Republican woes heading into 2016 are both amusing
and highly predictable. Few of us back in 2012 imagined any other
outcome. Yet Steven Benen at MSNBC, perhaps because the mainstream media
hesitates to say anything negative about the republican cabal,
suggested last week
that it has only now become apparent that Republican woes are less
about their nomination process and more about their platform.
Plainly put, that their base – and their candidate – are batshst crazy.
In fact, rather than calling Priebus’ plan of
attack for 2016 idiotic, Benen called it “well-intentioned.”
Well-intentioned, I suppose, if your plan all along was to completely
misread the situation and – as Republicans are wont to do – fix a
problem that doesn’t exist rather than addressing real problems.
As Benen explains it, what was supposed to happen
was that “Republicans would curtail the number of debates, choose
moderators satisfying to the cabal, front-load the nominating process,
and effectively stack the deck in favor of established, 'electable'
candidates.”
That assumes, of course, 'electable' candidates be in the deck. None are.
What is funny about fixing nonexistent problems is that they did it to themselves
this time, rather than to the rest of us. Great hilarity has ensued,
and we will likely still be laughing on Election Day. The next morning
will be a day of rest, because we will be laughed out at yet another
display of wanton incompetence.
In fact, until the Republican cabal realizes that it is their
thinking that is the problem, this will continue election cycle after
election cycle with no end in sight. The old saw tells us that stupid
people are unable to tell that they are stupid, because they’re stupid.
It takes a wise man to know, like Socrates, that he knows nothing, and
that it is this admission of ignorance that makes you truly wise.
The Republican cabal, unfortunately for wingnuts, has fallen
victim to its own constructed narrative of an America that does not,
and has never, existed, and which therefore can never be “taken back.”
You can’t take back what you never had. And it shouldn’t take a Socrates
to tell you so.
To be sure, ideology is to blame as well. Everyone
has their own personal ideologies but these are vastly different both in
type and in scale from what is afflicting the Republican cabal. This is an ideology
that has delegitimized all things outside itself.
After all, we have a guy who was born in the United
States, Barack Obama, whom they are certain was not born in the United
States, and a guy who wasn’t – Cruz – whom they are equally certain was born in the United States.
They have not just one, but over a dozen candidates
who think Americans are ready to throw immigrants to the sharks, by
deporting them, by erecting a giant wall, or tracking them like FedEx
packages. In fact, 65 percent of Americans favor doing something to make
these people citizens.
This is what is really happening in Kentucky:
Yet Franklin Graham – that lesser demon-son of a greater demon – insists that by imposing her religion on other people, the Rowan
County clerk is “Fighting for religious freedom for all of us.”
You can’t say that without laughing, but you can bet
there are wingnut heads wagging like dogs in agreement as they
read his words. They literally have no problem seeing the word “all”
restricted to one group. In their world, this impossible calculus works.
What can you even say to misreads like that? It
isn’t facts that inform their thinking. Facts don’t enter into it. It is
ideology, an ideology which tells them that anything of the political
LEFT is not legitimate. Conversely, everything wingnut, no matter
how illogical, contradictory, or unsupported by facts, must be
legitimate.
I have a somewhat distant relation who has no
insurance, either for himself or his family. He paid a penalty last year
and intends to pay a penalty this year. The rub is that the penalty is
more costly than the tax-effect of the subsidy he would receive on the
exchange. He would rather lose more money and have no insurance than
lose less money and have insurance – on principle, as he puts it.
As you can see, because this ideology does not
reflect let alone embrace reality, it cannot connect with the ball.
Think Palin demanding immigrants speak a language that does not exist.
It is as though the pitch being thrown is hurtling
down the plate in another dimension. Republicans can’t see it; they
can’t hit it. They are standing at the plate as the world represented by
that ball moves on, right past them.
So they are horrified and outraged that we refuse to
see their point, when the problem is not us, but them, and their demand
that we do the impossible and subscribe to a fake reality only they are
tuned into.
We, for our part, are by turns also outraged, or
moved to hilarity as they dance to a tune only they can hear. It is a
loss for the rest of us, because America needs a second, healthy
political party, but an even greater loss for them, as they can never
have their desires met, and worse, can never understand why.
Shakespeare could not have written a better tragedy than the one Republicans have created for themselves.
