Today's non-conservative Republican party. I can see how despotic, plutocratic, selfish, profit-only-damn-the-consequences people support them. But the average person? People who value education, clean water, who'd like a future for their kids, even those who follow the teachings of Jesus? I just don't get it.
- Item: right-wingers are attacking Pope Francis for actually advocating the principles of humility and charity spoken by Jesus. The damn commie!
- Item: right wing media hero Erick Erickson says it's necessary to deny Democrats the opportunity fix the Affordable Care Act. To FIX it!! Because, you know, god forbid it might work, might actually provide health care to people at reasonable cost. Can't let that happen. Because politics. Similarly, they prefer to prevent economic recovery on Obama's watch and have done everything to block measures to achieve it. Because power. And insane hatred of all things Obama.
- Item: Wisconsin's R legislature and its teabagging governor have just turned the northern part of the state over to a mining company for the purpose of strip-mining; the same company being sued in Spain for polluting its water and destroying the land.
- Item: still collecting full pay, the R-controlled House has worked fewer days than ever before, and will work even fewer next year. But, doggone it, they'll never raise the minimum wage. Nosiree.
- Item: as with the first significant effort to address the horrible problems with our health care system, Rs have lined up to decry -- many before they even knew what's in it -- the first major effort to reduce the risk of Iran getting a nuclear weapon. Because war.
- Item: they deliberately lie to their supporters, over and over, as policy, assuming they're idiots.
I could go on, of course, and have until I make myself sick and crazy. I know there've always been crazy people, dumb people, people who refuse to open their eyes. But surely this is unprecedented. Normal not crazy not dumb people, in massive numbers, falling in with a party that, clearly and undeniably, is inimical to everything those nice average people need. In a full-time and highly organized propaganda effort that would make Kim Jong Un jealous and the Soviet Politburo weep with envy, Rove, Murdoch, Limbaugh, Beck, the Kochs, et et al al al have managed to buffalo and bullshit and deceive and manipulate people who, if they'd stop for a mere second or two and look the hell around, would realize they're voting against everything they need. Nice people. Decent people.
It's simply amazing. It's inexplicable. I fail completely to understand it, except as proof of the limitations of the human mind in the face of overwhelmingly difficult problems. In the messes we've created on this planet we've finally outstripped the ability of human beings to deal. Always inclined to magical thinking, our pathetic little brains have, like an over-shaken pinball machine, gone into "tilt" mode. Previously happy to believe everything will be fine in the next life, that god is keeping score and will "wipe away the injustices" that he allowed to occur (or made to occur) in the afterlife, we've now gotten to the point of giving up trying altogether here on Earth. It's too hard to address our problems, too threatening to be charitable or to think beyond our selfish needs. So we flock to the party that says it's just fine to be like that. (So the ones bankrolling the deception can go on raping the land and ripping off the non-wealthy to support their greed.) (Too harsh? How?)
That's the only way I can figure it out. Because there's nothing, clearly, about today's Republican party that offers a thing for the average person except reinforcement of denial. Of everything.
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