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eridani

(51,907 posts)
Sat Oct 10, 2015, 03:47 AM Oct 2015

Robert Reich: The Astounding Ignorance of the GOP

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/32853-focus-the-astounding-ignorance-of-the-gop

Whether it’s Carson on guns or Muslims; Trump on Mexicans, “anchor babies,” or Obama’s citizenship; or almost any of the Republican candidates on abortion, gay marriage, or climate change -- the leading GOP presidential candidates are reaching ever higher into loony land.

House Republicans, meanwhile, are in chaos – unable to elect a Speaker because of the right-wing know-nothings among them who want to shut down the government over the funding of Planned Parenthood and the looming debt limit.

We must face the discomforting fact that one of America's two major parties has lost its mind. How did this come about? Perhaps it's the inevitable culmination of decades of toxic bigotry and ideological paranoia spread by Rush Limbaugh and his imitators, Fox News, and right-wing hate groups -- fueled and funded by the Koch brothers and other oligarchs -- combined with blind rage that a black man became president -- that has finally eaten away enough of the gray matter of an increasingly angry, mostly white, mostly rural, mostly male Republican base to leave us with a zombie GOP.
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Robert Reich: The Astounding Ignorance of the GOP (Original Post) eridani Oct 2015 OP
I see it as cowardice and as much as I love baseball, I cringe at the National Anthem when they sing world wide wally Oct 2015 #1
They are like field mice, afraid of many, many things that ladjf Oct 2015 #6
But you miss an important point malaise Oct 2015 #7
zombie gop Lunabell Oct 2015 #2
K&R! Sherman A1 Oct 2015 #3
Reich nails it as usual davidpdx Oct 2015 #4
"Thank you, Thing" DFW Oct 2015 #5
K&R Scuba Oct 2015 #8
kinda like a naked person, madokie Oct 2015 #9
Republicans Need Their Own Country Yallow Oct 2015 #10
I always wonder if their candidates are as uninformed and afraid of everything as their base. pampango Oct 2015 #11
I think we know how it came about.... Motown_Johnny Oct 2015 #12

world wide wally

(21,719 posts)
1. I see it as cowardice and as much as I love baseball, I cringe at the National Anthem when they sing
Sat Oct 10, 2015, 04:02 AM
Oct 2015

"The home of the brave"
We live in a country of cowards. Republicans too afraid to stand up to the Teabaggers so they won't get primaried.
Everyone so afraid of the NRA that we sacrifice innocent people, many of whom are children, so they won't endorse the opposition.
Afraid of Mexicans taking their jobs in high tech and professional services.
Afraid of women making their own choices about their own bodies.
Afraid of gay people having equal rights.
Afraid of a primitive religious cult in the Middle East coming here and beating us up

What kind of a fucking country do these assholes want?

malaise

(267,823 posts)
7. But you miss an important point
Sat Oct 10, 2015, 05:52 AM
Oct 2015

Fear sells and ReTHUGs want personal enrichment by any means necessary.
They do not think about the country.

davidpdx

(22,000 posts)
4. Reich nails it as usual
Sat Oct 10, 2015, 05:11 AM
Oct 2015

The right wing has gone so bonkers over the last 25 years to the point where they don't know what is reality is anymore.

madokie

(51,076 posts)
9. kinda like a naked person,
Sat Oct 10, 2015, 06:36 AM
Oct 2015

he leaves nothing for the imagination. But in a lot of ways the man is spot on with this assessment.
Every since Nixon was forced to resign the republican party has been going down a path that never should have been traveled. I watched the Watergate hearings and I remember one of the republican think tanks, AIE, American Enterprise Institute or maybe a different one but one of the ultra right wing ones decided that if they wanted to get their message out they'd have to start buying the Press. Today they own 95% of the news that is available to the American Public. And that is why we have so much strife in this country. Before then people didn't or wasn't so likely to vote based on wedge issues like the republicans are today and we had a functioning government where they went to Washington and debated the issues without making demands and throwing fits like the republicans do today when they don't get their way. It about time that the Democratic Party people start calling them out on this like Robert Reich does in this article. We need a functioning two party system otherwise you and I, the little guys and gals, lose out. We're pushed aside and trampled on like we're nothing but trash. The republicans worked against Carter because he was from the south and sounded like he was when he talked. then they embraced RR and Poppy bush then fought Clinton and then pulled out the knifes when the black man, Obama was elected.
thats how I see it has happened. I started paying attention shortly after I got to Vietnam, (within days,) as soon as I realized what we as a country and as a people, troops etc were doing there was WRONG as WRONG has ever been. It sure got my attention I will say that. To the point that I pay attention to what is going on political wise ever since.

I'm old enough and remember the days of Eisenhower, barely of Truman so I go back a long ways

pampango

(24,692 posts)
11. I always wonder if their candidates are as uninformed and afraid of everything as their base.
Sat Oct 10, 2015, 06:47 AM
Oct 2015

The GOP establishment has promoted an uniformed, fearful and angry base as the best way to win elections. And it has worked. But at what cost to the country they profess, insincerely, to love?

... the right-wing know-nothings among them ...

... it's the inevitable culmination of decades of toxic bigotry and ideological paranoia spread by Rush Limbaugh and his imitators, Fox News, and right-wing hate groups -- fueled and funded by the Koch brothers and other oligarchs -- combined with blind rage that a black man became president -- that has finally eaten away enough of the gray matter of an increasingly angry, mostly white, mostly rural, mostly male Republican base to leave us with a zombie GOP.
 

Motown_Johnny

(22,308 posts)
12. I think we know how it came about....
Sat Oct 10, 2015, 06:51 AM
Oct 2015

Karl Rove's strategy of "going deeper not wider" into the electorate to get Shrub elected worked. People on the far right who had been so disgusted with our government that they would not vote, got out and voted.

Because the (R)s abandoned the center to draw out these far right voters, they then became dependent upon them to win. This effectively broke the party. It became dependent on people who are disgusted with our government and had no choice but to play to them so they would continue to vote.

This also created a downward spiral into the far right electorate. It just keeps getting worse and there is no way for them to stop it. They can't just tact back to the center because that is political suicide.

It is inevitable that the Republican Party as it now exists will effectively die. It simply can not continue as it is. I think the majority of their elected officials know it and are just protecting their own interests as long as they possibly can.

And so we find ourselves with our current situation. A broken party in charge of both houses of Congress with it's membership acting primarily on motivated self interest.

Have a nice day.

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