Boston Globe Editorial: "We Now Have A Political Party That Is "Dedicated To The Nearly Deranged"

The extreme Republican Party
By Neal Gabler
September 12, 2009


BACK IN 1970 when Richard Nixon nominated a little-known district court judge named Harold Carswell for the Supreme Court and Carswell’s opponents branded him “mediocre,’’ Republican Senator Roman Hruska of Nebraska famously rose to Carswell’s defense. Even if he were mediocre, Hruska said, “mediocre people are entitled to a little representation, aren’t they?’’ With that ringing endorsement, Carswell’s appointment was soundly defeated by the Senate, but not even Hruska could have foreseen how his prescription would be adopted by our political system.

Let’s not mince words here: We now have an entire political party that is not only dedicated to the mediocre. It is dedicated to the nearly deranged.

.................

Republicans used to boast that it was the Democrats who were out of touch with ordinary Americans. So what to make of this: Democrats and Independents more or less agree on a whole range of issues from global warming to health care to Obama’s performance in office to the place of Obama’s birth. It is the Republicans who are out of touch with everyone else. How out of touch? Seventy-one percent of all Americans believe in global warming, only 49 percent of Republicans. Forty-seven percent of all Americans believe that global warming is a result of human activity, only 27 percent of Republicans. By a recent Rasmussen poll, 55 percent of all Americans now oppose health care reform, but 87 percent of Republicans oppose it, 74 percent of them strongly. And depending on the poll, President Obama’s favorability rating is anywhere from 50 percent to 58 percent; fewer than 10 percent of Republicans approve of him.

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Maybe Democrats should be happy that Republicans have been reduced to a lunatic fringe. But the lunatics still have their seat at the table, and someday they may be sitting at its head again. What then?

more:
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/09/12/the_extreme_republican_party/?page=3

"La la la la la. We can't hear no steenkin facts, and we doesn't want no steenkin American Democracy or honor. We has our fears, we has our beleefs, and we has us our peeeculiar Republicon Family Pharisee Values. Too bad about you Americans. Smirk."

- Republicon Homelanders Against America

Given that according to a 2006 poll 18% of Americans think the Sun revolves around the Earth.

http://orgtheory.wordpress.com/2007/06/06/eppure-si-muoveor-does-it/

45% of Americans believe in the literal biblical young Earth creation as of 2004.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/ev_publi.htm

Within a normal poll margin of error as many Americans believe the Earth is less than 10,000 years old as believe in man-made global warming.

It was too good a piece to not share, and clearly you feel the same way. :)

That poll is obsolete.

And this is specifically, knowingly being stoked with the hate merchants. Assassination is a real concern, more than usual. These lunatics see it as an act of heroic patriotism.

these people are deranged, angry, ignorant..and unfortunately..armed

right wingers resort to violence a LOT more than many people realize.

They cannot "fight" with intellect, or reason, so they resort to violence..

and when they are injured/backed against their own wall, they see no other option than to fight with force..

When this entire debate started, polls showed a majority of Americans supported single payer. Now according to this very article, 55% are opposed to the administration's extremely modest reforms.

"Death panels" may be deranged ravings, but repeated by the media it becomes consensus reality.

because it's not single payer (which is the best), and they know the modest reforms will not work.

The right wing is brilliant at transformational politics. We can post all day how they are assholes and turn a blind, disingenuous eye to our own party bullshit.

Republicans believe in shock and awe. It works. They put their best blow-hards out front. Carpet bombing us 24 hours a day with extremist rhetoric. This softens us up. It desensitizes us to the point where we start accepting these extreme views as uniquely American and legitimate. They can do this because they own so many media outlets. They did a similar thing when they purchased Christian, Inc. in 1980 or so. When they bought the jesus trademark, they bought an outlet for a weekly address to millions of voters. We've all watched right-wing christian nut jobs lecturing about the greatness of Bush and Cheney and the evils of democrats. Palin still got a scary number of votes.

Now how about the democrats? Well, Rahm and Obama know that a majority of people don't like extremes at either end of the political spectrum. So they see an opportunity to ride in the slipstream created by the right wing blow hards. They let the right wing do all the heavily lifting, and they move just the slightest bit to the left and suddenly they are seen as "moderate centrists". This is called political relativism. It looks like we are moving left, but it is just a few clicks left of fascism. (you are in a car, passing another car, the other car looks like it is going in opposite direction, but both cars are still speeding to the cliff).

And this is how things like torture, wiretapping, wall street fraud, corporations running their own candidates and financing them, and the idea that insurance companies are exclusively allowed to set public health policy are legit. These are ideas that run afoul of every intent of the constitution. And democrats are willing to compromise ethitcs, morality and constitutional protections for the "preservation" of their party. Believe it or not Democrats are a corporation like GM. They are re-inventing themselves, having lost the battle to keep corporations out of policy making. Democrat, Inc and Republican, Inc need to take care of themselves (and corporate benefactors) first. The public is near the bottom of current priorities.

What this means is that as long as the right wing is pushing the envelope, democrats don't have to work very hard. We'll pick up republican voters who don't like the extremist nonsense. But in turn, these new democrats will demand republican policy priorities. No problem. Its all about "winning" and some people are just so happy to see a democrat elected (yeah for team Obama!) they don't care if that democrat is actually promoting policies against public benefit nor do they care that the policies are exactly more of the same stuff from the previous republican.

With the right-wing doing all the hard work for our corporate designed government, the dems can "coast" on the perception of good will. The brilliant part is that its win-win for republicans. Even when they don't have a majority in congress or exec, they still indirectly control and have final word on policy decisions.

And while republicans are making so much noise about evil Obama, privately they think Obama is their chump and they are very glad to have him on board. It is a diabolical brilliance.

I have some splitting hairs disagreement with the last sentence...The republican leaders know this,but their shock troops of angry, ignorant white people actually believe all the lies.

in either case I think republicans are relieved they didn't get a democratic version of bush with the same party discipline. Our spineless obedience to corporate sponsors is like a gift from god to republicans.

VERY well said!

people to read it -- people like the president and congressmen? Maybe some of
them already know this, and are hoping that very few among the masses will
ever catch on?

but its not well formulated and I don't have quite as much certainty about it,

I think republicans are taking cues. While they certainly have nothing to fear from this democratic administration, obviously they'd love to be back in power. As soon as a candidate surfaces that isn't a Palin-style nut job, all those neo-dems will bail-out leaving Obama high and dry.

And then we'll be sitting back completely mystified, with little to show during our tenure, wondering how it happened. In this case it will be by not showing the world we can govern by a new set of rules and sticking to those rules in *all* matters of policy (including wiretapping, torture, wall street fraud, Iraq war crimes, lobbyists as cabinet members. corporate campaigning, health policy, etc). We could lose because we haven't differentiated ourselves beyond wannabe republicans. That's my belief.

Rahm, of course, is expecting things to come out differently. He's cut some deals that keep corporate influence (and corporate funding) alive and well in the policy making areas, and in return the republicans/corporates have agreed to play nice. At least that's what they said. If Rahm is right, its win-win and he'll be able to coast thru 2010 without too much damage (or change).

In either scenario, as a nation we lose. We will continue to see the decline of the middle-class, outsourcing will continue, CIA will operate with impunity causing world instability, corporations will gain more protections and more influence, citizens will have fewer protections and little influence, right wing blow hards will keep bellowing and I predict health care "reform" will be next wall street melt down and bailout in the scale of S&L Banking I, Enron, Banking II, etc. Nothing will change.

I do not believe change is possible within the existing political process. Instead of sending money to Rob Miller (the next slave state Blue Dog) we should be building a framework for a new political party. I don't know how that is possible given corporate investment in what we have today, but I do believe it is absolutely necessary to rebuild the nation so that we are competitive in more things than war making.

they have to remain in power of some sort to continue to get microphones and they are doing a bang up job of ensuring that they self destruct as quickly as possible. The internet changed everything. They are still trying to figure it out and by the time they do it will be too late.

They have one more cycle at best to pull themselves out of the lunatic fringe and if they don't its over.

The message is no longer in the iron grasp of the MSM and the power they have left is shrinking daily.

People living in hard times look more closely at what their government is doing and the times are going to continue to be hard for many for quite some time to come. Telling a family they need to be self reliant works great when everyone has jobs and health care. Not so much when the unemployment checks start to run out.

"People living in hard times look more closely at what their government is doing and the times are going to continue to be hard for many for quite some time to come. Telling a family they need to be self reliant works great when everyone has jobs and health care. Not so much when the unemployment checks start to run out."

Except...so how soon will the public forget that it was the Repugs that made most of the mess in the first place?

I think the Repugs will be back by 2016...there will be resource shortages...refugee problems...and the resulting wars. We will see some serious fascism as various countries that failed to deal with things up front...resort to it.

Remember...stupid never goes away...and you can't beat it with a stick....

"Nearly" should read: "Utterly and Completely"

All the other RW Media Hatemongers are cast out of the same mold.

They don't care if they bring this country down to its knees.

Just as long as they look good on the downward spiral.

"Maybe Democrats should be happy that Republicans have been reduced to a lunatic fringe. But the lunatics still have their seat at the table, and someday they may be sitting at its head again. What then?"

You can't un-ring a bell, just as the odds are slim if any that we'll elect a bitter old man as president again, so are the odds slim that we'll elect a lunatic. You can't un-ring a bell. :patriot:

:hi:

They hate anyone who is not white and Christian, and they have no respect for the office of the presidency.

They give aid and comfort to the enemies of America.

:think: What was the final clue?

Following orders of bech, limpbaugh, and hannity/faux, et al?:silly::silly::silly::silly::silly::silly::silly::silly:

The only Republican that the White House is interested in talking with is Olympia Snowe. Trying to get one member of the opposite party is not bipartisanship, it's looking for the minimum margin necessary to assure passage.

Of course, if the Democrats had real guts, they'd bloody well eliminate the filibuster and outright ignore not only the Republicans but also DINOs like Nelson.

the democratic process, we give them what they want. WTF??!!

Fits conservatives to a "T"

It's the freakin' Boston Globe. Whaddaya expect?

:sarcasm:

I'd always have these conversations with my husband, because he knew that I was more political than he was. We'd talk about some outrageous republican shit, and he'd say "the problem is that the Democrats aren't out there on tv fighting back!" (or variations on that them.) I'd say.. well.. they tried, but CNN cut away from them as they started to speak because there was a car chase in L.A. again. Until we have equal access to the media (as set out in by the Founding Fathers), then we cannot fight this. They knew that... and that is why the FCC needs to get some iron back and make sure that these networks are operating for the benefit of the people. Haha, remember when TV and radio stations used to have to fill out forms every few years to justify how they were serving the public?

And yeah, the lunatic fringe is not mighty, but they're loud and the right wingers at Fox (a news department started by an RNC operative), love to give those freaks airtime.

I think the GOP left "nearly" behind a long time ago!

That would be called the Democrats, you idiot.

Pugs are absolutely basocco.

Trash it if you will, but I will posit a concept.

Politics when practiced in reality as opposed to theorized on paper is a dynamic interactive process. The article correctly states that the right is driven to oppose, create conflict, sow the seeds of division. They have been at it since Nixon at least, perhaps back to Goldwater, with early seeds of this coming from the Great Depression.

In a dynamic interactive process, how does one take advantage of this? Clinton was partially correct, an element of the effort is to lay claim to any portion of the right wing intellectual edifice that seems somewhere in the bounds of sanity, a process most term as "triangulation". This makes sense in this way, taking the center of the board causes the opposition bent on division, to propose and adopt a more fringe position. Where Clinton got this mostly right, there were several things he did not do, and probably was never capable of.

What Clinton lost was the emotional argument. The opposition got under his skin, largely because they caught him in his indiscretions and were fully ready to parade it around for all to see. This reduced the man to a charicature and put him mired in the same mud as the RW emotionally.

Obama, so far, has remained unflappable, a bit stern on occasion, but unflappable "no drama Obama". Why did the Secret Service not drop on the guys with the weapons at the rallies? The answer is quite simple, they came to create drama, and the administration said no thanks. I can well imagine that the Secret Service knows who these people were and watched and likely are still watching them closely. Some, I am sure were paid a visit, well after the cameras were packed up and gone.

The point is to be and remain the "sane voice in the room" who attempts to reach out. It is far, far less important to be successful at it than it is to be observed trying to do it. This is not a practical policy matter, it is emotional dynamics.

The republicans did not become the party of the lunatic fringe on its own or inevitably. Some democrats have learned how to take advantage of their desire for division to drive them off the cliff. Yes, they were headed in this direction, but good politics gains advantage by observing such existing momentum and acting to accelerate it. Thus, McCain's utterances about our "sound" economy ended the campaign.

The republican party will only begin to recover when it accepts its defeat and owns the many reasons for this. They are nowhere near capable of this at this time. In short, the point of RW capitulation is not at hand, so, it will get worse for them before it gets better.

to them, it's all about winning- NOT serving the needs of the people.

Most politicians are about serving the needs of the people. It's just a few people, but they're people. This applies to all of them.

That is the difference between now and 1970.

Simple rationality once held some sway when it came to whose ideas got taken seriously. Now, the nuttier the idea, the more the media seem to love it. Whole generations have grown up without anyone distinguishing between rational ideas and sheer poppycock.

It gives me nightmares.

Glen Beck has supposedly lost dozens of sponsors, yet he is still on the air. How could that be? Apparently, FOX management has motives other than the normal provide-a-show, get-sponsors motivation. At best, FOX is a highly reliable source of false and misleading information. At worst, it is dedicated to the overthrow of democracy. Is this what it was like in Germany in the early 1930s?