Daniel Larison once again points out the obvious:
It seems to me that conservatives and Republicans have assumed the GOP is the natural governing party, at least regarding the Presidency and to some extent as it relates to Congress since ‘94, which is why so many have continued to insist that America is a “center-right nation” in face of mounting evidence that it is not and hasn’t been for a while. Symbolic gimmickry does stem in part from a lack of confidence, but it is more the product of a movement and party that have ceased to understand, much less address, most of the pressing concerns of working- and middle-class Americans. The party assumes that all it needs to do is show up, push the right pseudo-populist buttons and reap the rewards, and for the most part the movement cheers. See Palin, Sarah.
The GOP settles for offering “symbolic, substance-free BS” because enough conservatives are already persuaded that Republican policies obviously benefit the middle class, so there is no pressure to make Republican policy actually serve the interests of Republican constituents. It is taken for granted that this is already happening, but voters have been showing for several cycles that many of them do not believe this. Politically Democrats have been gaining ground in such unlikely places as Ohio and Indiana, which would be inexplicable if the GOP obviously and reliably represented working- and middle-class Americans. Of course, lately these voters don’t see it that way, but instead see the right’s pseudo-populists denounce workers for being overpaid, reject measures that would direct some spending to American industries that their free trade zeal has helped gut and even talk about a spending freeze in the middle of a severe recession.
Republicans are having trouble getting middle class votes because Republican policies have not only hurt, but eroded the size of the middle class. He continues:
As we all know, income stagnation is something that most conservatives and Republicans have spent years pretending was not happening, because it did not fit in with the assumption that working- and middle-class Americans were thriving as part of the “greatest story never told.” It is the failure to acknowledge and address all of these things along with the preference for using symbolic gimmickry that begin to account for the lamentable states of conservatism and the GOP. There is also the war, but movement and party have become so invested in it that I have my doubts whether they can ever recognize its role in discrediting both with the public.
I honestly think that is the first time I have ever seen anyone right of center admit to wage and income stagnation. Seriously. But you know what will fix that? Capital gains tax cuts! You betcha!
Meanwhile, what is the conservative brain trust doing at CPAC? Watch and see:
With all the world melting down around them, in between posing with life size cut-outs of Sarah Palin and attending Joe the Plumber book signings, speakers at CPAC are spending their time suggesting that Obama is a communist and is not an American.
The irony of all of this is what we are actually seeing is not the meltdown of the Republican party, but something bigger than that. The Grover Norquist troglodyte right is drowning themselves in the bathtub before our very eyes. It is truly a sight to see.
Ned R.
The last few hours have been amazing in terms of ‘wait, they ARE all nuts’ hilarity — and I’m borrowing some links made in comments earlier so forgive me folks:
Joe the Plumber pulls an overwhelming crowd of eleven.
Michael Steele gives slum love to the friggin awesome Bobby Jindal.
Rush responds to Sanford responding to Rush even though Sanford says he wasn’t responding to Rush to start with even though he clearly was responding to…
And then, of course, sad young DC conservatives struggle with cute girls who want to be in the ACLU and their mixed feelings on gay marriage even while ice skating with gay men.
Today is candyland day.
Comrade Stuck
The Stupid Party Virus seems to be going, well, viral.
Think Progress
And I haven’t seen a Purple Unicorn either. I’m not saying they don’t exist.
John PM
I also like the cover of the current issue of the Magazine: How Radio Wrecks the Right, with a picture of Rush Limbaugh (and someone else I cannot identify) as a whiny baby in a stroller. Between that cover and Daniel Larison I am almost tempted to subscribe to the magazine.
Chuck Butcher
This was the comedian they hired for the breaks, right? I’m sure you could find a leftist meeting that was as mockable, but you’d be hard pressed to find one where they also proposed they were the actual voice of the Country.
What is laughable is that you could actually get more than a handful of people to agree to spend actual money to get together and pretend this has some meaning in the course of events.
valdivia
Aces John, pure aces with this post. I was really bothered by the Ruffini take at Next Right that Larison seems to be answering to. Ruffini seemed to imply that the Dems actually hurt the middle class with their policies which is of course not true. Larison actually says the truth—that the middle class is now paying attention to their pockets and see that the Republicans do not care about the issues that would solve that. I think they believe yelling communist, sissy, elite etc is a middle class policy?
John Cole
@Chuck Butcher: That was Cliff Kincaid.
Persia
Dear God, I give up. Nothing I say can be funnier than what these people say themselves.
Charles Shopsin
The moron got the Hendrix lyric wrong as well. It’s "Manic depression is touching my soul." Not searching my soul.
Michael
I’m embarrassed to admit to have ever attended a CPAC. Of course, I only did it once – I learned what they are.
Natascha
I seriously cannot believe it. After eight disasterous years, a couple of thumping at the polls, they’ve shown that they’re perfectly content in driving off the cliff. With Rush Limbaugh driving.
jenniebee
How long do you think it will take for it to dawn on JtP that, although the Republican leadership genuflects his way, they really aren’t interested in anything he has to say? How long after that do you think it will take him to realize that, if he brays against the Mighty Wurlitzer, he’ll stop making headlines?
Is there an Intrade on these questions?
Anton Sirius
Has anyone started a pool yet to guess the name of the right wing party that rises up once the GOP is dead and buried?
Polish the Guillotines
Seriously, though… How do you deal with people who lack any attachment to reality? Who simply don’t accept the rules of the game? And how do you do it while remaining both grounded and true to the rules?
The degree of delusion these people exhibit is truly frightening at times. Oklahoma City frightening. Waco and Ruby Ridge frightening.
cleek
i just got back from the dentist. while he was cleaning my teeth, he started telling me about this new rumor going around that maybe Obama was born in Kenya… cause his mother was over there one month before Obama was "reportedly" born and his grandmother says he was born there, and, etc, etc..
couldn’t really argue with him because he had a metal hook in my mouth.
gbear
I like that.
More troglodite news: Only 11 people listened to a book reading by (not) Joe the (not) Plumber. WaPo headline: "Joe the Author, Plumbing New Lows in Interest"
note to self: read all comments before posting comments
John PM
If the "diehard" Republicans keep going this way, and there is no reason to see why they will not, I foresee the development of a third political party formed of those few moderate Republicans who are left and some Blue Dog Democrats that will be called the "Center-Right Party."
Faux News
Well thank God for Phil Gramm (one of the founding fathers of the subprime meltdown) who had the guts to speak the truth back in July 2008 when he served as McCain’s top economic advisor:
"You’ve heard of mental depression; this is a mental recession," he said, noting that growth has held up at about 1 percent despite all the publicity over losing jobs to India, China, illegal immigration, housing and credit problems and record oil prices. "We may have a recession; we haven’t had one yet."
We have sort of become a nation of whiners," he said. "You just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in decline" despite a major export boom that is the primary reason that growth continues in the economy, he said.
See? This recession/possible depression is ALL in your heads you lazy whiners!
blahblahblah
Does anyone here remember a single serious Liberal Think Tank suggesting such things about President Bush? Does anyone here remember a single instance of any television programs with well known liberals openly discussing civil war against a Republican administration?
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/02/22/militias/index.html
When does this lunacy end?
Zifnab25
@cleek: This is hilarious, because I’m reading this comment from the seat of my dentist’s chair. I have yet to ask about his political ideology and – given the hook thing – I think I’ll keep it that way.
valdivia
In Europe and Latin American the center right party are the Christian Democrats. The name is a bit misleading but this is where they are, mostly, in the political spectrum. In Chile the remnants of the pre-Pinochet Christian Dems are part of the Concertacion alliance with the Socialists that governs the country. Sane right wing. We need that in this country.
NonyNony
The key word is ERODED. If your base belongs to the upper class, upper middle class and middle class (as was the GOP post-Reagan), and your policies push people from the middle class into the lower middle class and from the upper middle class into the middle class, all at the expense of the tiny sliver of the upper class … well, a blind weasel can see where that leads in the end.
The funny thing is that the Republicans had no chance of even being able to do anything else. Because they decided long ago that government could never, ever be the solution to any problem – ever.
Rick Taylor
I’ve lost it now, but I saw an entry on a right wing site saying that the response to Rick Santelli was the first time they’d seen someone really excite the base the way Palin did, and I was struck. Republicans are now almost entirely defined by what they’re against. They get excited about being mad as hell, and not taking it anymore from liberals or welfare deadbeats or big government bureaucracy. That’s all that gets them excited now, because they have no positive ideas to offer to the debate. That’s not a good position to be in. Speaking as a Democrat who watched his party lose in 2004, even bad ideas beat no ideas.
valdivia
oops forgot about the ism word that has social in it. so my post is stuck in moderation.
having a dentist say things like that while being worked on with the hook thingy is my idea of a nightmare.
kay
@gbear:
I’m really pleased about that.
Joe the Plumber received what amounts to millions of dollars worth of free advertising, on cable. He traveled around the country with John McCain. Millions more in free ad time, to the man and his "views".
A total creation of McCain’s campaign and then the larger Republican Party, with gratis national exposure, for weeks. Still, with all that, they never made the sale. I’m thrilled about that. Despite a massive subsidy, a tilted playing field, stupid lost.
Walker
@Persia:
How old do you have to be before you are allowed to yell at kids to get off your lawn?
cleek
i just laid back and thought of England…
valdivia
@cleek:
that was funny. and I will keep it in mind next time anyone subjects me to the Obama was born in Kenya bs.
But, why England?
demkat620
Um, do they remember that John Sidney McCain was born in Panama?
BigHank53
Man, the GOP is really struggling to get into that second wetsuit, isn’t it?
cleek
cite
(SFW)
MikeJ
Is it safe?
valdivia
@cleek:
elegant. thanks for that.
tom
@cleek
Is it safe?
tom
Rats, MikeJ beat me by that much.
bago
Seriously, I am currently unemployed and have been following this since 8:00 am. I am still hours behind in tracking the stupid. I’m not even reading the source of the stupid, just the aggregators of stupid. Two websites. There have been at least 400 pages of stupid since noon, and I live on the west coast.
Peak wingnut is asymptotic.
demkat620
I had a conversation with my favorite local wingnut today who assured me that this budget was going to gaurantee the GOP wins both houses in 2010 and the WH in 2012.
He told me to prepare for Palin/Jindal ’12. He didn’t watch Jindal Tuesday but he is sure it can’t be as bad as people are thinking.
Bobby Jindal, I am told is the future of the GOP, but he is really not sure about this Michael Steele guy. The hiphop stuff is too gangsta for him.
It was hilarious.
John PM
@demkat620: #28
Along those lines, allow me to repost a theory that I posted yesterday in the "The Morning After Look at the Jindal Response" thread (sorry, I do not know how to do that savvy linky thing to previous posts):
b-psycho
Did that idiot with the gay friends in the Post article ever consider that maybe he’s conflicted about gays because his own fucking life experience disproves the line of his own party?
Or is it, since he’s a guy that likes ice-skating, that he’s gay?
Chuck Butcher
@John Cole:
So he carries the Court Jester w/o Cap portfolio? Hmmm, I seem to lack humor skills, I don’t try to tell jokes because my delivery sucks…
Zifnab
@bago: And I think half of it is the same five or six guys simply spamming the holy hell out of the thread.
demkat620
@John PM: Sometimes I think we get collateral damage just being near the stupid. Lolz!
shecky
The one reservation I have about Larison’s otherwise brilliant blog is that he appears to be something of an economic populist and nativist. Those are the very things that Republicans traditionally had been somewhat wise about, at least on the whole. That they are swinging in the opposite direction, more toward the left is a development in tandem with the folks he takes to task, and also a turn for the worse.
gex
@cleek: Time for a new dentist, I say. I could take a far right or libertarian dentist. I’d even listen to their views if forced to. But if they demonstrate the level of stupidity your dentist showed, I’d be afraid for my oral health to have him be my dentist.
bago
@Zifnab: It’s not the thread. It’s everywhere. I think the tribalists just realized they have nothing left and are going ape-shit. Look at the thread above. These patriots are giving treason and sedition two Hannity’s up!
TheHatOnMyCat
Amen. And the fun is just beginning. They are going to really be turning on each other soon, and the GOP as we knew it is going to be history.
I dunno, Permanent Majority is starting to sound pretty good to me.
El Cid
Remember how, way back before THE SURGE fixed everything and made Iraq as safe as your memories of linens drying on the line, no matter what happened in Iraq and how many were killed and what ethnic cleansing was going on, the right and hawks would just whine that the media just wasn’t reporting ‘all the good stuff’ going on like somebody painted a school?
That’s the way the right and the snotty punditocracy has treated domestic issues as well for the last 30 years.
‘Oh, so a sh*t-load of jobs were lost in entire sections of the nation when industries fled to 3rd world cheap labor after that last free trade etc agreement? Aw, that’s just too freakin’ bad, but, gosh, you see, eventually this will all work out with some sort of new jobs that are bound to come along.’
Jay B.
I love that guy, b-psycho. Here’s the money quote from the Post article:
What a fucking loser. I’d love to talk to one of his gay ‘friends’.
"Oh, him? Yeah, he was quiet, but always nervous. Kind of preppy cute, but in a Bundy kind of way, you know what I mean? Like this one time, we went out ice skating and he kept trying to hockey check people like he had something to prove. I was all like, look girl, if you want to make out, you don’t have to pull my hair first."
gex
@b-psycho: From the article:
Bullshit. All his gay friends are also against gay marriage? Or are supportive of him in his anti-gay marriage stance? These folks have got to start reading their press. The "I have good friends who are gay, honest" line is really transparent.
Jess
No one could have predicted that such a devoted commitment to willful ignorance would have consequences…
Ned R.
@Jay B.: Ice-skating guy, it turns out, still has his old Plymouth profile page up…and he’s on Facebook. Anyone want to friend him?
San
cleek,
yup, time to switch dentists :)
In 2003 I went to try a new dentist. He had a TV on the ceiling. After he started the work he turned it on. It was FoxNews. I asked him to turn it off and he sharply asked me:
– What are you, some sort of a Democrat?
And I stupidly replied:
– No, I just have a brain.
We never saw each other again.
Jess
ROFLMAO!
JasonF
From the WaPo article that Ned R. linked to in comment #1:
What the fuck does it even mean to be opposed to gay marriage 53 percent to 47? If I invite him to a hundred gay weddings he’s only going to attend 47? Sometimes the stupid is so intense it burns my eyes to read these things.
Comrade Darkness
Given the crazy will always find something to chew on, might was well have them not ruining the good shoes and furniture. Keep throwing them bones to keep the busy and out from under foot. (I think this is in line with the next post, akshually)
Waingro
I was actually thinking the exact thing as I watched Tom DeLay screech on Hardball. What can you say to someone like that besides "Burn in hell you horrible, demented scumbag."
Joshua Norton
That he has 100 voices talking in his head?
Montysano
Is there a secret Republican Strategy Treehouse somewhere (n0 gur1z al0ud), where these guys are clapping each other on the back and celebrating the genius of countertops and plumbers and volcano monitoring and birth certificates and drill baby drill and No! and toobz and starbursts and "that one" and ………
It’s been said dozens of times, but you really can’t parody them anymore. The "Daily Show" may have to go out of business.
Joshua Norton
Hmmm…
Cris
@Anton Sirius:
Constitution party.
BDeevDad
Didn’t you know the new meme that is going to catch on, based upon the misery index— the combination of unemployment and inflation — Obama inherited the best economy since JFK.
Talk about not getting it.
Polish the Guillotines
@Waingro:
I’m beginning to think the best thing to say to someone like that is "Oh, you poor man. Do you remember your address, or should I have your children come get you?"
If they’re gonna act nuts, treat them — with respect, mind you — like they’re freakin’ nuts.
Waingro
I’ve generally tried to avoid psychoanalyzing my political opponents (unlike some people), but you honestly can’t discuss this shit without consulting the DSM-IV.
I do agree that scorn and mockery are the appropriate rhetorical responses.
TenguPhule
"Planes, trains and automobiles. I hope at least one of them hits you."
Comrade Kevin
@BDeevDad:
Consider the source. The Daily Mail is wingnut territory, British style.
Dr. Larry Mitchell
There will be no new right-wing party.
The Democratic party will continue its shift to the right, and become the new Old Guard.
The new party will be to the left of that.
BDeevDad
@Comrade Kevin: I’m just hoping it’s picked up by Rush or Hannity or some other tone deaf wingnut with a microphone.
chuck
Dude … all my GAY friends don’t have that many gay friends. This isn’t a social circle, this is a Broadway show.
Susan Kitchens
Cliff Kincaid as LOLcat, declaring war on hawaii:
Tried to insert image (FAIL!). So, instead, go here to see it…
daryljfontaine
@JasonF:
What it means for Closet Boy is that out of 100 toe-tappings under the stall, he’s only worked up the nerve to suppress his gag reflex 47 times.
D
p.a.
Help me connect this hose. Let’s help ’em along.
An interesting tangent is to see whether the MSM ever comes around to exposing them outright they way they are exposed online and on Colbert etc. The MSM have defined balance as being mere stenographers (and this is an insult to stenographers, actually), but can they keep it up in the face of true madness?
Anyone think the intellectual prigs in the conservative movement like Scalia look at this and have a David Byrne moment? You know, "My God, what have I done?"
Jasper
The data on income stagnation are frightening.
According to the BLS, the inflation adjusted "average weekly earnings" (about 80% of workers, excludes professionals and supervisors, etc.) peaked in 1973. For a nearly unbroken period of U.S. history ending in 1973, wages for workers increased. But since then….
1950 – 213
1960 – 262
1970 – 298
1973 – 315
1980 – 281
1990 – 263
2000 – 276
2008 – 288
Average workers haven’t seen a raise in 35 years.
Ed Marshall
That’s painfully stupid. It’s sort of a neat trick (pretending a deflationary spiral is good times!), but I can’t imagine anyone dumb enough to be swayed by this. I can imagine being dumb enough to try it, but it’s really pathetic.
DonkeyKong
The Right set out to make government small enough to drown in a bathtub and ended up making the republican party stupid enough to drown in a puddle.
Why was the Democratic party affraid of these clowns again?
TenguPhule
Lack of spines.
Perhaps we could import some from China.
jcricket
Speaking of that, can’t most of Republican psychoses be diagnosed as a severe case of psychological projection?
I feel like every time I read a Republican saying this/that group are traitors, This/That dictator can’t be negotiated with, liberals have lost touch with reality/american public – they’re really describing themselves.
Just Some Fuckhead
What about the above-average ones?
jcricket
This kind of inside-baseball talk will appeal to the movement conservatives looking for a way out of blaming themselves and their ideology for getting us in this mess.
As the Larison article and the response to Jindal’s SOTU counter point out, Republicans long ago stopped talking to the public, and started talking to themselves. The public has caught up, the press may in the next couple of years (esp. if Obama stays this popular). So it’s not resonating with anyone except for the base, for whom it’s super-awesometastical-sure-to-win-election rhetoric.
TheHatOnMyCat
Nope, we haven’t had raises either.
TheHatOnMyCat
I used to think this. But I now think that we are just dealing with a bunch of petulant teenagers who argue and bitch just for the sake of arguing and bitching.
Republicans today remind me of miscreant children. Okay, they remind me of a lot of my family.
Waingro
Ah, but you see they are often one in the same. As someone who used to work with troubled children I recognize the type. The wingnuts are suffering from Oppositional Defiant Disorder:
Waingro
Ah, but you see they are often one in the same. As someone who used to work with troubled children I recognize the type. The wingnuts are suffering from Oppositional Defiant Disorder:
TheHatOnMyCat
@Waingro:
I posted this to another thread, but it fits here.
The Republicans are about to put on a show in this country, an anthropological display:
We’re witnessing a real phenomenon here.
Rome Again
@TheHatOnMyCat:
That link was disturbing.
Continuum
"I have about a dozen gay friends, 30 or 20, and they would all back me up."
If you have 30 or 20 gay friends, then I have some news for you. You’re gay. And, if you’re a Republican, chances are that you’re a closet case.