Ask a Republican and he's likely to tell you that liberals are 'moonbats' - or something like that.
Fine with me — that's one of the nice things I've been called. But what does it say of Republicans, then, when in a Newsweek poll, 52% of them said that it was either 'definitely true' or 'probably true' that President Obama wants to impose Islamic Sharia law in America? Only 40% of Republicans said it was either 'definitely not true' or 'probably not true'.
But wait — that's not all! According to this Pew poll, 31% of Republicans think Obama's a practicing Muslim — a beer-drinking, pork-eating, praying-to-Jesus Muslim, but still a Muslim! And it doesn't stop with Obama.
The head of the Hawaii GOP says a vote for a Democrat is "advancing unrighteousness." There are Tea Party people like Sharron Angle of Nevada who wants to completely end public education. Focus on the Family is now claiming that anti-bullying efforts are a front for gay rights activists. The list of sheer idiocy on the Right goes on and on.
Who is it that's pouring the grape Kool-Aid here? More importantly, why are so many of the Republicans drinking it? Worst of all, why aren't the completely sane Republicans who aren't yet party to this nonsense fighting to pull the scales from the eyes of their fellow conservatives?
The answer is obvious: power. Those Republicans who know this nonsense for what it is are more concerned with regaining power than with stopping these nonsensical rumors from spreading. However, it could also be said that the sensible among the Republicans have no choice in the matter, because they cannot politically survive publicly standing up to the conservative pundits who often push this claptrap over most of the airwaves of the nation. So far, I have yet to see a Republican politician stand up to a major conservative pundit who didn't wind up apologizing a few days later. But anyone who's familiar with Rwanda knows the power that a radio pundit can wield.
I hope I'm wrong, but to anyone with some knowledge of history this silliness among the Republicans should be very troubling. It's quite normal for conservatives and liberals of a nation to fight tooth-and-nail, but bad things tend to happen when one side has the perception that the other side is of a religion they hate. Very bad things. This is why I believe we're going to see a spasm of violence in the coming two years, probably just before the next presidential election. If we're lucky, this 'spasm' will be only that, and people will wake up to see just how far down the slippery slope to widespread political and sectarian violence we've gone. If we're not so lucky, cities will burn.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Dave Nalle
Glenn, you continue to not get it at all.
Polls do not work when they ask loaded questions like these. Half the time they just piss off the respondents and they answer with an extreme answer just to skew the poll.
As for Republicans being willing to accept the crazies to win the election - of course they are. It's a small price to pay to stop a party which is intent on destroying this country and on winning the 2010 election by fraud. The stakes are too high to quibble at this point.
What lengths would you go to if you thought you were fighting for the survival of your country?
And don't pin your hopes on gay Republicans. They may be gay, but they aren't going to move the basic agenda of the party to the left at all. They are as conservative or more so on issues other than their personal rights as anyone in the party.
The basic reality is that the people have woken up, they've drawn a line in the sand and they aren't going to give in to the false lure of bipartisanship or sit by for fraud and abuse of power any longer.
If this means unrest like the 60s then that's the way it should be. I think we'll be lucky if it doesn't turn into something much more violent. If the massive voter fraud campaign which is already coming to light in this election plays out as I suspect it will you may well see rioting and violence before the year is out.
Dave
2 - handyguy
"drawn a line in the sane" is perhaps a Freudian slip.
Letting the "crazies" [your word] -- extremists who think government is basically evil -- run the government could have plenty of unintended and unpleasant consequences.
The harsh extremism of your own rhetoric certainly has drawn a line in the "sane." It's clear you stand with the crazies.
Good luck with that.
3 - Glenn Contrarian
Dave -
Here we go with your 'massive voter fraud campaign' stuff again...never mind that you never answered my challenge in which I told you for every fraudulent vote cast due to the voter registration of a few of ACORN's foot soldiers, I'd show you a thousand voters wrongfully disenfranchised due to the efforts of the GOP and their supporters.
As before, you disagree on the effect of the demographic in years to come...but at least you do agree with me that there will be violence. Only I don't think there will be much this year - 2012's when the real crazies will come out. The vast majority of them will be right-wingers, and you know it. When it comes to manipulation of the vote and peoples' ability to vote, the vast majority of it is committed by the Republicans.
Come to think of it, maybe that's why you don't say anything about voter fraud and voter caging by the Republicans - the end you seek for the Republicans (power) justifies any means. You also agreed that the Republicans are willing to 'accept the crazies' to win the election...but you - a real honest-to-goodness historian - don't seem to see the grave danger in doing so.
You've publicly verified what I strongly suspected for the past five years. I think this is one of the comments I'm going to remember for a long, long time.
4 - John Wilson
I think Nalle has discarded the last vestiges of political reason with this statement:
"...stop a party which is intent on destroying this country and on winning the 2010 election by fraud. The stakes are too high to quibble at this point.
What lengths would you go to if you thought you were fighting for the survival of your country?"
This should be a warning to those who have advocated for Nalles reasonableness in the past.
5 - Glenn Contrarian
And Dave -
Polls do not work when they ask loaded questions like these. Half the time they just piss off the respondents and they answer with an extreme answer just to skew the poll.
I remember the first time I pointed out polls that you didn't like, and you (and Clavos, IIRC) gave me a response not much different than the above sentence.
A few weeks later I remember seeing you reference a poll - only difference was that it supported something you agreed with. I guess that's your litmus test with polls - if it says something you like, you agree with it and maybe even use it. If you don't like what it says, then "polls are worthless anyhow!"
Like the polls you referenced here and here and here and here.
But I guess polls have to be "approved by Dave" before they can be considered as trustworthy on BC Politics!
6 - handyguy
Polls should be cited with caution -- but also dismissed with caution. They are just a tool, not decisive but not meaningless.
Still, there is some truth in the saying:
Torture the numbers long enough and they will tell you what you want to hear.
7 - jeannie danna
Because the demographic of young adults is much more liberal and more culturally diverse in every way than those currently in power - and someday these 'moonbats' will be the leaders of this nation.
I'm going to disagree with you here, Glenn.
I used to believe that *my generation* would change this society for the good of all mankind. Man, was I wrong!
The truth is, the same people who are pulling all the strings now, are the same individuals whose children will be buying and controlling this country in the years to come.
Also, as long as people with little power do the bidding of those with enormous power...well you see it...Tax cuts remain at the expense of all of us.
Fools!!!
8 - jeannie danna
Glad you have our best intentions in mind, Dave. LOL
As for Republicans being willing to accept the crazies to win the election - of course they are. It's a small price to pay
Put *crazies* in power because the Liberals are going to destroy America!
:D You people need a different nomenclature for us, because youare the moon-bats.
9 - Tommy Mack
For the record, the Kent State massacre happened on May 4, 1970. The four dead in Ohio lost their lives to National Guard rifle fire. Bullets also killed “MLK, Harvey Milk, Medgar Evers, and Bobby Kennedy.” The Guard weapons were issued. The weapons used to kill King, Milk, Evers and the Kennedy brothers were protected by the 2nd Amendment ?" a favorite topic of Sarah Palin, Sharon Angle, the Republican Party and the National Rifle Association [the most powerful, single issue lobby organization in the country].
Before launching into that, however, I want to know why we never hear anything from Republicans about “Equal Justice Under Law.” Those words are literally carved in stone at the Supreme Court building. Perhaps it is because collectively all they know about the Supreme Court is that it is a great place to have some yummy Roger B. Taney stew for lunch.
Meanwhile, back at the 60s, the country elected Richard Nixon, the law and order president, to end the War in Vietnam and to restore the peace that had been missing at the end of the decade. The nation survived.
By the way, with respect to ratings, Gallup reports, “At 19%, Congress' job approval rating from the American people in August remains near the historical lows seen in recent months. Approval is a record-low 5% among Republicans and a lackluster 38% among Democrats.”
10 - Cindy
(I think the term that complements 'moonbats' is 'wingnuts'.)
11 - jeannie danna
Good article, Tommy
Tyrants...that's exactly what we are dealing with.
:D Hope my dots and little face doesn't make you ignore my compliment.
12 - jeannie danna
Hey, Cindy.
Since my last two comments to you went over like a lead balloon, I'll just say hello.
: D
13 - roger nowosielski
Whether one agrees with Dave's reasoning in #1 or not, or his perception that the party in power is intent on destroying this country - Clavos did refer to the present administration as the first "post-American presidency," and for a variety of reasons, it is an apt term - I do believe Dave is right about one thing: it is going to come down to another major confrontation between the progressive ideas (pisspoorly represented by the party in power) and those held by the radical Right (the Tea Party mentality).
So yes, I do expect a showdown, the battle to end all battles, before the dust settles and before we can rebuild again. And to the victors shall go the spoils.
It's pretty apparent, too, who the victor shall be. Progressive ideas always win out in the end, though reactionary forces can be a bitch.
Another Civil War? Not quite in my estimation. Quite the contrary, our hand will not be forced by the termoil within but by geopolitical and geoeconomic forces without. And that's how this dispute shall end.
"So It Shall Be Written, So It Shall Be Done!"
Yul Brenner in The Ten Commandments
14 - Cindy
Hiya Jeannie :-)
(No lead balloons that I saw. :-)
15 - jeannie danna
This isn't a race war as they keep telling all who dare ask what their true motives are.
Who do I refer to? The media or should I say, the propaganda specialists?
This is all going to boil down to a class war.
The haves and the haves even more. You know, W's base!
16 - jeannie danna
Of course, this is just, A View From A Broad...
:D Remember?
17 - roger nowosielski
A nice counterpoint, Jeannie, to Kenn's run-of-the-mill economic grind.
18 - zingzing
dave: "It's a small price to pay to stop a party which is intent on destroying this country..."
why would they want to do that, dave? to put themselves out of a job? to make all their money worthless? hmm?
19 - Glenn Contrarian
Jeannie
I used to believe that *my generation* would change this society for the good of all mankind. Man, was I wrong!
That's why I said I'd agree with a comparison to the liberal youth of the sixties!
Jeannie, America today - despite the worst efforts of the Roberts Supreme Court - is far more progressive than during the sixties. Do you not see how much we've already changed since then? Like I said, the Civil Rights Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Health Care Reform Act, Barack Hussein Obama...and we can add in the Clean Air Act, too!
AND (when we don't have Republicans in the White House) we've got actual enforcement of laws by the EPA, OSHA, the SEC, and a host of regulatory agencies that the Right wants to put out of the Right's misery.
No, Jeannie - we're FAR more progressive as a nation than we were in the sixties...and it's the generation that lived the Summer of Love that did it!
Someone recently wrote that what we're seeing is essentially the last gasp of Old White America. They see what they knew as America slipping away to be replaced by a far more ethnically- and culturally-diverse demographic. They know little and care less for these new cultures and ethnics.
And what's the obvious result? Fear of the unknown. That's what we're essentially seeing on the Right. That's why when they see a mixed-race guy with a funny name in the Oval Office, it's so easy for them to assume the worst about him with no evidence at all.
The demographic is irresistibly changing, Jeannie, and you could liken the nation's growing unrest to earthquakes caused by the slow, inexorable grind of plate tectonics as the Old White America gives way to the New MultiEthnic America.
Did Nixon take this long view when he accepted the 'Southern Strategy'? Doesn't look that way....
20 - handyguy
Dave's rhetoric takes on a life of its own sometimes, and pulls him off the deep end. He has been sliming Democrats for at least 4 years now, incessantly.
21 - jeannie danna
Glenn,
The sixties where smeared royally. But,it wasn't because *they smoked pot* it was the fact that they weren't consumers.
I want to think that our youth will rise up and be heard, but the facts are we are soo splintered now, you would have to create a reality show just to get the national attention.
:(
22 - jeannie danna
were not where :(opps
23 - Baronius
"MLK, Harvey Milk, Medgar Evers, and Bobby Kennedy"
King was killed by James Earl Ray, a Democrat and repeat offender out of Illinois. Harvey Milk was killed by fellow Democrat and former fellow San Francisco Boardmember Dan White. Medgar Evers was killed by Mississippi Democrat and KKK member Byron de la Beckwith. I can't find any record of Sirhan Sirhan's political affiliation, but he was motivated by opposition to Israel, so we can guess which party he'd belong to today.
24 - handyguy
Did you enjoy that bit of gamesplaying, Baronius? Do you think you actually proved something?
Southern Democrats [Dixiecrats] like George Wallace and Strom Thurmond were never in philosophical agreement with liberals from any region. In fact, they had more in common with some current Tea Party activists -- not on race necessarily but on anger with Federal overreach and the loss of "states' rights."
Dan White was a Reagan Democrat [conservative Irish Catholic variety, threatened by nontraditional sexual mores] a few years before Reagan Democrats were given a name.
People who were or would have been Dixiecrats and Reagan Democrats in the 60s, 70s and 80s are today mostly part of the GOP.
And reciting the political affiliations of murderers as if that proves something about other Democrats is snide, unfunny, and uncalled for.
You've just given us all an example of your least appealing side. Try saying something worthwhile for a change.
25 - Baronius
Listing the murders as examples of GOP criminality was much worse.