of a vast left-wing information conspiracy and that only a few brave souls among them (who, coincidentally enough, nearly all have jobs on FOX News or AM radio) are in any position to tell them the truth. So they all pay attention and then do their best to spread the message as far and wide as possible. In their minds, they’re simply fighting the good fight. It also explains why they’re always so angry about everything.
It has gone beyond a mere unwillingness to distance themselves.
A few who tried it ended up having to kiss Limbaugh’s ring.
Only those not in office or in the media business, like Powell, have been able to speak clearly on this, and b/c they’re not in office or the media, they have little impact.
But we’re going to have to find a way out or we’ll end up a permanently marginalized party of nutjob agitators.