Paul Ryan’s Big Idea

March 7, 2014 — Ron Chusid

Paul Ryan spoke of wanting Republicans to be the party of ideas, but once again he acted as a representative of the party of lies. His speech was far more notable for false claims as opposed to ideas. Here’s the gist of his CPAC speech:

The way I see it, let the other side be the party of personalities. We’ll be the party of ideas.

And I’m optimistic about our chances—because the Left? The Left isn’t just out of ideas. It’s out of touch. Take Obamacare. We now know that this law will discourage millions of people from working. And the Left thinks this is a good thing. They say, “Hey, this is a new freedom—the freedom not to work.”But I don’t think the problem is too many people are working—I think the problem is not enough people can find work. And if people leave the workforce, our economy will shrink—there will be less opportunity, not more. So the Left is making a big mistake here. What they’re offering people is a full stomach—and an empty soul. The American people want more than that.

This reminds me of a story I heard from Eloise Anderson. She serves in the cabinet of my friend Governor Scott Walker. She once met a young boy from a poor family. And every day at school, he would get a free lunch from a government program. But he told Eloise he didn’t want a free lunch. He wanted his own lunch—one in a brown-paper bag just like the other kids’. He wanted one, he said, because he knew a kid with a brown-paper bag had someone who cared for him.

Here he lied about Obamacare discouraging millions of people from working–a gross distortion of the CBO report which showed that the Affordable Care Act frees people from the “insurance trap.” It does not discourage people who should be working from working so they can sit home on welfare, as Republicans suggest. It ends the days of people who otherwise would not need to work to support themselves from having to work because of this being the only way they could obtain health insurance. Up until this year, people who otherwise were financially ready to retire to in their 60′s would often continue working because if they stopped working they would be uninsured until they qualified for Medicare at age 65. Often the spouses of affluent professionals work at jobs for the health insurance when they otherwise do not need the money because  someone in their family has preexisting medical conditions which kept them from purchasing insurance on the individual market. Leaving a job because they can now keep their insurance after leaving does not necessarily mean they will not work. It is anticipated that many people will leave jobs with large companies to work for smaller companies, or perhaps start their own small companies and become, in Republican language, job creators.

This lie about Obamacare came after Paul Ryan lied earlier in the speech denying Obama’s record of promoting  economic growth. It has become the mantra of conservatives to deny the success of the stimulus, but their claims are untrue. We have had economic growth under Obama despite Republicans working hard to block his economic policies. Corporate profits and the stock market are doing exceptionally well under Obama, as is generally the case under Democrats. The problem now is that this prosperity isn’t always working its way to the middle class–demonstrating that Republican ideas about trickle down economics are wrong.

So what is Ryan’s big idea? He wants to take free lunches away from school kids. His story is hardly convincing. Generally when kids do not come to school with a lunch in a brown-paper-bag it is because they do not have parents who can afford to send them to school with a nutritious lunch. Of course in this case the story Paul Ryan told isn’t even true. He told this story presumably because it would sure be hard to come up with a real story to justify taking lunches away from children.

As Rand Paul once said, “This is a great tactic. Misinformation can be very important.”

Correction: I tried to get a post out too quickly while working and I messed up the Pauls, originally attributing Paul Ryan’s speech to Rand Paul. That is why it the post ends with a quote from Rand Paul which remains pertinent, with other references to Rand Paul removed in correcting the post.

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Posted in Economy, Paul Ryan, Republicans. Tags: , , . 6 Comments »

Are Many Conservatives Really Liberals?

March 6, 2014 — Ron Chusid

Liberal or conservative, opposite signs

Polls have generally showed self-identified conservatives outnumbering liberals, with a recent slight increase in the number of liberals. I have often speculated that this is largely due to the success the right wing noise machine has had in demonizing the word liberal. Americans come out more liberal than would be expected by these poll findings when we look at individual issues.

While the pendulum swings both ways, the trend has been toward more liberal policies over the years. Most people wouldn’t think of returning to the days of child labor. Medicare and Social Security are deeply entrenched, to the point that even when Republicans vote for ending Medicare as we know it they realize they have to hide what they are doing. Recent polls show increases in the number of people who support legalization of same-sex marriage and legalization of marijuana. A majority even supports the individual components of Obamacare when asked without identifying the policy as Obamacare.

John Sides reviewed a recent book to argue that many conservatives are really liberals:

In Ideology in America, Christopher Ellis and James Stimson describe a striking disjuncture. When identifying themselves in a word, Americans choose “conservative” far more than “liberal.” In fact they have done so for 70 years, and increasingly so since the early 1960s.

But when it comes to saying what the government should actually do, the public appears more liberal than conservative. Ellis and Stimson gathered 7,000 survey questions dating back to 1956 that asked some variant of whether the government should do more, less, or the same in lots of different policy areas.  On average, liberal responses were more common than conservative responses. This has been true in nearly every year since 1956, even as the relative liberalism of the public has trended up and down.  For decades now there has been a consistent discrepancy between what Ellis and Stimson call symbolic ideology (how we label ourselves) and operational ideology (what we really think about the size of government).

Looked at this way, almost 30 percent of Americans are “consistent liberals” — people who call themselves liberals and have liberal politics.  Only 15 percent are “consistent conservatives” — people who call themselves conservative and have conservative politics.  Nearly 30 percent are people who identify as conservative but actually express liberal views.  The United States appears to be a center-right nation in name only.

This raises the question: why are so many people identifying as conservative while simultaneously preferring more government?  For some conservatives, it is because they associate the label with religion, culture or lifestyle.  In essence, when they identify as “conservative,” they are thinking about conservatism in terms of family structure, raising children, or interpreting the Bible. Conservatism is about their personal lives, not their politics.

But other self-identified conservatives, though, are conservative in terms of neither religion and culture nor the size of government.  These are the truly “conflicted conservatives,” say Ellis and Stimson, who locate their origins in a different factor: how conservatives and liberals have traditionally talked about politics.  Conservatives, they argue, talk about politics in terms of symbols and the general value of “conservatism” — and news coverage, they find, usually frames the label “conservative” in positive terms.  Liberals talk about policy in terms of the goals it will serve — a cleaner environment, a stronger safety net, and so on — which are also good things for many people.  As a result, some people internalize both messages and end up calling themselves conservative but having liberal views on policy.

Ideology has two faces: the labels people choose and the actual content of their beliefs.  For liberals, these are mostly aligned.  For conservatives, they are not.  American conservatism means different things to different people.  For many, what it doesn’t mean is less government.

This idea that nearly 30 percent of self-identified conservative are really liberals would explain the increased support for liberal positions despite a majority identifying themselves as conservatives.

There are some limitations to this, largely due to problems with these labels. It seems to use a simplistic definition of liberals as being for more government and conservatives being for less, but that does not really explain the differences. There are many areas where I am for less government. There is nowhere that I support more government for the sake of more government.

I supported the Affordable Care Act because financing of health care is an area where the market has failed, as insurance companies found it more profitable to find ways to collect increased premiums while finding ways to avoid paying out claims. Conservatives opposed the Affordable Care Act based upon greatly-exaggerated arguments that it is more government (ignoring its similarities to health plans previously advocated by conservatives). Republicans widely supported an individual mandate to buy health insurance until this became part of the plan supported by Barack Obama (who ran against Hillary Clinton opposing the individual mandate). Similarly, conservatives previously supported ideas comparable to the health care exchanges.

On the other hand, conservatives support more big government when it comes to military spending, mandatory vaginal probes, and other intrusions into the private lives of individuals. Even Ron Paul, who voted no on virtually any spending by the federal government, would allow for far greater government restrictions on individual liberties if it came from the state or local level.

Republicans in office generally perform different than their rhetoric would, with big increases in the size of government under Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. This has been described as being “ideologically conservative, but operationally liberal.” If we just go by their effects on the size of government, Reagan and Bush were the liberals while Barack Obama has been the most conservative president since Dwight Eisenhower. Part of this is because Republican rhetoric is incompatible with actually governing, leading Reagan and Bush to promote far more government spending than would be expected by their rhetoric. Many conservatives realize they didn’t get what they wanted from Bush, but continue to buy the myth of Ronald Reagan as a supporter of small government.

Another problem is a concentration on economic issues and the size of government, as misleading as those issues can be in assigning labels. How would they classify someone who wants to ban abortion, limit access to contraception, opposes same-sex marriage, and supports everyone carrying a concealed weapon, but doesn’t follow the entire Republican line on economic policy? I bet a lot of self-identified conservatives would have no real opposition to a modest tax increase on the wealthy and increasing some government economic regulations (especially if they don’t affect them personally) while holding a number of other conservative positions.

Today many are self-identified conservatives based upon social issues. This didn’t always identify conservatism. Barry Goldwater was a strong opponent of the religious right. He sure called it right in 1994:

Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they’re sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can’t and won’t compromise. I know, I’ve tried to deal with them.

Or maybe they just like being members of the club.  They like to listen to people like Glenn Beck and agree with what they say. However Beck has previously described himself as “a rodeo clown” and conceded, “If you take what I say as gospel, you’re an idiot.”

Cross posted at The Moderate Voice

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Posted in Barack Obama, Barry Goldwater, Economy, George Bush, Health Care, Polls, Republicans, Ron Paul, Ronald Reagan, Social Issues. Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , . 2 Comments »

Conservative Horror Stories About Small Business No More Valid Than Their Other Horror Stories

February 28, 2014 — Ron Chusid

With millions now receiving health care coverage through the Affordable Care Act we are seeing that the horror stories being spread by conservatives are not true. There are no death panels. We do not have a government making health care decisions as people signed up under “Obamacare” are receiving the same types of insurance (except with more comprehensive coverage) than was present before. Those of us who received letters that our old insurance was canceled have replaced our old plans with better plans, and for most people the out of pocket costs are lower. The horror stories about people with greatly more expensive or less comprehensive coverage are being debunked whenever the facts are examined. Now we are seeing the same types of misinformation being spread about insurance for small business.

obamacare-surcharge-620xa

This story about a restaurant chain adding a 1 percent surcharge for health care to cover its employees is getting the conservatives all excited. This shows a lot about both how gullible these conservatives are along with their warped priorities.

This is clearly political posturing by a businessman who has become upset about the Affordable Care Act from right wing misinformation. The mandate for small business has not even come into effect yet. When the mandate does come into effect, there will also be tax breaks and credits to make this more affordable. This fee has nothing to do with actual charges. Besides, as the story points out,  “Thirteen other Gator’s Dockside restaurants, which are run by a different firm and its franchisees, are not implementing the fee.” This adds further reason to question why this owner found reason to add this fee on now.

Lots of people are using Obamacare to justify increasing prices but this does not mean that this is true. I had a supplier increase their prices in July 2013 blaming it on higher costs because of the Affordable Care Act, claiming they could not get by without the increase. I subsequently changed to a different supplier who managed to offer me significantly lower prices.

However, for the sake of discussion, even though they are probably overestimating the cost, let’s assume this is correct. It is still political grandstanding to make this a separate item on the bill. Lots of businessmen might have objected to the Iraq war, but did not put on a separate surcharge for the portion of their taxes which went to pay for the war.

Even if this probably inflated number is correct, would it be all that bad if people paid an extra twenty cents for a meal to provide health care coverage for the employees? Conservatives show their priorities when the whine about this extra charge but ignore all the extra people who will receive health care coverage. Besides, I would prefer that people handling my food are healthy.

Even if their selfish concern is that they might have to pay an extra twenty cents here and there, they are also forgetting that they are already paying money because of all the people working in restaurants and elsewhere who are currently not insured. The price to cover the unemployed is factored into medical bills. It results in increasing their insurance premiums and increasing taxes because of government programs which help reimburse hospitals for care of the uninsured. In the long run other health care costs will go down as the number of uninsured is decreased.

We are also bound to hear complaints that health care premiums for many small businesses will go up once they start providing health care coverage which is compliant with the requirements of the Affordable Care Act. Some increases in premiums are inevitable because small businesses purchasing insurance have been in a similar (sinking) boat as those buying insurance on the individual market. Double digit increases have been common and just being a year or two later would mean an increase.

Many small businesses could only afford to purchase policies which were no better than the junk policies often sold on the individual market which did not provide meaningful coverage. I have seen many patients with insurance policies which only provided limited coverage for out-patient services as opposed to hospitalizations, or vice versa. I have seen patients whose insurance policies covered two office calls a year, and then they reached their limit. How many people consider both annual limits and life time limits when comparing polices under the Affordable Care Act to their older, less expensive insurance? How much more is it worth for insurance which has no limitations for per-existing conditions and which never can be canceled should someone become sick?

It will cost more to provide more comprehensive coverage than was available to small business in the past, but it does not appear that the cost will be a serious problem, even before we factor in the tax breaks being offered. I’m finding that the premiums for the insurance I provide to my employees is going to go up, but by a relative modest amount considering how much better the policy is compared to what I could afford to provide in the past.

Health care coverage has always been expensive, and we will always have to deal with this fact. Despite this, and all the fake horror stories from the right wing, we are finding that both people buying insurance on the individual market (as I do for my family) and buying insurance for small business (as I do for my employees), are doing much better than before the Affordable Care Act. Those of us who have checked out the actual numbers as to what insurance costs and have compared what is covered are certainly not fooled by the right wing horror stories. Despite people like Ted Cruz still talking about trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act, far too many people are benefiting from health care reform to take repeal seriously.

Cross posted at The Moderate Voice

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Posted in Health Care, Republicans. Tags: , , , . 2 Comments »

Liberals Like Cats And Messy Desks

February 18, 2014 — Ron Chusid

cats

Tests to tell if someone is liberal or conservative are of uncertain significance but often amusing enough to take a look at. From a survey, Time has found, among other things, that liberals are more likely to like cats than conservatives.

Cats are less likely to follow authority. It does make sense that liberals would have a greater affinity for these freedom-loving animals, while conservatives, who are more into authority and imposing their rules upon others (regardless of their rhetoric) might not like them as much. Other questions show a similar distinction with liberals being more supportive of liberty while conservatives being more interested in authority. For example, conservative authoritarianism leads to a preference for more neat and tidy desks.

If we were to follow the logic that liberals prefer cats more than conservatives due to their preference for liberty, then we might think that libertarians would be ever bigger lovers of this anarchic animal. It turns out that libertarians fall between liberals and conservatives on each question. With a little thought about the state of the libertarian movement, this actually makes sense. Libertarians include those who are true opponents of restrictions on liberty, but many other libertarians are basically conservatives who have smoked marijuana. They have hung out with Republicans for so long that it has become difficult to tell them apart. Some libertarians, such as Ron Paul, share many views with the religious right. Plus, as I have noted in the past, Ron Paul’s views would lead to a less free society. Anyone know his opinion of cats? In researching the question I did find a Cats and Kitties for Dr. Ron Paul Facebook Page, but that doesn’t tell me if the attraction is mutual. I wonder what additional information I can find over at FriendFace.

Of course this data is open to other interpretations. Allahpundit at Hot Air wonders if the survey shows that liberals like cats more than conservatives  because women tend to like cats and more women are liberals than conservatives. It is also possible that cats work better as pets among liberals who are more likely to live in urban areas. Similarly,  the tendency for conservatives to be older than liberals might explain why they are more likely to use Internet Explorer, but it appears that Allahpundit might be as quick to write someone out of the conservative movement for using IE as for supporting a tax increase.

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Posted in Blogs & Social Media, Libertarianism, Ron Paul. Tags: , , , . 5 Comments »

Imaginary Fears Must Give Conservatives Nightmares About Liberals

December 9, 2013 — Ron Chusid

As I mentioned yesterday, conservatives often project their failings onto others. They promote a false narrative of liberals supporting the use of big government to control their lives. In reality, opposition to conservative support for greater government intrusion in the private lives of individuals is a common liberal position. We can expect lots of stories this time of year on the imaginary War on Christmas. All sorts of bizarre claims about the views of liberals can be found on conservative sites. One of the strangest headlines was posted today:Liberals want to stop men from checking out women.

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Conservative Projection

December 8, 2013 — Ron Chusid

Conservatives often project their failings onto other groups. Here is a classic example of conservative projection. The Republican Party has driven out not only its moderates, but it’s less extreme conservatives. Even Ronald Reagan would be too “liberal” these days, supporting tax increases and supporting increases in the debt limit without question. Barry Goldwater would be seen as a flaming liberal with his attacks on the religious right. In contrast, the Democratic Party ranges from conservatives to liberals (most generally barely left of center by international standards). Michael Goodwin claims at the far-right New York Post that it is the Democratic Party which has driven out its moderates.

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Posted in Barry Goldwater, Democrats, Republicans, Ronald Reagan. Tags: , , , , , . 8 Comments »

Why Conservatism Has Failed

December 4, 2013 — Ron Chusid

The Republican Party and the conservative movement operate in a Bizzaro World where whatever they say is frequently the opposite of fact. Republicans claim to be the party of individual liberty and small government while promoting a government which is more intrusive in the private lives of individuals and the party which is far more responsible for increasing the deficit. They regularly deny the racism which is a major component of their views and the manner in which they promote create fear of minorities with their arguments against a social safety net.  This conservative lack of awareness is fully on display in John Hawkin’s arguments on Why Liberalism Is On The Wrong Side Of History.

Hawkins began with the usual erroneous claim that liberals, who have historically been the party of defending liberty, stand for the opposite:

Liberals dream of one day seeing all Americans permanently locked in the smothering, cradle-to-grave death grip of the nanny state. Nothing excites a liberal more than the idea of controlling where you go to school, regulating your work and play, deciding what type of health care you’re going to have and then deciding when you get to retire and how much money you have when you do. Even if you want to choose, you can’t. Even if you want to break free, you’re stuck. You’re not allowed to make different choices because liberals have made it illegal.

Such projection of conservative views is seen throughout the article which distorts liberal beliefs while ignoring the fact that it is the conservatives who have been promoting restrictions on reproductive rights and using the power of the state to tell people who they may or may not marry. It is Republicans who seek to use the power of government to impose their religious views on everyone.  Melissa McEwan has discussed this further.

Conservative views on liberty become more understandable when we understand that to conservatives, freedom frequently means the freedom to impose their religious views upon others, the freedom to avoid contributing to the social safety net, and the freedom from even necessary government economic regulations.

Lacking reality-based arguments, Hawkins resorted to an imaginary mischaracterization of liberal views:

The problem with that is not so much liberals living how they want to live; it’s that liberals want to force everyone else to live how they want to live. They don’t like guns; so no one should have guns. They like gay marriage; so everyone must be forced to like gay marriage. They like PBS; so everyone should be forced to pay for PBS…

If Justin Bieber is at the top of the pop charts, should EVERYONE be forced to listen to Justin Bieber? If Duck Dynasty is popular, should EVERYONE be forced to watch Duck Dynasty? If the two most popular foods in America turn out to be hotdogs and chocolate ice cream, should EVERYONE have to eat those two foods at every meal? We laugh at this sort of thinking in the marketplace, but that’s exactly the philosophy liberals have with government.

In reality, liberals believe in a system which results in a wide variety of views. Unlike many conservative, liberals encourage and support a wide variety individual choice–not only in popular culture but in life styles.

Considering recent headlines, it is not surprising that Hawkins distorts the Affordable Care Act with no recognition that the individual mandate was an option of a position long-promoted by conservatives, and that Obamacare provides people with more choices in health care. While liberalism has promoted a market economy, liberals recognize that there are areas where the market fails, such as in the financing of health care. The Affordable Care Act is giving choices to people who were denied health care coverage due to having medical problems–a fundamental failing of the old system. Supporting a solution using government in such situations is far different from conservative use of government to try to ban abortions, impose vaginal probes on women, restrict access to contraception, ban same-sex marriage, and prevent the use of marijuana, even for medical needs.

The historical trend has been towards liberalism. Some liberal gains of the past when government did impose restrictions, such as prohibiting child labor, are now widely accepted. Social Security and Medicare are considered essential portions of the social safety net by most people. We have reached a tipping point in which same-sex marriage is rapidly being accepted, and ending marijuana prohibition will probably follow soon after. Conservatives are on the wrong side of history–and their problem is only exacerbated when they show how they are out of touch with reality when they claim to be the party which supports liberty.

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Posted in Democrats, Economy, Health Care, Republicans, Separation of Church and State, Social Issues. Tags: , , , . No Comments »

Wingnuts Say The Darndest Things: Bombing Iran

October 23, 2013 — Ron Chusid

“What are we going to negotiate about? I would say ‘Listen, you see that desert out there, I want to show you something.’ …You pick up your cell phone and you call somewhere in Nebraska and you say, ‘OK let it go.’ And so there’s an atomic weapon, goes over ballistic missiles, the middle of the desert, that doesn’t hurt a soul. Maybe a couple of rattlesnakes, and scorpions, or whatever. Then you say, ‘See! The next one is in the middle of Tehran. So, we mean business. You want to be wiped out? Go ahead and take a tough position and continue with your nuclear development. You want to be peaceful? Just reverse it all,  and we will guarantee you that you can have a nuclear power plant for electricity purposes, energy purposes.’–Sheldon Adelson, a major financial backer of Mitt Romney

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Conservative Denial of Republican Racism

October 12, 2013 — Ron Chusid

The Republican Party bases much of its appeal on racism and fear, scaring middle class white voters into voting against their true economic interests. They scare people into voting Republican out of fear that poor minorities will take their money, with greatly exaggerated views of the cost of programs such as welfare and foreign aide. At the same time, they have no concept of the real redistribution of wealth underway in this country–Republicans transferring wealth to the top one-tenth of one-percent at the expense of the middle class. While racism permeates the Republican Party and Tea Party movement, they tend to be in total denial of their own racism. Joe Wurzelbacher, better known as Joe the Plumber, posts that American Needs A White Republican President.

It is hard to deny that a headline such as this is not racist, but Joe the Plumber follows with: “Wanting a white Republican president doesn’t make you racist, it just makes you American.”

The true racists according to Joe appear to be Mexicans,  liberal blacks, and white Democratic presidents. He wrote that, “Many deranged Mexicans believe we should open the country up to them, some saying that much of America belongs to Mexico anyway.”  As for blacks and white Democratic presidents:

Liberal blacks have disagreed with most Republican presidents since Eisenhower, yet these blacks are not considered racists. In fact, when blacks had sanity and disagreed with the policies of racist white Democrat presidents, nobody accused black people of being racists.

Joe believes that blacks should vote Democratic because, he claims, “Reagan ushered in a veritable Renaissance for blacks.” His source? Fox News. Remember what David Frumm said about the effect of Fox creating an artificial reality for Republicans just a few days ago?

Joe also cited current economic data as reason why Obama has been bad for blacks. I haven’t checked on his actual statistics, which I would be skeptical about, but the key factor which Joe ignores is the economic crash caused by Republican economic policies under Bush and the fierce battle waged by Congressional Republicans to hinder economic recovery, especially for the poor and middle class. It would take someone from the Fox artificial reality to really believe that blacks would not be even worse off now if John McCain or Mitt Romney were deciding economic policy instead of Barack Obama.

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Some Honesty From A Republican

October 9, 2013 — Ron Chusid

David Frum has often questioned Republican behavior since leaving the Bush White House. I imagine that is due to a combination of factors including the Republicans moving much further towards the extreme right, and as those not working for someone in office have more freedom to tell the truth. His list of Seven Habits of Highly Ineffective Political Parties provides some useful insight into how the saner Republicans think. In some cases he is wrong, such as in not believing we can afford to do what the rest of the world with modern economies can in providing affordable health care for all. At least he concedes that Obamacare is not the calamity they claim:

If the United States has remained a constitutional republic despite a government guarantee of health care for people over 65, it will remain a constitutional republic with a government guarantee of health care for people under 65. Obamacare will cost money the country doesn’t have, and that poses a serious fiscal problem. But it’s not as serious a fiscal problem as is posed by the existing programs, Medicare and Medicaid, which cover the people it costs most to cover. It’s not a problem so serious as to justify panic.

Yet panic has gripped the Republican rank-and-file since 2009—and instead of allaying panic, Republican leaders have aggravated and exploited it, to the point where the leaders are compelled to behave in ways they know to be irrational. In his speech to the “Bull Moose” convention of 1912, Teddy Roosevelt declared, “We stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord!” It’s a great line, but it’s not a mindset that leads to successful legislative outcomes.

He gave arguments other than racism for Republican hatred of Obama:

Barack Obama was never likely to be popular with the Republican base. It’s not just that he’s black. He’s the first president in 76 years with a foreign parent—and unlike Hulda Hoover, Barack Obama Sr. never even naturalized. While Obama is not the first president to hold two degrees from elite universities—Bill Clinton and George W. Bush did as well—his Ivy predecessors at least disguised their education with a down-home style of speech. Join this cultural inheritance to liberal politics, and of course you have a formula for conflict. But effective parties make conflict work for them. Hate leads to rage, and rage makes you stupid. Republicans have convinced themselves both that President Obama is a revolutionary radical hell-bent upon destroying America as we know it and that he’s so feckless and weak-willed that he’ll always yield to pressure. It’s that contradictory, angry assessment that has brought the GOP to a place where it must either abjectly surrender or force a national default. Calmer analysis would have achieved better results.

True, the know-nothings of the far right would oppose any educated president who acts like they are educated. They just can’t stand things like facts as they show that right wing policies make no sense. The right wing base also hates America for our freedoms, desiring to replace our liberal heritage with religious their religious beliefs. There are reasons besides being black that Republicans dislike Obama. This does change the fact that racism is endemic in the conservative movement and being black did lead to immediate and unreasonable opposition to Obama. If conservatives were willing to look at Obama’s actual beliefs, they might never agree with him on some social issues, but they would see that he is relatively conservative on many economic issues and is willing to compromise on quite a bit. Of course Obama may hold the view of  an Eisenhower Republican on many issues, but to the far right Eisenhower was suspected of being a Communist.

The other most important confession from Frum is on the role of the right wing noise machine:

The actor Hugh Grant once bitterly characterized his PR team as “the people I pay to lie to me.” Politicians do not always need to tell the truth, but they always need to hear it. Yet hearing the truth has become harder and harder for Republicans. It takes a very unusual spin artist to remember that what he or she is saying isn’t actually true. Non-politicians say what they believe. Politicians sooner or later arrive at the point where they believe what they say. They have become prisoners of their own artificial reality, with no easy access to the larger truths outside. This entombment in their own artificial reality was revealed to the entire TV-watching world in Karl Rove’s Fox News election night outburst against the Ohio 2012 ballot results. It was the same entombment that blinded Republicans to the most likely outcome of their no-compromise stance on Obamacare—and now again today to the most likely outcome of the government shutdown/debt ceiling fight they started.

The false narrative created by the far right is a dangerous threat to democracy due to the need for an informed electorate. It becomes even more dangerous when conservative politicians believe their own lies.

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Posted in Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Democrats, Economy, George Bush, Health Care, Republicans, Social Issues. Tags: , , , , , , . No Comments »
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