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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsGOP Sadists Enjoy Inflicting Pain On The Vulnerable. So How Do They Keep Winning Elections?
We must be a cruel nation or something. The further right the GOP goes and they pretty much all tea baggers now, the more pain the inflict on the country at large. Yet they most likely will do well in 2014. Are so many people brainwashed that we continue this madness.
The country has so many very critical problems that will not be addressed as long a gridlock continues. And it will continue the direction things are going. And it is not just the RW politicians who say such nasty and hateful even destructing things, it the people who gladly approve of them that is worrisome.
Nothing is sacred to these people. Somehow GOP sadism is rewarded. And why is the most difficult question and what we do about it that we have to answer.
villager
(26,001 posts)...prior to climate catastrophes forcing a downsizing into separate, smaller polities...
Response to villager (Reply #1)
Adam051188 This message was self-deleted by its author.
villager
(26,001 posts)But as we know, when ecosystems finally begin to topple, empires can't hold...
Adam051188
(711 posts)without the presence of a significant helping of good old fashioned american duplicity.
i could hire half the population to kill the other half...and so could my daddy....and his daddy....and his daddy's daddy....
but we got rid of monarchy right?
villager
(26,001 posts)The hubris of those living in the Empires notwithstanding
ChairmanAgnostic
(28,017 posts)Don't forget the MK Ultra experiments either. Humans have an incredible capacity for evil and inflicting abuse and pain.
The Lord of the Flies would probably describe today's GOP best.
unblock
(51,974 posts)they once convinced a nation that the keys to the nuclear football and supreme court appointments and the veto pen should be awarded on the basis of which candidate was perceived to handle the pressing issue of flag burning, one of the least committed acts ever.
or whether or not one candidate sighed too much.
or looked silly in a helmet.
it works. people end up implicitly endorsing ridiculous supreme court nominees on the basis of presidential candidate sweater color choices.
yeoman6987
(14,449 posts)Tell that to Canter....he has plenty of time to ponder that statement.
unblock
(51,974 posts)sure, there are examples of candidates who spent oodles and still lost, linda mcmahon leading the list, spending something like $100 million, largely out of her own pocket, running for both of connecticut's senate seats and losing both times
but on the whole, money (both in terms of campaign spending and media control) makes a big difference, and across 535 congressional seats, this is how the republicans remain as powerful as they do despite the fact that america disagrees with them on the vast majority of significant policy matters.
yeoman6987
(14,449 posts)The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,280 posts)that Democrats want to give "their" tax money away to people who don't deserve it - those people being mostly those mythical non-white "welfare queens" who have eight kids, all with different fathers, and who drive Cadillacs and buy lobster tails and malt liquor with their food stamps. No matter how much the middle class and poorer GOP-believers might be suffering as a result of GOP policies, they have been convinced that the GOP is nobly preventing the expenditure of public funds on that lower class of people. This allows the GOP to screw them almost as thoroughly as it screws "those people."
Lyndon Johnson might have said it best: "I'll tell you what's at the bottom of it. If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."
Rod Beauvex
(564 posts)It's that everything the Republican's have done to harm their constituents and America in general, they just simply blame on Democrats if there is any blow back.
indepat
(20,899 posts)sadism, cruelty, malice, and perversion of liberty.
CJCRANE
(18,184 posts)a new Age of Enlightenment.
Rod Beauvex
(564 posts)I think we're entering one, and the internet has played the most significant role in this, as it gave a voice and stage for America, and the America left in particular. We lost the radio. We lost the television. We do, however, still have the internet. I've said this before, but this is what the fight about net neutrality is really about. Controlling the message on the internet.
Certainly, change isn't happening nearly as fast as we would like, no argument there, but it is happening. I think is was both the Bush administration and, in particular, the crash of 2008 that were the breaking point for most of America. The Health Care law, whatever one may think of it is a result of this. So is the slow-but-sure death of the anti-gay marriage sentiment. As is the movement toward legal marijuana.
deutsey
(20,166 posts)"...deep down you long for a cold-hearted Republican to lower taxes, brutalize criminals, and rule you like a king."
pa28
(6,145 posts)"We the spiteful"
This author has come to believe American voters are equally sadistic. The right fundamentally understands and makes use of that fact.
Response to pa28 (Reply #14)
Adam051188 This message was self-deleted by its author.
Uncle Joe
(58,112 posts)Diversion - Diverting attention from what's important to fluff and sensationalism.
Delusion - Using the power of enraptured faith believers against reason and logic.
Demonization - To project selected of groups of people usually victims to be the culprits behind the average low information populace's source of woes instead of the oligarch/mega-corporate string pullers.
All of this is fed to the American People on a steady basis by the corporate media.
Thanks for the thread, TheMastersNemesis.
davidn3600
(6,342 posts)muntrv
(14,505 posts)Laelth
(32,017 posts)-Laelth
GeorgeGist
(25,294 posts)dumber than average. Add a few evil smart people and you got yourself a majority.
lovemydog
(11,833 posts)is threatened by minorities, immigrants, foreigners, unions and the federal government. It's the oldest trick throughout American history. Appeal to ignorance, small-mindedness, meanness, racism, sexism, homophobia and fear of the 'other'.
They also benefit from the ignorant notion that you shouldn't vote if you don't like everything about a particular candidate. That there is no major difference between parties.
I don't think it's a winning strategy in most national elections any more. Huge caveat - if most people vote.
I think the Democratic Party should go more grassroots populist. Get more women, younger people, minorities on ballots. Run as an outsider to washington bullshit. Know your constituents. They are angry. Declare your office is closed to big oil, big insurance, big corporate lobbyists. Engage locally on the ground with house parties, accessibility and localization of every election. Fight like hell for the majority economically. I'm encouraged by Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. Grassroots populists. We should have many more candidates like them. They will even get some former republican voters. Many are fed up with the establishment republican party too. They want someone to vote for, who tells it like it is without mincing words.