The party of Lincoln has disappeared! According to all those red-meat-loving, sound-byte delivering, 21st century GOP primary voters, government is irrelevant , irresponsible and ridiculous. And so are their candidates for president in 2012.
Televangelist, Pat Robertson declares them too radical; mainstream media pundits, whose bottom line depends on these candidates’ credibility, impotently query each other after Herman “front-runner” Cain’s newest, weird ad. Rick Perry decides, due to his utter inability to articulate in a debate setting, not to debate anymore. What are the rest of us to make of this bunk?
Serial presidential candidate, Mitt Romney is supposed to be the “serious” one. Yet, anyone paying cursory attention knows he has flipped on every issue one can mention. Remember when John Kerry was the biggest, baddest flip-flopper ever? Way back then, (in 2004) it was a very bad thing. Now, Cain flips then flops in the same sentence – heard his stance on abortion? or his 9-9-9/9-0-9 economic solution? How about his frivolous excuses for his lack of a foreign policy? But, hey, now that Cain’s got a “flat” economic plan, we watch the rest of the field scramble to think flatter, despite economists’ lack of serious regard for any advocacy for even greater income inequality. In this skewed, fun-house mirror of a Republican world view, this passes for relevant political discourse. Go figure!
We’re expected to pretend that Newt Gingrich is a great political mind, that Rep Ron Paul’s official position of “no” on everything government would work for the country, that Rep Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum’s views endorsing government based upon their “Christian values” would even qualify as constitutional – we’re expected to swallow bunk on steroids. How did things come to this? And when will these things go away?
For those foolish enough to still cling to the futile hope that is Texas Gov. Rick Perry, I offer this,
just because George W. Bush made fools of all of us doesn’t mean Perry can too. Here’s why: Rick’s daddy was never president; Rick Perry cannot automatically count on the ruthless Rove machine’s backing; Perry has to follow W. It wasn’t long enough ago even for short-attention-span American voters to forget, Bush was arguably, one of the worst presidents this nation has ever had to suffer.
That being said, a Perry resurgence as primary favorite is not impossible; hell, in this field, anything’s imaginable! Polls have Cain and Romney but it’s early, and Republican primary voters are, at this point, solidly anti-reality after pushing the credulity meter towards looney for the last three or so decades. Political and media talkers rarely bother bringing “facts” into any GOP discussion for that is sure to result in a loud rendition of facts are irrelevant when, It’s all Obama’s fault anyway.
So, putting Republican insanity in context, is it any wonder these heroes emerged at this moment in history? Just look at what they are stuck trying to sell: supply-side, laissez-faire economics, lower/no taxes on business and the rich, no regulations, no collective bargaining, no social safety net, a “corporate state.” And, look who they are pitching it to: about 10 percent of the voting age population – those who participate in Republican primaries: a narrow, apparently angry, arguably sociopathic cult of fact deniers. All the while, the emerging Occupy movement stands in stark contrast and grows in notoriety and popularity.
Buffoonery, hypocrisy, egomania – could these be the presidential traits much desired by Republican voters? If they are not, what happened? – did the GOP leadership sign a no-vetting pledge? Has there been enough flip flopping to render the candidates’ original positions a mystery? And if there are virtually no actual positions, so what? These candidates just made themselves more attractive to the “low information” and “independent” voters. Genius!
Nihilism is a philosophy that denies the existence of objective grounds for truth, especially moral truth. It promotes a belief that conditions in the social organization can be bad enough to make destruction of that organization desirable for its own sake. Yeah…sound familiar? Nihilists are radicals; they can say and do anything and then justify their behavior within their beliefs, like breaking a government while complaining that it is broken. Ladies and gentlemen: The Next President of the United States? I can’t pretend that hard.