Something strange has happened in America in the nine months since Barack Obama was elected. It has best been summarised by the comedian Bill Maher: “The Democrats have moved to the right, and the Republicans have moved to a mental hospital.”
The election of Obama – a black man with an anti-conservative message – as a successor to George W. Bush has scrambled the core American right’s view of their country. In their gut, they saw the US as a white-skinned, right-wing nation forever shaped like Sarah Palin.
When this image was repudiated by a majority of Americans in a massive landslide, it simply didn’t compute. How could this have happened? How could the cry of “Drill, baby, drill” have been beaten by a supposedly big government black guy? So a streak that has always been there in the American right’s world-view – to deny reality, and argue against a demonic phantasm of their own creation – has swollen. Now it is all they can see.
Since Obama’s rise, the US right has been skipping frantically from one fantasy to another, like a person in the throes of a mental breakdown. […] This tendency to simply deny inconvenient facts and invent a fantasy world isn’t new; it’s only becoming more heightened. It ran through the Bush years like a dash of bourbon in water. […] But the ordinary Republican base believe this stuff. They are being tricked into opposing their own interests through false fears and invented demons.
Read the rest of the article for a lot more of a pretty clear description of how crazy all this looks to the rest of the world.
I know it is not relevant but (in other news)…
Swine flu vaccine strategy ‘risky’ — ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
“The country’s top infectious diseases body has written to the Government to warn the swine flu vaccine is being distributed too hastily, with too many risks for the public.”
Talking about left and right is ridiculous when both parties are owned by the same corporations.
It’s even more ridiculous given that the bailouts have reached $23 trillion.
It’s even more ridiculous still given that the worldwide derivatives-gambling bubble is now at $1.2 quadrillion.
Obama is just a frontman for the bankers. He is a brand, and like all brands, he exists to conceal the nasty stuff going on behind the scenes.
2 Amsterdamned,
You’re right. Dem or Repub are the exact same corporate party. They dance perfectly together…
BUT, the big thing is that a black man got elected, and that is the Elephant in the room that no one likes to admit.
#3 Named
Bingo. All of this is about a largely white, middle class worried about losing their way of life.
#3 Surely it was the best man who got elected who happened to be black. Not a black man who got elected who happened to be best.
People outside the US, with perspective, see the insanity in this:
You have to admire the audacity of the right. Here’s what’s actually happening. The US is the only major industrialised country that does not provide regular healthcare to all its citizens. Instead, they are required to provide for themselves – and 50 million people can’t afford the insurance. As a result, 18,000 US citizens die every year needlessly, because they can’t access the care they require. That’s equivalent to six 9/11s, every year, year on year. Yet the Republicans have accused the Democrats who are trying to stop all this death by extending healthcare of being “killers” – and they have successfully managed to put them on the defensive.
The Republicans want to defend the existing system, not least because they are given massive sums of money by the private medical firms who benefit from the deadly status quo. But they can’t do so honestly: some 70 per cent of Americans say it is “immoral” to retain a medical system that doesn’t cover all citizens. So they have to invent lies to make any life-saving extension of healthcare sound depraved.
I love the last line too:
Shrill, baby, Shrill!
LOL
The thing is it is hard to see the forest when you are surrounded by trees.
And the author is quite correct, Republicans and right wingers hate America.
The “Right Wing” craziness/hate was evidenced as beyond the normal two party politics during the Clinton Years. It was more on display with Bush. Just because Bushie Boy was elected President ((for two terms)) and kept most of his BS covered up, didn’t we all see most of his lies? === Cheney, Turd Blossom. Rove now demanding an apology because he isn’t in jail is just a continuing example of what this whacked out party has been doing for a long time.
I have to laugh==Obama asking for transparency, when with just a little effort, Bush was in fact quite transparent. Born again whacked out.
So, the Right Wing has not imploded. They are being exactly what they have always been. Just less smoke and mirrors in the way for the more credulous to see through.
VOTE ALL INCUMBENTS OUT OF OFFICE.
No need to know the facts once their pea brains have been made up.
On this blog, this article is redundant.
Here’s what I don’t get.
The GOP has reduced itself to small clutch of racists, religious extremists, gun hoarders and dumb screamers.
Yet, the GOP _still_ has near total control of the public debate.
Are we Americans just naturally drawn to following the worst goofballs among us?
#12–Greg==thats it. Just as you say. When an idea has captured 100% of the loons, 65% of the Republican Party, 55% of the Senate, xx% of the House, 30% of the Dems, 15% of the American PUblic, and 90% of the Media, what does it say about how “the controversy” rather than the merits, drives our political debate?
Pick your own %, the answer is the same.
VOTE ALL INCUMBENTS OUT OF OFFICE.
Funny how when Bush was President it was the left who had imploded and screaming about Bush all they could. Now that Obama is in power and the right is doing it suddenly this is new and scary? People need to stop being sheep and rooting for their parties to win like it’s a football game and realize they are bot using the same tactics to game the system.
The polarization of America has more to do with TV News, Politics, and the Internet than it has to do with policy. We live in an age where finding facts without spin is a chore, and both parties AND the government try all the time to distort facts. If you can find a way to distort the facts, there is no truth.
#6
“People outside the US, with perspective, see the insanity in this:”
People outside and a lot inside the U.S., don’t understand how the U.S. is set up to work.
The U.S. has this thing called the 10th amendment of United States Constitution.
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
Nowhere does the Constitution say that the Government is to supply health care. The states can if their own Constitutions don’t forbid it.
Most states in the U.S. are bigger some major industrialized countries anyway. So the states should be able to do it themselves.
#9 bobbo,
I finally agree with you on something.
“VOTE ALL INCUMBENTS OUT OF OFFICE.”
I don’t thing anyone should serve more than 2 terms in a row, than after that take 2 terms of from public service before running again. I
also thing they should not get retirement packages or free heath care after they leave office with the exception of the President.
“You realize,” he said, this is his own experience, and he was not a rich man, nor was he owned by rich men, he said, “When I was elected, to a six year term, if you want to be
re-elected six years later, you must raise ten thousand dollars a week for all six years of your first term.” Well, how do you do that without selling your ass? So, I don’t advise it for anybody unless you are in the prostitute business, or unless you like begging, there are some people who really like going around asking for money.
Gore Vidal
#16–jetfire==how simple minded are you? Are you actually simple minded, or just trying to bamboozle the simpletons that may pass by?
“No where does the Constitution say that the Government is to supply health care?” /// Exactly the wrong question. Where does it say it can’t? Because absent an express prohibition, the commerce clause ((as Fusion patiently points out)) has been incorrectly interpreted to allow federal regulation of every human activity.
I don’t like it, you don’t like it. Tough Titties. Thats the way it is. Its called REALITY and the body of CONSTITUTIONAL LAW established by the US Supreme Court—busy interpreting the Constitution for the last 200 years or so.
How to tell an idiot is posting on the blog ((since we can’t see his lips moving)): “The Constitution says – – -” and then whatever shit is quoted without reference to the USSC.
Well, it is at least one step above quoting the Founding Fathers, but still – – talk about your irrelevant.
Quoting Bill Maher as a Democrat is the same as quoting Rush Limbaugh as a Republican. By the very mention of a person who lives off of ratings and shock value, you associate yourself with an extreme portion of the public opinion and thus invalidate any type of point you would hope to make.
How about instead of criticizing your fellow citizens (town hall screamers) you actually take the time to listen to what these people are scared of. How about making a smart decision about the policy choices at hand instead of blindly following a charismatic leader off into the sunset. Because in the end that is what the whole debate is over, the leader. People want a leader to get behind and believe in, but unlike the distorted facts that this article states, we need a leader that actually did win by a landslide. And if you check your facts, you will find out that Barack Obama did not win by a landslide. Almost half the country voted against him, and that is pitiful considering his competition was John McCain. If Barack had of had a serious competitor for office, he would have lost, and we all know it.
He (Barack Obama) needs to do is listen to the people and what they are concerned about and what they are scared of. If he can empathize with the people enough, he might turn out to be a great President. But one thing is for sure, he wasn’t elected a great president, but that doesn’t mean he can’t become one.
#19 Dirk “aptly named” Belligerent: Whoa dude… obsessed about race much? Copy/paste from right-wing blogs much?
Example #4,743 of wingnut meltdown. Thanks, Dirk.
I’ve got a dining room table creating sound waves from his alternate universe: #19–Dirk the Jerk.
I was thinking he might be Alfie’s not retarded brother he’s been looking for but I went to his blog.
Links to Michelle Malkin. Voted for Palin.
Hah, hah.
What a dolt.
18 Liberty Lover
“Couple of problems:
massive landslide
So 3% constitutes a massive landslide?”
I’m guessing you have no idea how presidential elections are tallied… % of vote is not it. Looking at the number of electoral votes won by the democratic party indicates a definitive landslide.
http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/results/president/map.html
Even has pictures for you…
Oh oh… The King of the Dummies AlfredENewman has shown up…
Here comes the Jesus / Matrix connection…
#27–hey Alfie==where’s the religious bigotry? Did your church finally have enough and kick you out????
Is that what flipped you to this paranoid “budding Nazi” riff????
You know what your god and budding Nazi’s have in common don’t you?????
Rimshot!
#23 – Live in your liberal fart recycling chamber much? Cling to your stereotypical views of who’s a racist much?
News flash, Sparky: It’s YOU who is the racist, not me. It’s YOU who sees nothing but skin color and acts accordingly. I called out the cognitive dissonance of you unhinged liberals and you had no response other than to resort to ad hominem and calling me the racist.
I’m sure the black woman with whom I had a business with and the black guy who is one of my best friends would be surprised to hear about my pathologies as diagnosed by the likes of you. Raff.
As I said right at the top of my post, “Where would you sneering liberals be if Obama was John Edwards trying to advance the same totalitarian agenda?” If a white Marxist liberal fascist was trying to advance this agenda and people rose against them, what would you do without your race card to play? Have you failed to notice that Nancy Reid and Harry Reid, the ones crafting the legislation that Dear Leader will only be signing are WHITE? They’re getting protested even more than Obama, so is it because white people are afraid of them because they’re white?
Yeesh. I don’t even know why I bother to point out the doublethink you bozos operate under. It’s not as if you’ll suddenly wake up and realize how stupid you are and stop visually inspecting your colons.
Of course, Obama’s greatest triumph was to tailor a one-syllable mantra for his sub-literate followers to latch on to. HOPE! CHANGE! We’ve gone from the Federalist papers to t-shirts. Can we sucker guilty liberal racists? YES, WE CAN!!!!
Good thing we are all rubber on this site.
Hee, hee.
I’m going to reread that thread from a while back about the crazy nut bags who could still function in society as long as they had their props.
I wonder how many crazy blogs prop up the glue worthy who temporarily find themselves here????
Maybe a good number of the LIEBERTARIANS will show compassion and vote for taxes to re-open the sanitariums. The interwebitubes were not designed for this.
>> bobbo, best response yet said, on August 20th, 2009 at 6:09 am
>> VOTE ALL INCUMBENTS OUT OF OFFICE.
Here’s the problem with that strategy .. if we liberals vote out our half-way decent incumbents, the GOP will re-elect their looniest of loon cases.
Can you imagine Michelle Bachmann as Speaker of the House? The Senate will be run by those “C Street” nutcase senators like Tom Coburn who will block every funding decent project for America while funding every wasteful program for Oklahoma.
That’s what we’ll get!
>> Phydeau said, on August 20th, 2009 at 6:45 am
>> #19 Dirk “aptly named” Belligerent: Whoa dude… obsessed about race much? Copy/paste from right-wing blogs much?
Isn’t it funny how conservatives project all their own bad traits on the liberals?
They do it again and again and yet remain utterly clueless about it.
Well, except their media, which intentionally panders to this conservative dysfunction.
#30 Dirk says, right on cue, I’m not a racist, I have one as my bestest friend! Can a wingnut be more cliched? Who’s obssessed with the race of all the politicians? (Hint: you.) Dirk, everything you’re spouting here is cut’n’paste from wingnut blogs, cliches and everything. Are you enjoying your mental masturbation? Because that’s all it is.
And Timuchin, sorry, Obama’s not a leftist. There are leftists in this country, and they wouldn’t give billions to big banks and continue Bush’s obnoxious policies on Gitmo and spying and all that. He’s a cautious middle-of-the-roader in most aspects, but Republicans have gone so far off the rails that he looks like a radical leftist to you.
Greg, why are you being reasonable and rational?
When I beg, plead, implore, echo, that we VOTE ALL INCUMBENTS OUT OF OFFICE, I’m thinking of a mass movement where all encumbents ARE voted out of office. When BOTH SIDES are dissatisfied with their CORPORATE OVERLORDS, normally a third party arises that takes the votes from one party, electing the other party. How to prevent that and achieve the political will?
VOTE ALL ENCUMBENTS OUT OF OFFICE.
So, while we wait for the space ship, the rupture, or eternal rest above Marilyn Monroe, we just need to bide our time until the iron is HOT!!! No third party to split the vote. No==the only bi-partisan plan that can unite the party==VOTE ALL INCUMBENTS OUT OF OFFICE.
Imagine how our country could come together if one party wasn’t pimping the crazies so directly???
Do I know this won’t work??? Of course. But I can’t criticize something without offering a solution.
After all, I’m no budding Nazi.