Thread: The Republican Crackup

An interesting piece on why the right-wing has gone so batshit (on this board and elsewhere) that a thoughtful middle-of-the-road corporate democrat like Obams is demonized as a "Nazi" or a "socialist" or an "alien". All the foaming at the mouth is undeniably entertaining, but it is useful to try to understand its' reasons.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...d=opinionsbox1

"The Republican crackup

By Matt Miller
Tuesday, March 31, 2020

Has anyone else noticed that seemingly well-adjusted Republicans have been driven insane by the passage of Obamacare? You can catch them muttering under their breath, whimpering on editorial pages and howling to the moon that this Democratic victory is the death knell for much that we cherish in American life. When I first saw a Republican friend jump out the window in this fashion, I assumed it was an isolated incident, or even politically motivated play-acting. Now that I've seen countless others follow suit, however, it's a phenomenon that merits deeper psychological inquiry.

As a matter of objective reality, after all, this Republican derangement seems an absurd overreaction. How could taking Mitt Romney's health-care plan national be seen by any balanced person as the beginning of the end? Still, everyone knows that too many big, stressful changes at once -- such as getting divorced, changing jobs and moving homes -- can push even sturdy people over the edge. Three sudden emotional shocks likewise explain the Republican crackup.

Shock 1: Losing big. For starters, Republicans simply have not lost on an issue this big in decades. Media coverage features so many breathless political ups and downs that it's easy to assume each party tastes victory and defeat in equal measure. But as a matter of ideology, these overheated fights take place between the 45-yard lines on a field that conservatives shrewdly tilted to their advantage several decades ago. That President Obama could move the debate to the 40-yard line and win is something the modern GOP has never experienced. Republicans mauled President Clinton when he tried to do the same; after 1994, Clinton's "wins" were trumped-up and tiny. Republicans have so successfully framed the debate for so long that they don't know what it feels like to be thoroughly beaten. Who wouldn't feel disoriented and angry?
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Shock 2: The quest for security. The next blow is the dawning awareness that the quest for economic security in a global era is reshaping politics. The instant premise of Republican analysis -- that the public will never tolerate Obamacare's repeal once it is implemented -- concedes the point that health reform will bring a measure of security that families crave. The Republican psyche is having so much trouble digesting this reality, though, that the party is resorting to the kind of condescending arguments for which they normally damn liberals. Who's got more contempt for the average American? Liberals who say everyday Kansans vote Republican because they're too dumb to grasp their own economic self-interest? Or conservatives who now say voters are too dimwitted to see that Obamacare will devour their freedom?

Deep down, Republicans know they haven't developed serious policy responses to the economic anxieties of the middle class. This (rightly) scares them.

Shock 3: The death of the tax issue. The final shock is the cruelest of all: the demise of the tax issue that's defined the Republican brand since Ronald Reagan. There's been no shortage of conservative carping since the health-care vote that we're now doomed to have a value-added tax to fund the runaway welfare state. Well, earth to GOP: Taxes have always been destined to go up as baby boomers retire and we double the number of people on Social Security and Medicare in the years ahead -- and the scale of that retiree commitment is far greater than the tab for Obamacare. Trying to blame health reform for the higher taxes in our future is another species of the denial that has left GOP tax talk almost comically detached from reality. But this is just the GOP acting out its fears. When a party discovers that core aspects of its political identity no longer offer meaningful answers to the nation's problems, the torment is acute. Yet what else can we say of the GOP now that "rugged individualism" won't suffice to save American workers from competition from China and India, and when taxes are sure to rise, no matter how many Republicans we elect?

The signposts in the Republican universe have been abruptly altered. So don't let yourself become desensitized to the sight of conservatives stumbling, lost in the night, the way you avert your eyes when passing poor homeless souls on the sidewalk. Suffering is subjective. There are people on the street who really think they are Jesus. There are Republicans in our midst who really think Obama's version of Romneycare equals socialism. There but for the grace of God -- and maybe a little less sloppy thinking -- go we.

Matt Miller, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and co-host of public radio's "Left, Right & Center," writes a weekly online column for The Post. He can be reached at mattino2@gmail.com.

You are a fool.

Here's another example of Obama care reaction....

THIS GUY IS MY NEW HERO!!!!

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/...296,full.story

A doctor who considers the national health-care overhaul to be bad medicine for the country posted a sign on his office door telling patients who voted for President Barack Obama to seek care "elsewhere."

"I'm not turning anybody away — that would be unethical," Dr. Jack Cassell, 56, a Mount Dora urologist and a registered Republican opposed to the health plan, told the Orlando Sentinel on Thursday. "But if they read the sign and turn the other way, so be it."

The sign reads: "If you voted for Obama … seek urologic care elsewhere. Changes to your healthcare begin right now, not in four years."

Originally Posted by Downbound Train

You are a fool.

Here's another example of Obama care reaction....

THIS GUY IS MY NEW HERO!!!!

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/...296,full.story

A doctor who considers the national health-care overhaul to be bad medicine for the country posted a sign on his office door telling patients who voted for President Barack Obama to seek care "elsewhere."

"I'm not turning anybody away — that would be unethical," Dr. Jack Cassell, 56, a Mount Dora urologist and a registered Republican opposed to the health plan, told the Orlando Sentinel on Thursday. "But if they read the sign and turn the other way, so be it."

The sign reads: "If you voted for Obama … seek urologic care elsewhere. Changes to your healthcare begin right now, not in four years."

Data is not the plural of anecdote.

The thing that cracks ME up the most is that the Republicans and Tea-Partiers(I seperate Republicans from Tea-Partiers because an alwful lot of the T-Party are Independant or Libertarian based and not Republican. Indeed, many consider the Republican Party as NOT conservative ENOUGH), are bashing the hell out of a health care plan that is basically the spitting image of the Mitt Romney health care plan!!!

So it seems to me, they are just taking partisianship to the EXTREME...and bashing EVERYTHING Obama does. Even Clinton and Carter didn't get as much bashing as Obama!!! Not even close! I wonder if Obama's being black (or half-black) has anything to do with it on a sub-conscious level??

Clinton pushed Healthcare reform for YEARS, and I don't remember HIM being ripped so savagely. I really must believe that race at least sub-consciously has something to do with it. Remember, it was only in the 1960's that racism, segregation and Jim Crow laws were still widely evident throughout America...including the northeast.

I don't think those wounds have fully healed yet...not even close. I think it is time for some of these Obama-bashing conservatives to take some introspection, and try to devine whence their hatred stems.

I bash Obama from time to time too, but usually because he is taking actions TOO centrist or right-leaning or not environmentally sensitive ENOUGH.

Originally Posted by Alaskan Rover

The thing that cracks ME up the most is that the Republicans and Tea-Partiers(I seperate Republicans from Tea-Partiers because an alwful lot of the T-Party are Independant or Libertarian based and not Republican. Indeed, many consider the Republican Party as NOT conservative ENOUGH), are bashing the hell out of a health care plan that is basically the spitting image of the Mitt Romney health care plan!!!

So it seems to me, they are just taking partisianship to the EXTREME...and bashing EVERYTHING Obama does. Even Clinton and Carter didn't get as much bashing as Obama!!! Not even close! I wonder if Obama's being black (or half-black) has anything to do with it on a sub-conscious level??

Clinton pushed Healthcare reform for YEARS, and I don't remember HIM being ripped so savagely. I really must believe that race at least sub-consciously has something to do with it. Remember, it was only in the 1960's that racism, segregation and Jim Crow laws were still widely evident throughout America...including the northeast.

I don't think those wounds have fully healed yet...not even close. I think it is time for some of these Obama-bashing conservatives to take some introspection, and try to devine whence their hatred stems.

I bash Obama from time to time too, but usually because he is taking actions TOO centrist or right-leaning or not environmentally sensitive ENOUGH.

Sweet blog man, way to throw the race card in there as well. Here I was worried that you might come up with an original, intelligent argument, thanks for proving me wrong

Originally Posted by whatcomridaz

Sweet blog man, way to throw the race card in there as well. Here I was worried that you might come up with an original, intelligent argument, thanks for proving me wrong

Whatcomridaz:

Sardonic wit aside, a logical person, if viewing the present Obama-bashing from somehow OUTSIDE the subset of the argument, would be remiss NOT to consider race as perhaps catalytic to the savagery of the argument.

It IS a possibility, at least...and thus cannot be fully excised from the argument.

Besides...why on earth would I give essential weight to the thoughts of one who so inelegantly wears his viewpoints on his "electronic shirtsleeve", exemplified by: "Liberals are a cancer to rational thought."

Originally Posted by Downbound Train

You are a fool.

Here's another example of Obama care reaction....

THIS GUY IS MY NEW HERO!!!!

."[/COLOR]

like we needed even more evidence of your total douchebaggery. You really are advocating a country where essential services should be denied to people who have a different belief than you? I knew you were a piece of shit but I had no idea you were this big of a piece of shit.

Obama himself bashed "obamacare" before it was known as such and only known as the proposed health-care plan of presendential candidate H. Clinton.

And anyone who can laud underhanded deals and bribes in order to pass legislation is a moron, regardless of which party they belong to.

The only "winners" here are the politicians, despite the partisan cock-sucking that many of you have going on. It's sad that a person's hatred of the other party is so easily able to blind him/her from reality.

Originally Posted by Downbound Train

THIS GUY IS MY NEW HERO!!!!

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/...296,full.story

A doctor who considers the national health-care overhaul to be bad medicine for the country posted a sign on his office door telling patients who voted for President Barack Obama to seek care "elsewhere."

"I'm not turning anybody away — that would be unethical," Dr. Jack Cassell, 56, a Mount Dora urologist and a registered Republican opposed to the health plan, told the Orlando Sentinel on Thursday. "But if they read the sign and turn the other way, so be it."

The sign reads: "If you voted for Obama … seek urologic care elsewhere. Changes to your healthcare begin right now, not in four years."

LOL! Sounds like that guy is really cracking up. Funny shit.

Will be curious how they spin the fact that Obamacare is pretty much the same as Romneycare.

Doh! Looks like they are already having trouble:

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, to Matt Lauer on whether “the current version of health-care reform is what Mitt Romney, as governor of Massachusetts, got passed back there”: “Well, I would just defer to all the people, including the president and others, who have said there are a lot of similarities between it. … [Romney is] a sharp and good leader, and he’s a friend. If he had been governor the last four years, I believe he would have done some things to try to adjust it or to improve it.”

Time to figure out a way to spin it stat! Maybe feed Romney to the wolves and start calling him a Nazi and Socialist?

Originally Posted by nutcase

like we needed even more evidence of your total douchebaggery. You really are advocating a country where essential services should be denied to people who have a different belief than you? I knew you were a piece of shit but I had no idea you were this big of a piece of shit.

Dude, it's party first for DBT. He could care less about this country as long as his side wins.

Tommy is absolutely correct. Nobody will ever vote for a Republican ever again because they suck so badly. We should just stop having elections. It's pretty pointless.


You shoulda stayed with Poison, dude.

Party first???

Would that be the party I have voted against in the last 2 Presidential elections?

Listen you stupid fucks. Romneycare is socialized medicine too. I do not nor did I ever endorse it. As I may have said before, I will vote Libertarian or Constitutional Party again if Romney is the Repub choice.

Also, try not to act so shocked that there are American's who want the government to follow the Constitution as the founders intended it. WOW! That's RADICAL!!!!!

Originally Posted by nutcase

like we needed even more evidence of your total douchebaggery. You really are advocating a country where essential services should be denied to people who have a different belief than you? I knew you were a piece of shit but I had no idea you were this big of a piece of shit.

Statism (or etatism) is an ideology advocating the use of states to achieve goals, both economic and social. Economic statism, for instance, promotes the view that the state has a major and legitimate role in directing the economy, either directly through state-owned enterprises and other types of machinery of government, or indirectly through economic planning.[1][2] It may also refer to a political philosophy that holds that

sovereignty is vested not in the people but in the national state, and that all individuals and associations exist only to enhance the power, the prestige, and the well-being of the state. The fascist concept of statism, which as seen as synonymous with the concept of nation, and corporatism repudiates individualism and exalts the nation as an organic body headed by the Supreme Leader and nurtured by unity, force, and discipline.[3]

I don't know if I can get enough of this definition of your boy. I may put in every thread for the rest of my life!

Originally Posted by Alaskan Rover

Whatcomridaz:

Sardonic wit aside, a logical person, if viewing the present Obama-bashing from somehow OUTSIDE the subset of the argument, would be remiss NOT to consider race as perhaps catalytic to the savagery of the argument.

It IS a possibility, at least...and thus cannot be fully excised from the argument.

Besides...why on earth would I give essential weight to the thoughts of one who so inelegantly wears his viewpoints on his "electronic shirtsleeve", exemplified by: "Liberals are a cancer to rational thought."

Meh, You made your point, you aren't capable of rational thought... For example take the inverse of your argument. Start with a quick analysis of his support base from the exit polls: minorities, under 30 (highest % of unemployed), etc.

Let's start with the assertion that Obama may not have been elected if he weren't partially black. It's proven he motivated a disenfranchised group of voters, many of whom ordinarily would not have voted and most without any knowledge of his record, policies, etc were firmly in his corner based solely on race. Now the final number is obviously contentious but with 95% of the black vote leaning Obama's way the force and motivation is un-debatable.

The second tier of support are those beholden to the Govt for handouts. Guess what 80% of the states with the highest unemployment rates voted for Obama, of those unemployment is "listed" at between 11-15% (they also represent over 30% of the nations population). Within that tier is the under 30 subset with much higher unemployment rate 20+% in most of these states.

This formulates a logical postulation that Obama's support would actually be much lower if he weren't continually extending the role of the government in supporting the populace and if he wasn't partially African-American.


So I'd love to argue with you about this all day, but I've got several contracts to complete that will create work instead of bantering about how bad the shit really smells.

Originally Posted by NICETRY

Time to figure out a way to spin it stat! Maybe feed Romney to the wolves and start calling him a Nazi and Socialist?

Nah, just call him a Mormon. It worked in the last Presidential election.

Originally Posted by glenplake

Obama himself bashed "obamacare" before it was known as such and only known as the proposed health-care plan of presendential candidate H. Clinton.

And anyone who can laud underhanded deals and bribes in order to pass legislation is a moron, regardless of which party they belong to.

The only "winners" here are the politicians, despite the partisan cock-sucking that many of you have going on. It's sad that a person's hatred of the other party is so easily able to blind him/her from reality.

32 million formerly uninsured people who will get coverage are winners.
300 million plus US citizens who will no longer be a risk of policy denial due to pre-existing conditions or of policy termination because of insurance company whims aer winners too.

Originally Posted by tommyvee

32 million formerly uninsured people who will get coverage are winners.
300 million plus US citizens who will no longer be a risk of policy denial due to pre-existing conditions or of policy termination because of insurance company whims aer winners too.

So, all these great outcomes happen with fairy dust? There are no unintended consequences for manipulating 20% of the largest economy in the world?

When we have cronic 10-15% unempolyment, lines for Dr.'s, degraded quality of health care, lowered standard of living for all but government workers, loss of national soverenty to the Chineese, who will you blame?

A political philosophy that holds that sovereignty is vested not in the people but in the national state, and that all individuals and associations exist only to enhance the power, the prestige, and the well-being of the state. The fascist concept of statism, which as seen as synonymous with the concept of nation, and corporatism repudiates individualism and exalts the nation as an organic body headed by the Supreme Leader and nurtured by unity, force, and discipline.

Originally Posted by Downbound Train

So, all these great outcomes happen with fairy dust? There are no unintended consequences for manipulating 20% of the largest economy in the world?

When we have cronic 10-15% unempolyment, lines for Dr.'s, degraded quality of health care, lowered standard of living for all but government workers, loss of national soverenty to the Chineese, who will you blame?

Did not and do not claim no consequences, unintended or otherwise. Merely responding to the claim of "no winners".

Any political action has winners and losers, and for HCR the losers are high-income people paying a surtax (although I will shed no tears, even if the bracket includes my income sometimes).

If Obamacare will lead to all these negative consequences, why have none of them happened in all the other industrialized nations of the planet, which have had universal medical coverage for decades??

Anyone who claims the US standard of living is higher than northern Europe's social welfare states does not know what they are talking about. Cash incomes are sometimes higher in the US, but the costs of private insurance, health care, retirement, education overwhelm any advantage,
the crowds of homeless desperate people common in US cities do not exist in
Europe's social welfare states.

In the normal process of social evolution, US society will eventually arrive at the level of civilization that Europe has currently achieved. The right-wingers will be dragged kicking and screaming the whole way, but we will eventually arrive. When the R's started using funding cuts for Medicare as a plank in their attempts to derail "government health care", it showed how nearly impossible removing social safety nets becomes once they are implemented. So the ratchet will gradually result in a more humane and gentler form of capitalism in the US, after many Tea Bagger head explosions.

Originally Posted by whatcomridaz

Meh, You made your point, you aren't capable of rational thought... For example take the inverse of your argument. Start with a quick analysis of his support base from the exit polls: minorities, under 30 (highest % of unemployed), etc.....//.....

As I am sure you'e aware, whatcomridaz, inferring plausibility of one's argument by 'taking the inverse' of the argument of one's opponent is no way to win points in a debate.

The question I had poised was: 'To what extent are issues of race catalytic to the conservative right's nearly anomolic savagery in attacks against Obama?' Your inversal does nothing to negate the premise nor answer the question whatsover.

And yes,whatcomridaz, I am indeed a student of the faculties of rationality and logic. Sometimes I delve into the irrational simply as a mode of entertainment, of that I must confess...however, such is not the case this time.

Originally Posted by tommyvee

Did not and do not claim no consequences, unintended or otherwise. Merely responding to the claim of "no winners".

Any political action has winners and losers, and for HCR the losers are high-income people paying a surtax (although I will shed no tears, even if the bracket includes my income sometimes).

If Obamacare will lead to all these negative consequences, why have none of them happened in all the other industrialized nations of the planet, which have had universal medical coverage for decades??

Anyone who claims the US standard of living is higher than northern Europe's social welfare states does not know what they are talking about. Cash incomes are sometimes higher in the US, but the costs of private insurance, health care, retirement, education overwhelm any advantage,
the crowds of homeless desperate people common in US cities do not exist in
Europe's social welfare states.

In the normal process of social evolution, US society will eventually arrive at the level of civilization that Europe has currently achieved. The right-wingers will be dragged kicking and screaming the whole way, but we will eventually arrive. When the R's started using funding cuts for Medicare as a plank in their attempts to derail "government health care", it showed how nearly impossible removing social safety nets becomes once they are implemented. So the ratchet will gradually result in a more humane and gentler form of capitalism in the US, after many Tea Bagger head explosions.

Other nations don't have Obamacare, you may want to look into some of the distinct differences.

And this whole comparing us to Europe thing is such a subjective argument. We have completely different cultures that can't be measured by the same metrics. Also, European self-made millionaires are nowhere near as prevalent as US made millionaires. The majority of the people who yearn for the European system are those who would rather settle for a comfortable mediocrity than risk achieving wealth with the consequence of less.

Originally Posted by Downbound Train

Party first???

Would that be the party I have voted against in the last 2 Presidential elections?

Listen you stupid fucks. Romneycare is socialized medicine too. I do not nor did I ever endorse it. As I may have said before, I will vote Libertarian or Constitutional Party again if Romney is the Repub choice.

Also, try not to act so shocked that there are American's who want the government to follow the Constitution as the founders intended it. WOW! That's RADICAL!!!!!

You don't know the first thing abot the Constitution as the founders intended it.

Originally Posted by glenplake

....//....The majority of the people who yearn for the European system are those who would rather settle for a comfortable mediocrity than risk achieving wealth with the consequence of less.

Glen Plake: Can I have your Autograph? Ha ha....when I first saw your nick, I wasn't sure if you were the REAL Glen Plake, or not. I see you say you're not. Oh well.

So far on here, I have seen Franz Klammer and Jeremy Jones too. Jeremy Jones might indeed be the REAL Jeremy Jones. But I sorta doubt Franz Klammer stops by here using his REAL name....he is just a BIT more famous than Jeremy Jones...ha ha. Although Jeremy Jones IS a true god in the small circles of extreme skiing and riding.

Anyway....there are becoming more and more self-made folk in Europe. I think one should best have TWO attributes: 1) The wish for self-improvement...and note that this need not always be monetary self-improvement. 2)The desire to make the world, or even one's own neighborhood, a better place. I think those two attributes are FAR more noble an aspiration than merely the seeking of wealth.

Originally Posted by glenplake

Other nations don't have Obamacare, you may want to look into some of the distinct differences.

And this whole comparing us to Europe thing is such a subjective argument. We have completely different cultures that can't be measured by the same metrics. Also, European self-made millionaires are nowhere near as prevalent as US made millionaires. The majority of the people who yearn for the European system are those who would rather settle for a comfortable mediocrity than risk achieving wealth with the consequence of less.

The evidence is unequivocal that countries with high income inequality have high rates of crime as common sense would indicate.
(http://siteresources.worldbank.org/D...Inequality.pdf)

From my travel experience, countries with fairly equal income distributions and strong social safety nets like Northern Europe are open, low-crime, and relaxed societies.

Meanwhile in extremely unequal societies, the poor live in squalor and the rich cower behind guard walls/dogs/private security, increasing the quality of life for neither the over or the under class.

Perhaps because the right is so motivated by greed and explicitly argues that greed should be the central organizing principle of society, the idea that people might take philosophical and political positions that are not purely motivated by self-interest is hard for them to wrap their minds around.

My income and assets are such that I personally benefit from Republican policies ("tax cuts for the rich" benefited me). But I believe their policies are bad for the nation, for the planet, and for my children. Since I am not motivated by dreams of wealth, the Euro bargain, where homelessness and medical bankruptcy are essentially eliminated in exchange for higher taxes on the most financially fortunate, makes sense to me.

Culturally the US and Europe are very similar, and the claim that the policies employed in Europe will inevitably have certain consequences in the US should encourage anyone not blinded by ideology to look for those consequences manifested in Europe after decades of policy implementation. The fact that those predicted consequences are absent would affect any fact-based opinions, while of course having no impact on blind evidence-free ideology.

It is truly amazing how riled up the right is with this Obama guy. Violence against people with Obama bumper stickers, lack of decency of elected officials, you name it, they are frothing at the mouth.

Talk about whiners. Where was this outrage over Bush. I mean there were Friday protests and the like but nothing like this. Guess the left is too meek to start an all out attack like this. And presumably has better manners, but I am not sure about that.

Originally Posted by tommyvee

The evidence is unequivocal that countries with high income inequality have high rates of crime as common sense would indicate.

From my travel experience, countries with fairly equal income distributions and strong social safety nets like Northern Europe are open, low-crime, and relaxed societies.

Meanwhile in extremely unequal societies, the poor live in squalor and the rich cower behind guard walls/dogs/private security, increasing the quality of life for neither the over or the under class.

I can definitely vouch for that last part!! When I was a little kid, after our family moved from Geneva, Switzerland, we didn't move back to the U.S., but instead moved directly to Mexico City, Mexico. We WERE one of those family's living behind high walls with private security (there was a guard shack at the end of our driveway, strangely enough), although we didn't exactly cower. Little kids would come to our gates selling oranges through the gates, and there were families LITERALLY living in carboard boxes and tin-roofed shacks maybe half a mile from where we lived in the political/corporate enclave of Pedregal. I always felt more of an affinity with those kids selling oranges in barefeet than with my fellow classmates at the "American School" where we all went every day. The school was like a compound, too...and had everything, whereas the local public schools had almost nothing.

I also realize however, that that money begotten, afforded the very education with which I make use of now. A vexing scenario, to be sure. Perhaps it is always like that. Would I wish to BE one of those kids selling oranges barefoot? Interesting question...partly yes and partly no.