Raymond #wingnut

Raymond #wingnut motherjones.com

On November 06, 2012, The United States of America passed away with an almost silent whimper. She was 236 years old. The grand old lady died of neglect, stupidity, arrogance and pure abuse at the hands of both her leaders and its ignorant populace. She will be survived by the Socialist Democratic Republic of Obamerica or SDRO.Also killed in this same massive, catastrophic, progressive wreck were personal freedoms, American values, exceptionalism, The Constitution, economic growth, conservatism, fiscal sanity, American unity, free markets, life's sanctity, marriage between man and woman, Republicanism, free will, self-reliance and many more so mutilated as to be unrecognizable any longer. July 4, 1776 - Born
November 6, 2012 - Committed Suicide

63 comments

old comment by Filin De Blanc

"I mean, sure, it's fun to see these wailing, blubbering rants, but I find it almost incomprehensible that ONE lost election is literally the end of the world for these guys..."

I think it might be because Obama was already the president when he won the election - he's had some time in office, and people have seen what he's done in office, and they still want him. It was one thing when he won the first time, but this time, he actually has a record as president (that conservatives don't like) that can be scrutinized, and people have looked at his record and said "yeah, I want this guy back in over Romney" instead of running for the hills. Obama failed to magically fix the US during his first term, which leads to the conclusion that he won primarily because people flat-out prefer his politics over Romney's. And since Romney's politics are basically the core GOP base, it's hard to escape the conclusion that the public, on balance, simply does not like the GOP message. And if that's true, then it doesn't matter who they come up with next time, because that person will still have most of the same policies that made Romney so unpopular. The fact that Obama still won after all the shit thrown at him is a sign that the US just likes democrat policies better than republican ones. And if that's true, the GOP is screwed.

old comment by Canadiest

I'm just going to pick on one thing here

"exceptionalism"

Anyone who brings that up as an argument loses my respect as that has only been touted as a virtue by the most ignorant, talentless figures in politics and media.

Like Palin. It's the Ugly American who demands, by nothing but their chance birth in America that they are a the top in everything and are to be respected, even obeyed for that alone. There's nothing else there, when they try to break it down they show the hypocracy and ignorance behind the catchphrase "exceptionalism": That America invented everything, is the first and only democracy on Earth and have a glorious unblemished history.

I hear it from only the biggest bullshitters in the game.

old comment by Doubting Thomas

On November 06, 2012, The United States of America passed away with an almost silent whimper.

All these butthurt Republicans declaring the United States dead are free to pack their bags and GTFO. The rest of us have important work to do to actually save our country.

The grand old lady died of neglect, stupidity, arrogance and pure abuse at the hands of both her leaders and its ignorant populace.

"WAAAAAAAAH!!!! People didn't vote the way I wanted them to!!!" Get over it. Democracy means that sometimes you don't get your way. And extreme right-wing conservatism is slowly dying out anyway.

Also killed in this same massive, catastrophic, progressive wreck were personal freedoms

Don't talk about personal freedoms dying when you're a member of a party which plans to ban abortion and install Christianity as the official state religion. And don't forget what Rick Santorum, a one-time Republican candidate for president, said about Americans not having the right to privacy and it's the government's duty to police people's bedrooms.

Republicanism ... so mutilated as to be unrecognizable any longer.

Your fellow Republicans did this to themselves. They allowed their party to be taken over by the evangelicals and teabaggers and moved to the extreme right, and now even after the election, when the voters showed they prefer a more moderate candidate, the Republican party wants to move even further to the right.

At any rate, please whine more. I was starting to miss all the tears of impotent Republican rage.

old comment by Doubting Thomas

Filin De Blanc's astute analysis is pretty much spot on. The Republicans know that people overwhelmingly supported Democratic policies and rejected the Republican platform. They know the country is moving more toward the center or left, yet they don't know how to adapt and instead cling to their ultra-conservative ideas. Worse yet, their party has moved even further to the right in recent years, and it doesn't appear to be shifting back toward the center any time soon.

But I think also there is a huge undercurrent of racism running through conservatism these days, with the idea that a black president is not only a completely horrible and worthless president, but one who wants to actually destroy the country. So the fact that he was reelected means that these racist conservatives just can't handle the fact that the entire country isn't as racist as they are.

And finally, as I've postulated before, it seems that most conservatives tend to isolate their news sources to conservative talk radio and Fox News, and surround themselves with like-minded people to reinforce their beliefs. It's the same communal reinforcement that religious people use. So when they keep hearing how terrible a president Obama is, and all their friends are saying the same thing, they think that everyone across the country thinks like they do and were genuinely surprised that Obama won reelection even though all the polls showed him leading since Romney won the Republican nomination.

old comment by dionysus

@Grimsoncrow- Some people think Obama is the anti-Christ. Others think he's some kind of neo-Lenin. Still others think that he is out to destroy jobs. And then there's the racists. These are the people that I can see posting what Raymond posted.

@The Knight of Pinata- They've been whipped up by propaganda, mainly from Fox News. They honestly believe that Obama is the worst president in US history and that he is solely responsible for everything bad that's ever happened including the deficit, which Republicans like Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II actually contributed far more to. This propaganda was meant to rev up the base for the election but now we see the effects of it.

@fishtank- I don't remember many on the left thinking Bush's re-election was the death of the United States. I do remember them thinking that Bush was going to declare war on the entire middle east though and claiming that Bush was going to institute martial law.

old comment by

@ Raymond

It's in large part because of the state of the media and the education system here. The Republicans have a 24/7 propaganda system in Fox News and talk radio, almost all of which, nationwide, is owned by just a handful of right-wingers,

Regular network news is also slanted to omit facts that would counter them. They control the vast majority of network TV and much of the print news. Fox and the radio nutjobs put out this ridiculous doomsday misinformation around the clock, and the corporate controlled news does nothing to debunk it. In fact, they give the insanity credence by pretending there's some legitimate debate about the lies. In many parts of the country, there is literally not one non-Republican propaganda radio staton or television/paper news source. There is no real information.

After the last two elections, radio stations in large cities like New York and San Fransisco which did have liberal talk radio (read: factual news) pulled those highy rated shows and replaced them with right-wing propaganda, even though it's losing them money in those liberal markets (although I believe NYC has finally gotten at least some of theirs back). More stations are scheduled to be changed over in January as a consequence of this election.

They've also changed school curricilum in many states to reflect their views, and have bought positions on faculties of universities all over the country.

It's exactly like a cult, in which part of the misinformation campaign is to brainwash these people to believe that the other side is evil and no information that comes from it should be believed.

old comment by J. James

@Grimsoncrow, Piñata
We Americans do things differently. Although our two-party system may seem similar to a Parlimentary system on the surface, in reality it's quite different. America has long been evenly matched between center-leftists and heavily right-wing conservatives; this causes us to vascillate wildly between the two dominant parties. Each party is diametrically opposed to the other- complete and total opposites in every conceivable way. There is literally no workable common ground, none. If one party takes up a position of the other, the other immediately attacks it and does the opposite, and vice-versa.

Because the country is pulled in such different directions, in practice the only way for the current minority to influence things(they do not compromise or work together) is to obstruct the majority party in whatever way possible, usually by abusing the checks and balances system or the unintended procedural loophole known as the "filibuster." This is extremely aggravating for the party in power, because their attempts at furthering their agenda or even simply ruling the country are thwarted. This in turn breeds further animosity.

The result of this us-versus-them style of politicking is people like this, who see someone in power who is their complete and utter antithesis, and they despair. Because our right-wing party is the more extremist of the two, and has its own dedicated propaganda network, their fear is greatly exaggerated.

old comment by Mattiedef

@Grimsoncrow

There's extremists on both sides that respond to losing an election the end of the world. Due to the way the country works with checks and balances, along with other effects, no party is usually able to pull too much one way or the other. Sometimes through obstruction, sometimes because some things require super majority, and other this and thats. Especially funny because the Senate and Congress are way more important to running the country than the POTUS. He has a lot of De Facto political clout, but his De Jure role is basically head diplomat and head of the military forces. I think in both roles he's done very well, with some blemishes on his military record.

I remember hearing how the world was going to end During the Bush Election, just it was from people worried about martial law and stuff like that and it was mostly left/anarchist leaning individuals. I think the key difference is for Obama is that both Right/anarchist and Right/authoritarian are having a shitter bends about him so it sounds louder.

old comment by Hasan Prishtina

J. James, I think your view of Republicans is accurate for the party that the GOP has become in the last fifteen years or so and particularly since the Tea Party got going. There was a time when Republicans did indeed just sit it out until the next time - if you look at the reactions when Nixon lost to Kennedy, a loss that was highly controversial, you'll find none of this wild ranting except from John Birch types who had very little traction within the party. That said, the GOP in 1960 was very much more moderate than it is today.

It is also a recent phenomenon that Republicans do not work with Democrats. Even as recently as John McCain's campaign, the candidate's history of bipartisan work was touted as something very much in his favor. At local level, Republican governors work with Democratic legislators. Mayors, alderpersons, elected officials on school boards and in the judiciary all work together even now because so much of what they do is relatively uncontroversial.

Things change when you get Tea Party supported candidates who appeal to the right-wing base in primaries like Richard Mourdoch, whose interesting views on abortion etc. won him the primary in Indiana over Richard Lugar who was conservative but had a long record of bipartisan support. Think also of Scott Walker in Wisconsin who unveiled his anti-labor agenda only once he was governor-elect.

old comment by Hasan Prishtina

In the UK, political parties have a lot of control over who gets appointed as a candidate for local councillor, never mind MP, and they have to stay 'on-message,' pretty close to the party line. In the US, outside the few weeks between the convention and the presidential election, there is no unified party platform so that Republicans and Democrats can say pretty much what they like as long as the electors will have them. That means you have relatively liberal Republicans in New England and conservative Democrats in Arizona.

The presidential election system doesn't help much. The Iowa primary, being the first one, does a lot to determine the field. The decision as to who gets to be president is to a great extent therefore in the hands of a few ideological headbangers (left or right depending on primary) who brave the snow drifts in January to vote in a few rural counties where there may only be a total of a few hundred registered voters for both parties. It's not the best way to decide who runs the country.

old comment by J. James

Hasan, what I meant to convey is that the divisions between left and right have existed for a long time, and they are what led to the tactics we see currently. Naturally, filibuster abuse was nigh unheard-of until the late 20th century. I did not mean to imply it has always been like this; in fact to do so is a disservice to the severity of the crisis, there were some periods in our history that the parties were so similar it was a problem in and of itself!

What strikes me in particular about the whole partisanship situation is that it feels a bit like whiplash. Parties used to control government for incredibly long stretches of time. Nowadays, it's almost gotten to the point where one party holds office for a term and then the other does, then back again, and so on. It's taking the two squabbling sides and yanking them even further apart.

old comment by Metallic Space Dragon

@ Hasan Prishtina

As I seem to be the only Iowan who comments here (and only semi-regularly), I want to correct two things that you said in your second post.

First, we have caucuses here, not primaries. New Hampshire has the first primary. For those who don't know the difference, caucuses are basically small conventions where people talk about who they support and try to convince others to support the same candidate, and then at a set time votes are based on where people stand in the room (literally). Some may consider it undemocratic since it's not a secret ballot, but on the other hand it allows people to share their ideas and listen to others in the party, perhaps allowing them to consider issues they wouldn't have otherwise.

Second, contrary to stereotypes, not every caucus involves braving snow drifts, as on average the winters here have gotten tamer; there was no snow here in a lot of places during the 2000 caucuses. Blame global warming or whatever you think might be the cause, but this chestnut is falling away.

old comment by Bored now

You guys know that your left wing are about equivalent to the right wing in the uk, right? And the UK's left wing looks positively conservative in parts of Europe (Sweeden, Denmark, The Netherlands) and all of those countries still function just fine, and have done for some time now. Honestly folks being a little left of centre doesn't turn you into the USSR any more than being a little right of centre will immediately make you start goose stepping. Seriously. Calm the fuck down and if a policy is happening that you don't like, protest, write to your representative. Or, you know, cry on a forum and leave actual civil engagement to the grown ups

Raymond #wingnut motherjones.com

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