No Future for the GOP?

C

crackerjack

Well-known member
And according to two new polls yesterday, the Newt is now back in front of the GOP race. Presumably the not-Romney voters are switching their support around the pool of hard-righters (Cain, Perry, Bachmann, Newt) with every calamity and it's now so long since Newt's campaign imploded they can't recall what the problem was. Which makes it Bachmann's turn for a resurgence next.

Be interesting to see whose turn it is when the music stops.
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
So... no agreement to trim the budget from the cross-party committee, a failure which triggers automatic cuts to defence and other things. Democrats are saying that the committee could never agree because all the Republicans had signed the pledge not to increase taxes and thus they had no wriggle room. Think this makes them look obstructivist and it means they still don't get what they wanted because as I understand it the cuts don't fall on wellfare.
Congress is a mess but I think a big part of that is the Tea Party nutters don't understand what negotiation is.
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
Yeah, I enjoyed that too. I'd like some analysis of why it's like that though. Why has the intellectual level of the American (supposedly) centre right fallen so low?
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
He comments on something you've pointed out before, Rich, about conservative pundits not just putting their own spin on facts or selectively quoting them but actually making them up altogether, and the equally bizarre way that the opposition generally fails to call them out on this.
 
Leo

Leo

Well-known member
IdleRich said:
Yeah, I enjoyed that too. I'd like some analysis of why it's like that though. Why has the intellectual level of the American (supposedly) centre right fallen so low?
Click to expand...

this is just speculation on my part, but some of it seems like an outgrowth of the economy and the changing world. low-middle/middle/high-middle class americans never worried about anything: they had jobs, bought big cars and houses whenever they wanted, their real estate values and stock portfolios went up every year, they lived on credit, etc. then the recession hit, the real estate market crashed, unemployment rose, credit froze...and they suddenly felt threatened and vulnerable. they feel threatened that the US is in decline, and feel the need to "take their country back" from all the exotic brown and yellow skinned outsiders (probably illegals!) who are "stealing their jobs", sucking up our healthcare services, and generally muddying up social values as they see it.

this led to the rise of the tea party, a loud minority that was then (as frum points out) supported and pumped up by conservatives who looked to ride the wave for their own purposes. this had two effects: prompted some not-very-intellectual non-politicians to run for congress and win; and made many standing GOP leaders turn hard right because they feared the wrath of the tea party.

it kind of fed on itself: a loud minority prompts a change in politicians and what they support, which in turn changed the dialogue in tone and quality of debate in washington from consevative-liberal compromise to "my way or the highway" refusal to compromise on anything. as a result, nothing gets done, the economy gets worse, the right heaps more blame on obama ("he's not one of us", etc.), and the GOP goes even further right into fantasy land to "save our country."

or something like that... ;-)
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
conservatives have built a whole alternative knowledge system, with its own facts, its own history, its own laws of economics.
Click to expand...


this from the Frum article highlights one of the most interesting parts of their project for anyone still in the reality based community.
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
or even for those who are not part of the reality based community but are engaged in fictional engineering in behalf of the other side.
 
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