Something strange has happened in America in the nine months since Barack Obama was elected. It has best been summarized by the comedian Bill Maher: "The Democrats have moved to the right, and the Republicans have moved to a mental hospital."
The election of Obama - a black man with an anti-conservative message - as a successor to George W. Bush has scrambled the core American right's view of their country. In their gut, they saw the US as a white-skinned, right-wing nation forever shaped like Sarah Palin.
When this image was repudiated by a majority of Americans in a massive landslide, it simply didn't compute. How could this have happened? How could the cry of "Drill, baby, drill" have been beaten by a supposedly big government black guy? So a streak that has always been there in the American right's world-view - to deny reality, and argue against a demonic phantasm of their own creation - has swollen. Now it is all they can see.
Since Obama's rise, the US right has been skipping frantically from one fantasy to another, like a person in the throes of a mental breakdown. It started when they claimed he was a secret Muslim, and - at the same time - that he was a member of a black nationalist church that hated white people. Then, once these arguments were rejected and Obama won, they began to argue that he was born in Kenya and secretly smuggled into the United States as a baby, and the Hawaiian authorities conspired to fake his US birth certificate. So he is ineligible to rule and the office of President should pass to... the Republican runner-up, John McCain.
3 comments:
The cream rises to the top. The queers sink to the bottom. Er, bottoms. How are the bottoms lookin, 'Pubs left me?
"He who lies with dogs, rises with fleas." "The chickens have come home to roost." Pick whatever cliche' you like but that's what's happening to the GOP now.
It all began in the 80's and crescendoed in th 1990's when the so-called christian right, in a huge power grab, campaigned hard to take over the state and federal governments. The GOP, besotten by their interests, and drunk with greed and a desire for power, fell for the radical christian right and their promise for a new conservative reckoning.
Now both groups are suffering the consequences. The GOP for not understanding that the christian right had an agenda of there own and were in it for themselves, and the so-called christian right because their un-christian greed, hunger for power, and zealotry has driven people away from Christianity in droves.
In fact, more people in America now consider themselves non-christian than did just 10 years ago. The more these two groups lose their grip on power, the more desperate they become, like a cornered animal.
These desperados are so scared that they withdraw into their comfort zone of fear, lies and misinformation mixed with a smattering of christian foolishness. Hence the discussion of "death panels" in health care and of one republican asking people to pray and fast to defeat health care reform. It's sick really.
It reminds me of yet another cliche' quite appropriate to republican voters (which I paraphrase), "As a voter, if you don't educate yourself, then you get what you deserved."
As a Jewish Man who worked with Ralph Reed's Christian Coalition, I can confirm that the influence of the Religious Reich grew because of the activism of many faith-based organizations, but the level of influence in the Republican Party, NEVER came close to that of big oil, the bankers, or the multinational corporations who have been looting America since before the Bush era.
There was a time when Republican candidates talked about real solutions; they even claimed the Party slogan: "Party of ideas" for a short time.
A smaller group that had tried to sway the Republicans are the libertarian-Republicans. these are the folks who remain committed to the concept that the government that governs least governs best.
Throughout the Bush years, the Republicans sold us out to the Communist Chinese and any multinational corporation who could pay a bribe. Every time you shop at Wal-Mart, your money goes to the Red Army.
This went on under the Clintonistas, too, but "W" and his boys from Texas took the, looting of America to a whole new level.
While all of this was going on, the Bible-thumpers were still going to rallys to praise Jesus, while turning a blind-eye to the Bush regimes use of torture, domestic spying and imprisonment of our citizens without charges or trial.
The Republican brand, is now so tainted, it may never recover. Any citizen with sense, will NEVER give control of our government back to the Republicans.
We need a new Party to emerge that will be a voice for our citizens who treasure liberty and still believe in government within its Constitutional limits.
Democrats mustn't be smug about the demise of the Republicans. All citizens should note how slowly President Obama is moving to restore our government to the Constitutional limits that were violated during the Bush regime. President Obama had better get busy, or he will not be invited back for a second term by he citizens. We supported him because he said he would reign-in the usurpations of the Bushies, but so far, he remains fixated on the health care quagmire.
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