Too bad not enough people are interested or involved enough to be able to sort out truth from fiction...and Republicans want to make the education system dumber so kids won't grow up recognizing what is wrong with our government and society with the motivation to fix the bad things...it's just going to get worse if Americans don't start waking up to reality.
They enjoy a good work of fiction. They should read Grimm's Fairy Tales or Innocents Abroad or other Samuel Clemens works. & I'm sure the right's Evangelical element would find plenty of things to get tied in knots over. They enjoy shaking their fists in indignation. They should travel back in time to the 1950's, not much to rend their garments about there. Only segregation, & making sure that certain groups keep low profiles, stay in their place or else almost TOTALLY INVISIBLE except to be objects of derision. I have a cousin who enjoys " The Andy Griffith Show ", likely because 95 % of the characters, background or prominent are WASPs with pink skin, button noses & who attend church every Sunday & are possibly lifelong hidebound Republican for life.
Okay, the presidency. The election was November 2020. check. The counting of ballots? that lovely day 6 Jan 2021. The inauguration - 21 Jan 2021. So many people not paying attention. How do people not remember any of these activities?
Please also recall the red scare tactics of milhaus nixon and reaganomics that got us here and gave rise to this mess. republicans cut taxes - they can’t govern.
Very few people understand this today. I think those elements the are the root of the current Republican hubris and actions. It’s been going on for so long that it feels normal to them. Except their targets are now The People.
What I don't understand is, everything Republicans spew, can be fact checked. Yet, they refuse to to question or research the lies. Newt Gingrich may have started the enemy theme, but the Mango Moose Knuckle surely took the grift and lies to astronomical proportions. True insanity.
You've put your finger on what I call "The Great Liberal Fallacy" - to wit, that if you show someone the truth, they'll change their minds. It's simply not true. They're not interested in the truth; they're concerned with what they want to believe.
Back in 2001, I was as scandalized as a vast number of others by the Bush associate who denigrated the "reality-based community". It was 10 years later that I learned the rest of the statement: "We create our own reality." And it was a few more years of researching the history of Republican election shenanigans and talk-show radio etc. that I realized he meant that literally.
And that was 20 years after a Reagan campaign worker, after Reagan's election, was taxed with Reagan's "Chicago welfare queen" - one of his nods to white prejudice - being largely fictitious. The aide shrugged and said, "So what? It made the point." A totally false point which was intended to conform to existing prejudices and become ensconced in the lore. It must be true - Reagan said so! Sound familiar?
We Hawaiians are very familiar with American falsehoods because America rewrote Hawai'i's history. I never read about the overthrow of our monarchy in any of my history books. It still only is one sentence in my son's history book. Then they had people fooled into thinking that Hawaiians wanted annexation until the Ku'e Petitions were found with evidence that 95% of Hawaiians opposed annexation. 130 years later, America continues its deceit to this day by denying Hawaiians their own lands which were stolen from them and by poisoning our water with their jet fuel.
Except they won't compete and govern in the realm of reality. They're already entrenching themselves in state legislatures and, by extension, the electoral college by completely ignoring (or suppressing) the will of the voters and trying to lock up every unfavorable issue in the courts for years. They are like craven, amoral ticks who feed on the soul of America. We must dislodge them by all means short of violence.
That's precisely what they're doing. Perfect world though, demographic shifts are so overwhelming that their incentives change. But you are 100% right, as of now, the incentives for them are such that they will just continue and even escalate their anti-democratic anti-truth policies and tactics.
They are completely brainwashed by Fox News and other Right Wing propaganda media. Not sure anymore if they will ever come back to reality. It's truly frightening to see what they say on social media.
I used to think the Republican party, like most right-wing parties, was controlled by a group of high-functioning sociopaths who were cynically manipulating the ignorance and prejudice of their followers. Now it seems like the division has become so blurred that leaders and followers are equally removed from reality. Lie for long enough and you don't just become dishonest, you become stupid.
> As Milbank notes, you can trace a direct line from Gingrich during the Clinton years to the Benghazi investigation during the Obama years, which led directly to the overblown Hillary Clinton email probe, which of course ultimately helped lead us to Trump.
This isn't wrong, obviously, but I think it's important to trace the line further back, to Nixon, Goldwater, and Agnew in the 1960s. No doubt a historian of the relevant period could continue the trace back into the 1930s, to opponents of the New Deal. The present reactionaries have their roots then, in the First Red Scare and its aftermath. By the 1950s, they had coalesced into a key political force, strong enough to either provide or receive the backing of an ambitious Vice President. From the late 1960s to the early 1990s, they gradually consolidated their power within the Republican party, and then Gingrich carried this style of politics into dominant political binary.
Seen much about TFG’s criminal trials or the 2024 election in the last 36 hours?
When will the public wake up and realize the GOP is all about projecting their shiny new perceptions about anything on social media to deflect attention away from other current events? It’s like everyone suddenly has ADD and no meds.
Plus, Roy Cohn taught TFG that deflection is most effective with nonstop hyper-aggressive punching, lies and deceit. It takes years to be convicted for punching, lies and deceit while the fight only takes a short time. Scary to think the “conviction rules” are likely to change if TFG wins in 2024.
Too bad not enough people are interested or involved enough to be able to sort out truth from fiction...and Republicans want to make the education system dumber so kids won't grow up recognizing what is wrong with our government and society with the motivation to fix the bad things...it's just going to get worse if Americans don't start waking up to reality.
They enjoy a good work of fiction. They should read Grimm's Fairy Tales or Innocents Abroad or other Samuel Clemens works. & I'm sure the right's Evangelical element would find plenty of things to get tied in knots over. They enjoy shaking their fists in indignation. They should travel back in time to the 1950's, not much to rend their garments about there. Only segregation, & making sure that certain groups keep low profiles, stay in their place or else almost TOTALLY INVISIBLE except to be objects of derision. I have a cousin who enjoys " The Andy Griffith Show ", likely because 95 % of the characters, background or prominent are WASPs with pink skin, button noses & who attend church every Sunday & are possibly lifelong hidebound Republican for life.
Thank goodness, good Christian’s , not the nationalists, are seeing clear eyed, we just have keep our eyes open
Okay, the presidency. The election was November 2020. check. The counting of ballots? that lovely day 6 Jan 2021. The inauguration - 21 Jan 2021. So many people not paying attention. How do people not remember any of these activities?
The propaganda is going to get even more bold, and soon. Watch out.
We all have to be vigilant
Please also recall the red scare tactics of milhaus nixon and reaganomics that got us here and gave rise to this mess. republicans cut taxes - they can’t govern.
Very few people understand this today. I think those elements the are the root of the current Republican hubris and actions. It’s been going on for so long that it feels normal to them. Except their targets are now The People.
Don’t forget about Roy Cohn(Trump or as I call him the Big Orange Wannabe Goodfella BOWG)worshipped at his feet.
Yup like trump up rich people arse with trillions
The most potent poison of democracy is a witch's brew of malevolent Republican lies and naive, gullible citizens.
What I don't understand is, everything Republicans spew, can be fact checked. Yet, they refuse to to question or research the lies. Newt Gingrich may have started the enemy theme, but the Mango Moose Knuckle surely took the grift and lies to astronomical proportions. True insanity.
You've put your finger on what I call "The Great Liberal Fallacy" - to wit, that if you show someone the truth, they'll change their minds. It's simply not true. They're not interested in the truth; they're concerned with what they want to believe.
Back in 2001, I was as scandalized as a vast number of others by the Bush associate who denigrated the "reality-based community". It was 10 years later that I learned the rest of the statement: "We create our own reality." And it was a few more years of researching the history of Republican election shenanigans and talk-show radio etc. that I realized he meant that literally.
And that was 20 years after a Reagan campaign worker, after Reagan's election, was taxed with Reagan's "Chicago welfare queen" - one of his nods to white prejudice - being largely fictitious. The aide shrugged and said, "So what? It made the point." A totally false point which was intended to conform to existing prejudices and become ensconced in the lore. It must be true - Reagan said so! Sound familiar?
When they are not being diligent students of Goebbels, they're also brushing up on any and all means of suppressing "undesirable" voters.
https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/seven-times-conservatives-have-admitted-they-dont-want-people-to-vote/
MTG: "We don't need no steenkin' Fact Checks!"
We need to stay on her lies like stink on poo
We Hawaiians are very familiar with American falsehoods because America rewrote Hawai'i's history. I never read about the overthrow of our monarchy in any of my history books. It still only is one sentence in my son's history book. Then they had people fooled into thinking that Hawaiians wanted annexation until the Ku'e Petitions were found with evidence that 95% of Hawaiians opposed annexation. 130 years later, America continues its deceit to this day by denying Hawaiians their own lands which were stolen from them and by poisoning our water with their jet fuel.
Except they won't compete and govern in the realm of reality. They're already entrenching themselves in state legislatures and, by extension, the electoral college by completely ignoring (or suppressing) the will of the voters and trying to lock up every unfavorable issue in the courts for years. They are like craven, amoral ticks who feed on the soul of America. We must dislodge them by all means short of violence.
That's precisely what they're doing. Perfect world though, demographic shifts are so overwhelming that their incentives change. But you are 100% right, as of now, the incentives for them are such that they will just continue and even escalate their anti-democratic anti-truth policies and tactics.
So we remain even more vigilant
They are completely brainwashed by Fox News and other Right Wing propaganda media. Not sure anymore if they will ever come back to reality. It's truly frightening to see what they say on social media.
And Cnn and similar are too nice about it
My MIL believes anything Fox News or Dennis Prager tells her. 😢
Yes, Fox News brain is still very much with us.
OMG...don'tcha love it when their lies come back to bite them in the butt.
Except they generally don't and they just continue on as if it never happened...
This was a great post. Thanks!
I used to think the Republican party, like most right-wing parties, was controlled by a group of high-functioning sociopaths who were cynically manipulating the ignorance and prejudice of their followers. Now it seems like the division has become so blurred that leaders and followers are equally removed from reality. Lie for long enough and you don't just become dishonest, you become stupid.
> As Milbank notes, you can trace a direct line from Gingrich during the Clinton years to the Benghazi investigation during the Obama years, which led directly to the overblown Hillary Clinton email probe, which of course ultimately helped lead us to Trump.
This isn't wrong, obviously, but I think it's important to trace the line further back, to Nixon, Goldwater, and Agnew in the 1960s. No doubt a historian of the relevant period could continue the trace back into the 1930s, to opponents of the New Deal. The present reactionaries have their roots then, in the First Red Scare and its aftermath. By the 1950s, they had coalesced into a key political force, strong enough to either provide or receive the backing of an ambitious Vice President. From the late 1960s to the early 1990s, they gradually consolidated their power within the Republican party, and then Gingrich carried this style of politics into dominant political binary.
The Party, Wut A Yuge Surprise . .
With Gravitas, Not Hanged Mike nailed Populism
since in the Grand Old a widening Schism . .
It's not really Conservative! . .more like radical
left wing Perversity . .Seeing thru a dark Rule By One Man
Big Government! twisting prism . .
# Killed By He Touches It Dies . ..
Seen much about TFG’s criminal trials or the 2024 election in the last 36 hours?
When will the public wake up and realize the GOP is all about projecting their shiny new perceptions about anything on social media to deflect attention away from other current events? It’s like everyone suddenly has ADD and no meds.
Plus, Roy Cohn taught TFG that deflection is most effective with nonstop hyper-aggressive punching, lies and deceit. It takes years to be convicted for punching, lies and deceit while the fight only takes a short time. Scary to think the “conviction rules” are likely to change if TFG wins in 2024.