"Like all of you, I'm angry"
That's a bit presumptuous actually, but of course Carly was speaking to Republicans, and they've been the party of recreational anger for quite a while. I listen to Republicans all the time and can see how much they enjoy Obama bashing and displaying the anger that makes them feel relevant: anger which only requires a tiny bit of processed information to justify it and some little and dubious story to draw attention away from an ocean of enormities.
At a Christmas party on Saturday night, someone told me that because of the way that Obama was prosecuting "whistle blowers" we were becoming just like Putin's Russia. "Are we talking about Snowden?" I asked and she nodded. Puzzling, of course since Putin's Russia is sheltering him and the Republicans as I recall saw the man as a traitor, but I can't speak for them when they can't get their own stories straight in the first place.
They get the anger straight though, even if it's as crooked as their policies and based on fiction. Anger is the bait. Anger is the chum they cast overboard to attract the fish and that sort of fishing has been going on forever, stirring up the rabble and intellectual refuse as well as the rich and greedy. Every demagogue and tyrant and every oppressor has mastered it. Victims are very easy to control and so many are willing to see themselves as victims and willing to see the scapegoats provided as targets of hate and outrage.
Of course there's humor in these "debates" since they are anything but. There's humor in these assemblages of the least qualified-for-office actors one could possible find outside of prison. There's even some fulsome humor in the way the media pay attention to them as though there were anything respectable in the enterprise, angry people being the sort of people who watch their endless harangues.
But no, I resist playing the anger games. I try to remember that the best revenge is in the ballot box and that having 30% of the support of a minority party is not terribly threatening. Matching Trump or Cruz or Rubio against even Berrnie Sanders can't make them feel too confident. If it did, their tactics would be more rational and less racist. They have only the angry mob while we have the votes if we will stop fighting with ourselves over terminology and doctrine and a host of matters that seem rather small when viewed alongside the potential horror of another Republican madman in office.
Hey, will you stop being such an adult?
ReplyDeleteIt's ruining the revenge TV fun!
Love ya,
C
Adult? Who, me? Only chronologically I'm afraid.
DeleteI don't recall that Eisenhower, Ford, Reagan, GHW Bush, or GW Bush were madmen, not in the way I think of a madman anyway. A couple were not to smart for sure, but madmen? Well, there was Nixon.
ReplyDeleteWhen Obama ran and won the 2008 election is when the republicans really went all crazy and when Romney failed to take the Oval office, well, the fevered panic and pitch was ratcheted up a few notches.
Trump and most, however not all republicans, are the natural outcome of the Tea Party and its "Take America Back" patriotic hysteria. I am still trying to understand exactly what they want to take America back to.
At one time I believed the goal was to take America back to fiscal responsibility, a more measured and responsible foreign policy agenda (with pre WW II attitudes),
a less costly (ever expanding MIC), concern for growing the middle class through responsible capitalism, a more live ad let live philosophy (within our established laws, and some lesser things.
What the Tea Party and their "Take America Back" slogan really meant was to keep on the same fiscal course that gave us huge deficits, continued military expansion and a heightened sense of nationalism, increased intrusion into our personal private lives, fueling the decline of the middle class as the wealthy and connected expanded their own wealth, and dumbing down America' as well as a few lesser important things.
So yeah, I'm angry, damn angry. That the party I at one time believed in has spent the last 35 years bullshitting the American people (shame on me for not wising up sooner) and working against the principles they profess to believe in.
Don't get me wrong, I am no advocate for the Democratic party either and I wish there was a viable party that would give both a run for their money and at least keep them honest.
Sorry for the lengthy rant. Maybe it was last night's debates. Maybe it is my outright disdain for Trump and the other phonies that were on the dais last night. All know now is it is time for a cold one. Tomorrow is another ay.
They were pretty damned angry when Clinton won and worse, after they had convinced themselves it was a fluke, he won again. Wors yet, we had unprecedented prosperity and worse still none of the dire predictions came true. Obamahate is a religion as was Clintonhate but it's more passionate. Maybe it's because there is only a year to go before all the crazy predictions become as laughable as the one where Clinton was going to turn the armed forces over to UN control and declare martial law.
ReplyDeleteOf course I'm as angry as you are but in the interests of not having a stroke, I'm telling myself I'm not.
Donald Trump is NOT the problem. The problem is the Republican base -- an estimated 12 to 17% of the population that dominates every news cycle and seeks to dominate American politics -- and the Republican party itself. This GOP base is comprised of closet segregationists such Jeff Sessions, evangelicals seeking a de facto theocracy, hacks and hatchet men such as Steven King, and moral cowards such as John Boehner who has enabled and legitimized the very worst elements of American politics. Donald Trump is NOT the problem. It's also Crude Cruz, Marco Rubio, F*ck Huckabee, Farina Fiorina, and Bully Pulpit Christie, among others -- all cut from the same cloth.
ReplyDeleteThe GOP has been trending in this direction for decades -- inherited from the DNA of Joseph McCarthy and Richard Nixon. This lust for power over principle must be discredited at all cost. Frankly, I hope Donald Trump wins the GOP nomination -- and the party goes down in flames. It's the only way to purge nascent neo-fascists from our political life.
Agreed, but that base gets massive help from the allegedly neutral media. We don't get 30 seconds of news that does not include mentions of "Republican candidates" and their statements are treated like reasonable proposals even when they include mass deportations.
ReplyDeleteNo matter how ridiculous the statements posing as fact, they are rarely contradicted and then only quietly and briefly.
Yes it's tempting to cite the comical antics of these ignorant and angry people as reason to disregard them, but I think doing so is as much of a mistake as other countries have made in seeing monsters as less of a threat as they were. This after all, is the country that elected Nixon twice and George Bush twice. We make stupid emotional decisions, the worst of which is not to vote because of issues and concerns somewhat less important than trusting a nuclear arsenal and the most deadly military in Earth's history to someone who knows less than nothing about almost any subject pertinent to the job description. Grain silos? Really? Carpet bombing that destroys only "terrorists" and not the buildings they're hiding in? These people aren't qualified to be citizens.
Yes, I do think a President Trump, or God help us Cruz or Fiorina would be the end of the GOP as we've come to know it, but it might not and we might not get the chance to learn the lesson we should have learned several presidents ago. A candidate Trump might do the trick, it might drive the psycho squad back underground. It might lead us to a more rational and responsible party, but i'm not going to feel confident about it -- not in the least. No matter how the extremists are exposed and discredited, they feel no more shame than cockroaches and like the vermin they are, they will come out of the woodwork again and again.
The U-Esovay is one crazy-ass country and any assignment of blame has to be shared with people who let crazy things happen. We can blame them for all sorts of things, but the majority does not vote for a variety of reasons - none of them good reasons and unless we change that, we are doomed.