The stampede of so-called conservative thought over the cliff of sanity may actually be proof of evolution for science deniers. Since Newt Gingrich enabled the reactionary right to take over the GOP House majority in 1994 The Republican Party has developed a "wide stance". Their stance on issues was once narrow. Government was the problem, not the answer. taxes were too high and Welfare Queens were a sign of the downfall of America. It was basically the Gospel of Saint Ronnie.
Gingrich helped engineer the first loss of the House of Representatives by the Democratic Party in forty years.They did this by making Liberal a term of derision, uniting the right wing factions and stoking the underlying racial fears and tensions present in American life. They immediately over reached with reactionary slash and burn policies. Clear cognizant political analysis was a skill the GOP lacked then and now.
The idea that any Democrat winning the White House was an illegitimate usurpation of the will of the mythical conservative American majority took root and blossomed. Unfortunately the bloom was the Rafflesia arnoldii. The corpse flower. It's name is an apt description of it's scent.
The Republicans spent the Nineties as the Minority, then the majority party, trying to destroy, discredit and remove President William Jefferson Clinton.
President and Mrs. Clinton were accused of murdering Assistant White Counsel Vince Foster who tragically took his own life. (I'm expecting this to be resurrected by the Beck's and Limbaugh's should Hillary run in '16)A special prosecutor was appointed to investigate a land deal in Arkansas called Whitewater, The prosecutor was replaced for not being aggressive enough in his investigation of the President and was replaced By Ken Starr. After five years and millions of dollars Starr managed to convict Clinton Arkansas associates Susan and Jim McDougal along with Clinton's successor as Arkansas Governor Jim Guy Tucker and have the conviction of Webster Hubbell overturned for prosecutorial misconduct.
Failing to find criminal conduct in Whitewater, Starr expanded the scope of his investigation. It spread through the Executive Branch like MRSA. Firing of people in the White House travel office. No traction. Obstruction accusations against Hillary. No traction. Fraud. Nope. They eventually found Monica Lewinski. I am not proud of how this young woman was treated by we on the Left. She was ridiculed and vilified.She was not the first woman ever seduced by men with power. And won't be the last.
Starr recommended the impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton for lying under oath about a blow job (perjury) and trying to stop the investigation of said blow job. (Obstruction of Justice). In a lame duck session the GOP controlled House voted basically along party lines to impeach President Clinton. This was the second time a President was impeached by the House. On a straight party line vote the Senate, for the second time in it's history, failed to convict on Bills of Impeachment. And this was with a Republican majority. This action was unpopular with the American people as the President had an approval rating of over 60%. The Republican response was pretty much, Sorry Honey, it's been a long time and I prematurely pulled the trigger.
Al Gore, distancing himself from Clinton won the popular vote and saw the Electoral College handed to George Bush by the Supreme Court.
After his disastrous first term President Bush and the Republicans lost the House and Senate in the '06 mid terms. Until then Bush had a rubber stamp Congress that enabled him to spend us into record debt by reducing taxes as we went to war for the first time ever. Following these tax cuts the GOP went on a spending spree like a thief using a stolen high limit credit card. The debt ceiling was repeatedly raised with no qualms by a Republican House. Oh, after gaining a House Majority the Democrats did not vote to impeach Bush or Cheney. They instigated no political witch hunts. They did not repeatedly hold political repeal votes that had no chance of passing the Senate. They actually tried to govern. Imagine that.
In 2008 Senator Barack Obama was elected President in an impressive victory over Senator John McCain. The right wing immediately went into bat shit crazy mode.
A person I know who was a Republican operative at the time said had they nominated a true conservative they would have won. He also said this in '12 when Romney had his ass handed to him by President Obama. Election night in '08 Sean Hannity said he was going to be a leader in the resistance. Mere hours after the '08 election Obama Derangement Syndrome was in full swing. The right wing idea that a Democrat could not be elected President without massive fraud was back. Any Democratic President was illegitimate.The election had to have been stolen. It is so easy to manufacture a few million votes on cue.
On Inauguration Day in 2009, Republican leaders met to plot a way to obstruct any meaningful agenda put forth by the President.
Immediately the existence of Bush spending policies ceased to exist. The record debt and near collapse of the economy was the doing of a President who had not been in office. The lies and misrepresentations were spewed from Republican office holders, RWNJ blogs, so-called news sites and Fox News.
The once fringe idea that The President was foreign born, a secret Muslim, a possible sleeper agent, a black militant and a America hating Socialist went mainstream.The mainstreaming of once ridiculous,once fringe conspiracy theories has become a hallmark of the modern Republican Party. Had Dems met the day Bush was inaugurated to plan to obstruct they would have been in the dock being tried for sedition and treason.There was no investigation to find any criminal culpability in any of the Bush Administration's actions.
Faced with a problematic Senate the President was still able to accomplish a lot in the first half of his first term. The Affordable Care Act became the clarion call to the right to solidify opposition to any progressive agenda that was proposed. It has since become the most public face of Obama Derangement Syndrome. More about that later.
Following the President's election, hard as it is to believe, Fox News became even less connected to reality. Any person who had a conspiracy theory, any misrepresentation of the facts concerning any Presidential policy and supposed proof we were marching down the road to Socialism was given extensive airtime. We discovered there was a Federally mandated war on Religion. The Majority Religion in The United States felt they were being persecuted.
The Tea Party became the darlings of Fox News. They were treated as an actual, reasoning political force. They were a political force but without reason. Racist statements and views were downplayed and denied. Bastardized inaccurate and out right lies were passed off as actual accepted history. America was depicted as being founded as a Christian nation contrary to facts stating the opposite. Quotes by the Founders were pulled out of context. Contradictory statements and letters were ignored. The role of slavery in American was woefully misrepresented. The radical underpinnings of the Revolution was being shown as only a taxation issue and a conservative movement. The Constitution was being interpreted as The Articles Of Confederation 2.0. The very existence of Federalism was being denied. I don't think a conservative movement has ever resulted in a Radical reformation of the world order.
More and more of the Tea Party was being elected to offices. Fox and others presented this as proof that the American political landscape is conservative. The usual denial of fact. These tea party activists have pushed the GOP farther and farther to the right. This is simply because of Primaries.
For decades the primary system has been dominated by the zealot on both sides. The true believers are the ones who work in campaigns, donate money and vote. The GOP Primaries were hijacked by the reactionary right. Any office holder who failed a purity test was purged in a challenge from the right. Any candidate that survived moved right to protect their political future. The major method of governing with two political parties, compromise. was vilified and denigrated as selling out.
Recent negotiations between the GOP controlled House and the White House has borne this out. The GOP position has been give us everything we want or we drive the nation over a cliff. These ideologues would rather burn down America rather than not get their way. In fact many see burning down our house as a good way to reach their political utopia.
Ideas,attitudes and beliefs that would have at one time been ridiculed are now considered to be a viable political philosophy. Willful ignorance is thought to be a path to election and reelection. It is seen as a pathway to the Presidency under the assumption ignorance is a virtue.
Jack Kennedy as a Catholic felt he had to speak to the concerns of Protestants that America wouldn't be ruled from Rome by the Pope. Today conservative evangelical views are worn by Republican candidates as a prerequisite to being an office holder. Let's forget this is the antithesis of two centuries of American political practice and thought.
We have people in power who reject the existence of the 21st Century. They reject evolution. They believe creationism should be taught as a viable scientific principle. They believe the Universe and Earth are the same age. 6,000 years. They deny human physiology as a liberal secular plot. Some decry science as lies from the pit of Hell. They believe their view of Christianity must be codified into law to prevent some Old Testament style smiting.
So we are seeing unprecedented denial of the world being signed into law. Pregnancy has been redefined. Women have been redefined from being humans and citizens into ambulatory incubators. A life support system for a fetus should be her role.
We need to run a modern society based on books and beliefs of a Bronze Age nomadic civilization. Women are property. They also are the reason for all sin and misery in the world. They are so seductive they force themselves to be raped. Women are disobedient harlots who need to be beaten into submission for their own and the world's good.
These good Christian who seek to rule every aspect of our lives and our very thoughts are vehemently opposed to any healthcare reform in their presence. Saving lives must be an affront to God. People without insurance who get sick are freeloaders. They should have been buying insurance all along. If you have a preexisting condition sorry. you know, free market. Rationing by ability to pay is what God and the founders wanted. So, the House sees fit to have forty repeal votes in a show of political theater. This way they can go home and say, look i'm trying but these Godless Democrats want to take away your freedom to deny healthcare to those you don't like.
Now these people are going to try to extort the repeal of the ACA in the budget negotiations and debt ceiling fight. They would rather shut down the government than admit they lost the last two elections. They refuse to admit that they were found wrong by the American electorate.
The right feels they have a God given mandate to establish a theocratic oligarchy. It appears they will stop at nothing to do it.
We have to stop them. Organize.
Evangelize.
Help people get voter ID's.
Give rides to people to get them to the poll.
We have to stand against this tide of intolerance, hate and repression. We must take our country back.
Stand.
Fight.
No comments:
Post a Comment