# The GOP, Conservatives, and Insanity **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 16, 2012, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gop-conservatives-and-insanity/641220 "2012-11-16T18:09:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2012, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gop-conservatives-and-insanity/641220/21 "2012-11-16T21:06:57Z")
Mcardle’s law is that “The devotees of the party in power are smug and arrogant. The devotees of the party out of power are insane” This can be seen in the OP. During the Bush years we had all kinds of crazy theories about voter fraud in Ohio, the reinstatement of the draft, Cheney secretly running everything, people were going to start disappearing because of the Patriot Act, 9-11 truthers, the war in Afghanistan actually being about an gas pipeline, the war in Iraq being about making Halliburton money, Bush’s family behind the Nazis, etc. Now that Obama is president we have the crazy stuff about Kenya. Politics attracts the paranoid and the conspiracy minded. Close elections like the one we just had also attract accusations of voter fraud. Your other examples of craziness are just silly. Bush saw what disloyal subordinates did to his father’s presidency so one of the traits he valued most was loyalty. He also saw the horrible mistake his father made in picking Souter. The heads of the Senate Judiciary committee both suggested he pick someone who was not an appelate judge. Thus he picked Myers who has very loyal, well known to Bush, and not a judge. It was a poor choice but not a crazy one. At the time of her being picked for VP Palin was the most popular governor in America. She was young, female, and appealed to a faction of the party that distrusted McCain. As someone who was treated with kid gloves by the press in his previous run for the White House, no doubt McCain underestimated the hatred the press corps would have for Palin. But in terms of ticket balancing she made a lot of sense. Like McCain she had clashed with the party establishment and that must have been a big appeal for a maverick like McCain. If Ross Perot can be a presidential candidate why not Hermain Cain? Why is the popular governor of one of the largest states, Rick Perry, a crazy choice? How is Michelle Bachmann a crazier candidate than Dennis Kucinich? No one ever said that it was impossible to conceive from a rape, he said it was more not common which is true [http://www.babycentre.co.uk/preconception/suspectingaproblem/stressaffectexpert/](http://www.babycentre.co.uk/preconception/suspectingaproblem/stressaffectexpert/) If what he said was really so bad, why do people have to pretend he said something else? ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2012, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gop-conservatives-and-insanity/641220/22 "2012-11-16T21:18:54Z")
> [@Dr.Colossus](#): > > i am not saying his way of thinking is correct–i’m just noting it’s an interesting factoid that \*family alone \*was a huge motivation in shifting how a very progressive, liberal, well educated and thoughtful person think about things. Why is it interesting? ---
**Author:** ![panaccione](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/94ad74/32.png) [@panaccione](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panaccione)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2012, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gop-conservatives-and-insanity/641220/23 "2012-11-16T21:33:07Z")
I’d say it’s a mixture of tradition, religion, and cognitive dissonance. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Colossus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.colossus/32/9423_2.png) [@Dr.Colossus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Colossus)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2012, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gop-conservatives-and-insanity/641220/24 "2012-11-16T21:45:48Z")
> [@RaftPeople](#): > > Why is it interesting? because i don’t see any real elements of moderate-to-left that are anti-family, esp not to the degree he’d do a polar shift. maybe i lack insight because i got is this dog… ---
**Author:** ![drew870mitchell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drew870mitchell/32/3946_2.png) [@drew870mitchell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drew870mitchell)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2012, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gop-conservatives-and-insanity/641220/25 "2012-11-17T00:12:54Z")
> [@Dr.Colossus](#): > > he, on the other hand, has always been smarter than i could ever hope to be, That’s improbable. But what I mean to reply to is everything I snipped about his family and business and religious beliefs (sincere or feigned). One of the first things I learned about politics is that, at the individual level, there are no hard and fast rules. So many thousands of different influences go into making someone’s belief system that it’s a fool’s errand to try and guess what a person will believe based on one or two other things that they believe. As far as intelligence goes, I have very smart conservative friends, ones who I think are way smarter than me (for now). I have smart liberal friends. I have dumb conservative friends, and loads of dumb liberal friends. I worry about the dumb liberals because it’s human nature to not challenge something you agree with, so I talk with them and hear them sharing my beliefs with poorly thought out reasoning and where I should challenge that I just let it slide. The one constant for all these people is that none of them is an island. I like trying to pick apart what would happen to people if they publicly aired the opposite-of-presumed opinion - for most of us, it’s not that big of a deal, but some people are deeply engrained in their churches, clubs, and communities, and would lose their social standing among the people whom they respect if they deviated from what’s expected of them. ---
**Author:** ![LC\_Strawhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e19adc/32.png) [@LC\_Strawhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LC_Strawhouse)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2012, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gop-conservatives-and-insanity/641220/26 "2012-11-17T00:41:45Z")
> [@fumster](#): > > Put aside policy issues where we can disagree, but it seems to me that the right is starting to act in ways that are clearly insane. > > The earliest example I can think of is when GW Bush nominated Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court. No love for Richard Nixon? I bet he could have shown these upstarts a thing or two about insanity. Although, it was amusing seeing Clint Eastwood have a full-on psychotic episode at the RNC… ---
**Author:** ![fumster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9c0ed/32.png) [@fumster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fumster)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2012, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gop-conservatives-and-insanity/641220/27 "2012-11-17T01:41:28Z")
> [@LC\_Strawhouse](#): > > No love for Richard Nixon? I bet he could have shown these upstarts a thing or two about insanity. > > Although, it was amusing seeing Clint Eastwood have a full-on psychotic episode at the RNC… Nixon was nuts too, but back then the party knew it. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2012, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gop-conservatives-and-insanity/641220/28 "2012-11-17T01:55:11Z")
> [@fumster](#): > > The earliest example I can think of is when GW Bush nominated Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court. It was so totally out of left field. She was a competent lawyer but by no means a heavyweight. It left even his supporters scratching their heads and he was never able to give a coherent defense as to why he thought she was appropriate. This is not a good example. Bush was very into friendship, and not a great judge of competence. He seriously thought this person he had worked with for a long time was suitable. More cronyism than insanity. > [@](#): > > Move on to McCain selecting Palin. An older candidate with health problems selects someone who was clearly not ready to take on the Presidency. I think she may be more intelligent than people think, but she just didn’t have the grasp of history, geography, and current events that would have allowed her to take on the job of POTUS. Also, stupid but not crazy. McCain was pressed on Palin by a conservative with a clear crush on her. In general the right wanted a right winger, like they wanted someone like Ryan this year. And they hoped, being clueless, that women disappointed by Hillary not getting the nomination would come over. And it was a big rush job. Incompetent more than insane. > [@](#): > > Then of course there are the birthers that managed to convince a sizable number of GOP voters that Obama wasn’t a US citizen. Recently we heard from national office holders that thought women couldn’t get pregnant from “legitimate rape”. > > Now we hear claims of black people being bused into Maine to vote, massive voter fraud in other states, and other wild conspiracy theories. Anyone able to look rationally at what the pools were predicting could see that the results were in line with them and we don’t need to posit a conspiracy to explain them. > > Anyway, it leads to me to conclude that we are seeing batshit crazy lunacy rather than simple political disagreement. I don’t think I explained this well, but it feels very different than what I have seen in the last 40 years I have been following politics. These are far better examples. The Tea Party, having only a tenuous grip on reality, pushes for candidates with dubious grips on reality. And like a creationist falling for dinosaur tracks with human footprints, they are so invested that they break down when reality slaps them in the face. It is so bad that I read one column - in the Times of all places - complimenting Fox for not walking away from their statisticians calling Ohio when Rove - a guy with a definite conflict of interest - objected. That passes for sanity and bravery in the right today. What we’re seeing of Romney’s true thoughts these days makes me think that, while he is smart, he is only marginally more sane than Perry and the rest of the dwarves. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2012, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gop-conservatives-and-insanity/641220/29 "2012-11-17T02:02:08Z")
Among my acquaintances I haven’t noticed any correlation between intelligence per se and “common sense” meaning the ability to see the broad truth of a situation, especially the emotional or psychological truth. Or for that matter, sanity. When people become parents they do tend to start viewing the world through a different lens. Some become much more fearful and authoritarian than they were. It is common to develop stronger views on morality, too. There are a thousand articles on how crazy the GOP has become. That ain’t news. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2012, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gop-conservatives-and-insanity/641220/30 "2012-11-17T02:33:41Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > There are plenty of smart conservatives, IMO, and smart Republicans. But (again IMO) the prominent Republicans in the last decade or two have not been _intellectually curious_. They’re smart (in the rawest sense of the word), but not interested in different ideas or different ways of thinking. They didn’t seek out information and ideas from the other side. I think this explains their rejection of scientific principles like evolution and climate change, and their insistence on supporting absurd ideas like “lower taxes _always_ raises revenue”. I think a big chunk of the Republican party is faith-based- not just on religious issues, but on _every_ issue. Lower taxes, always (what happens when they get to zero?). Increase defense spending, always. The only way to show strength internationally is through military force. Support Israel’s leaders, always. Data and analysis doesn’t matter (or only matter when they support these already-decided issues). This, made much worse by the famous right wing media bubble. They can spend their days hearing nothing but repetition of those faith based beliefs with no feedback from outside the bubble. And as a result, they drift farther and farther into a fantasy world of their own creation. For a non-political equivalent, look at some rich guys like Michael Jackson. There probably wasn’t anything organically wrong with his brain; but he was rich enough to create his own bubble, to surround himself with yes men and live in his own pocket fantasy world. And as a result he got worse and worse, crazier and crazier over the decades. That’s what the Right has collectively done to itself; why they’ve gone beyond just being bad people to being outright delusional. Most of them aren’t _medically_ insane; but they are _effectively_ insane because they’ve created a fantasy world and act on the fantasy rather than reality. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2012, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gop-conservatives-and-insanity/641220/31 "2012-11-17T06:27:54Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > they are _effectively_ insane because they’ve created a fantasy world and act on the fantasy rather than reality. This. “Insane” is not a diagnosis but a metaphor for “so evil it appears insane.” And by “evil” I mean offensively self-interested, utterly unmindful of social responsiblity or long-term health of the culture and focused exclusively on lowering personal taxes. ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2012, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gop-conservatives-and-insanity/641220/32 "2012-11-17T15:17:52Z")
> [@fumster](#): > > Put aside policy issues where we can disagree, but it seems to me that the right is starting to act in ways that are clearly insane. > > The earliest example I can think of is when GW Bush nominated Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court. It was so totally out of left field. She was a competent lawyer but by no means a heavyweight. It left even his supporters scratching their heads and he was never able to give a coherent defense as to why he thought she was appropriate. > > Move on to McCain selecting Palin. An older candidate with health problems selects someone who was clearly not ready to take on the Presidency. I think she may be more intelligent than people think, but she just didn’t have the grasp of history, geography, and current events that would have allowed her to take on the job of POTUS. In 2012, Herman Cain, Rick Perry, and Bachman were all seen as viable candidates. A few years ago they would have just been jokes. > > Then of course there are the birthers that managed to convince a sizable number of GOP voters that Obama wasn’t a US citizen. Recently we heard from national office holders that thought women couldn’t get pregnant from “legitimate rape”. > > Now we hear claims of black people being bused into Maine to vote, massive voter fraud in other states, and other wild conspiracy theories. Anyone able to look rationally at what the pools were predicting could see that the results were in line with them and we don’t need to posit a conspiracy to explain them. > > Anyway, it leads to me to conclude that we are seeing batshit crazy lunacy rather than simple political disagreement. I don’t think I explained this well, but it feels very different than what I have seen in the last 40 years I have been following politics. You’ve explained it well, it’s not a simple thing, because it is crazy. In my time, ever since this guy Rush Limbaugh, who at the very least has his hand on the wheel of “conservative” direction , and then Newt Gingrich and all decided that their number one goal was to take down Bill Clinton by any means necessary, and the crazy/paranoid/lying being passed on and carried further by today’s radio talkers, and fox “newsers”, it is simply just crazy. The fact that people of otherwise sound reasoning and judgement are fooled by the b.s. astounds me. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2012, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gop-conservatives-and-insanity/641220/33 "2012-11-17T15:42:18Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > For a non-political equivalent, look at some rich guys like Michael Jackson. There probably wasn’t anything organically wrong with his brain; but he was rich enough to create his own bubble, to surround himself with yes men and live in his own pocket fantasy world. This is actually an awfully good example of the bubble effect. You can name a lot of celebrities who became this way, although Jackson is the most extreme example, a guy who was put inside a bubble when he was just a child. Donald Trump’s idiocy is similar. Of course, the Donald is to some extent just putting on a show, but his weird egocentrism and willingness to espouse idiocy is in part due to the fact that he is surrounded by slobbering yes-men at all times. Trump has lived for decades in a world divided into two groups of people; the people who do his bidding because he controls money, and people who he’s trying to steal money from. He has no idea what the world is like outside of his little NY-centric Trumpbble of suites and limousines and grinning sycophants. I’ve always thought the reason the British royal family makes the sons all join the armed forces isn’t because the British armed services needs those guys, or even necessarily out of tradition; it’s to force them to live among real human beings for awhile where someone will get in your face and tell you you’re a fucking peice of shit because your uniform isn’t perfect. Seems like a good idea to me. Fact is, folks, it doesn’t matter how good your organic computer is. GIGO remains true. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2012, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gop-conservatives-and-insanity/641220/34 "2012-11-17T15:51:04Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > While I think the OP is obviously over-reacting, there is more than a kernel of truth there. I don’t think the OP is overreacting at all. I was raised a Reagan Republican, and the _just plain dumb_ in what used to be my party started well before the Harriet Myers nomination. Dubya just didn’t make sense as President. He wasn’t a foreign policy guy; he was widely regarded before his nomination as considerably less intelligent than his father; he was just running on his daddy’s name, \*which didn’t make sense. \*I expected conservatives to laugh at the guy running for Crown Prince. They nominated him. Heck, go back to 1979, when “supply-side economics” was suddenly a thing. “Voodoo economics,” “Reaganomics,” whatever you call it. Well, took us out of a first-world economy and into one with Brazil-like inequality. And this is what they _want._ Individual Health Savings Accounts? You don’t want to run a social insurance system, but you’ll tell me how to spend my money and call it freedom? Trying to privatize Social Security without raising taxes to cover both old obligations and new investments? Instead cutting taxes more than you’re willing to cut spending, then whining about the deficit? And then great chunks of the GOP base are talking about moving all revenue collection to a national sales tax, as if that wouldn’t crash the retail sector, take the economy with it, and utterly fail to raise enough money to meet obligations, bringing on a cycle of tax increases and the black-marketization of the economy. Dumb dumb dumb. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2012, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gop-conservatives-and-insanity/641220/35 "2012-11-17T17:16:21Z")
Seems like you’re just throwing shit out thereto see what sticks. There is no reason that a presidential candidate has to be as smart or smarter than his father, and foreign policy was on the back burner so shortly after the cold war was over. You’ll have to produce some cites that the US is no longer a 1st world country, and I’d love to see them. If faced with a choice of individual savings accounts or “socialized medicine” the former offers more freedom. Bush did not try to privatize Social Security\*, and the minor changes he tried to make were soundly rejected by his own party. I have not been following the [Fair Tax](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FairTax#cite_note-99) proposal, and I don’t know how “great” the chuck of the GOP base is that supports this, but it has never gotten out of Committee since it was first introduced in 1999 (13 years ago). Of all your complaints, that the one that seems to have some merit. So, I stick by my “kernel of truth” assessment. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2012, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gop-conservatives-and-insanity/641220/36 "2012-11-18T02:52:22Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > There is no reason that a presidential candidate has to be as smart or smarter than his father, There is no reason being the son of a mediocre President should be considered a qualification for the office. > [@](#): > > and foreign policy was on the back burner so shortly after the cold war was over. Foreign policy was the elder Bush’s strong suit, and why I voted for him in 1992. His son didn’t even have that. > [@](#): > > You’ll have to produce some cites that the US is no longer a 1st world country, and I’d love to see them. Of course it’s a first-world country, given that the definition of the First World is, “The USA and its allies.” But if you want a chart, I’ll look for one: [Here’s one that does not support my characterization.](http://econfix.wordpress.com/2011/02/02/world-income-inequality-chart/) Brazil is still worse off than the USA in terms of income disparity. But income inequality has risen in the USA more than in the rest of the Anglosphere. [link to TNR article from this March.](http://www.tnr.com/blog/timothy-noah/101648/can-domestic-policy-affect-income-distribution) > [@John Mace](#): > > If faced with a choice of individual savings accounts or “socialized medicine” the former offers more freedom. So you’d rather be told how to spend your money without any subsidy, than have someone subsidize your health care to give you more opportunity for it. That’s not freer, not in the sense of opportunity. It might be cheaper for the ruling class, but contributing more to their vast, vast freedom is not my concern. > [@](#): > > Bush did not try to privatize Social Security\* Yes, he did. > [@](#): > > and the minor changes he tried to make were soundly rejected by his own party. After massive protests. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2012, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gop-conservatives-and-insanity/641220/37 "2012-11-18T03:25:04Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > At the time of her being picked for VP Palin was the most popular governor in America. She was young, female, and appealed to a faction of the party that distrusted McCain. As someone who was treated with kid gloves by the press in his previous run for the White House, no doubt McCain underestimated the hatred the press corps would have for Palin. But in terms of ticket balancing she made a lot of sense. Like McCain she had clashed with the party establishment and that must have been a big appeal for a maverick like McCain. She was also shorter than McCain, and other republican female candidates would have towered over him. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2012, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gop-conservatives-and-insanity/641220/38 "2012-11-18T16:38:03Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > There is no reason being the son of a mediocre President should be considered a qualification for the office. If we were Vulcans, that might be true. But we’re not. Hillary Clinton has proven herself to be an extremely capable politician, but it’s unlikely she would be where she was if she weren’t Hillary Clinton. > [@](#): > > Foreign policy was the elder Bush’s strong suit, and why I voted for him in 1992. His son didn’t even have that. So what? What foreign policy chops did Obama have in 2008? > [@](#): > > Of course it’s a first-world country, given that the definition of the First World is, “The USA and its allies.” > > But if you want a chart, I’ll look for one: > > [Here’s one that does not support my characterization.](http://econfix.wordpress.com/2011/02/02/world-income-inequality-chart/) Brazil is still worse off than the USA in terms of income disparity. > > But income inequality has risen in the USA more than in the rest of the Anglosphere. [link to TNR article from this March.](http://www.tnr.com/blog/timothy-noah/101648/can-domestic-policy-affect-income-distribution) Then you shouldn’t have said we weren’t a 1st world country. And that last article is dated 2012. We’ve had a Democratic president for the last 4 years. Doesn’t look like that does any “good”, by your standard. > [@](#): > > So you’d rather be told how to spend your money without any subsidy, than have someone subsidize your health care to give you more opportunity for it. That’s not freer, not in the sense of opportunity. Well, I suppose there are different definitions of freedom, and by my preferred definition, having someone “subsidize” my expenditures isn’t freedom. I don’t look for freedom just for myself. > [@](#): > > Yes, he did. Then you can produce a cite to back up that claim? > [@](#): > > After massive protests. Nope. It never got any real traction. It’s not called the 3rd rail of politics for nothin’. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2012, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gop-conservatives-and-insanity/641220/39 "2012-11-18T17:23:54Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > If we were Vulcans, that might be true. But we’re not. Hillary Clinton has proven herself to be an extremely capable politician, but it’s unlikely she would be where she was if she weren’t Hillary Clinton. > > So what? What foreign policy chops did Obama have in 2008? 😕 😕 If one person qualified for high office gets there in part due to family connections, it doesn’t follow that anyone elected in part due to family connections is qualified. I realize you didn’t state this syllogism _explicitly_, but otherwise your point makes no sense. And **foolsguinea** implies that he favored for Bush for foreign policy, Obama for domestic policy; this makes your response, again, a _non sequitur._ > [@John\_Mace](#): > > Then you shouldn’t have said we weren’t a 1st world country. And that last article is dated 2012. We’ve had a Democratic president for the last 4 years. Doesn’t look like that does any “good”, by your standard. 😕 😕 The article is about a 30-year trend, not likely to change soon, since both U.S. parties are “to the right” of other 1st-world politics. Moreover, the recent short-term trend is affected by unemployment in the U.S., which, while much lower than it would have been with Republican policies, is high by historic standards, exacerbating inequality. You know these things, **John**. Is your debating lazy today? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2012, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gop-conservatives-and-insanity/641220/40 "2012-11-18T17:39:53Z")
I personally think that the number of crazies in the GOP is not increasing but is in fact _decreasing_. The remaining ones are getting more strident because they’re getting hysterical about the decline of their numbers, and we’re hearing more about it because of the internet. And I believe we’re hearing proportionally little from the intelligent ones because they’re clinging to the strategy of “let’s just keep a low profile and hope the crazies can carry the balance one more time.” The time of the crazies is not yet over. They have to have the fact of their declining numerical superiority pounded in their faces one more time (probably a few more times, actually). They’ll have to go through one final dramatic paroxysm of agitation (possibly violent), and that will be when the smart conservatives decide to cut ties with them and make nice with the Libertarians. And on that day, they’ll begin to win my vote. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gop-conservatives-and-insanity/641220.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gop-conservatives-and-insanity/641220.md?page=3)