When Karl Rove is on the Progressive side of the argument, you know how far to the Right the Republican Party has gone. I think there is a give away in the word “rebranding” because rebranding doesn’t talk about changing the product; the same stuff is still inside the can. It’s about a new label with a nice, friendly typeface, nicer colors, but what’s inside the can is the same.
- E.J. Dionne
If I were to tell you that a party that discriminates against minorities, women, people of color, the poor, the sick, and senior citizens thinks if can become the party of the majority of Americans, I suspect it would take you awhile to stop laughing. The Republican Party is engaging in its quadrennial exercise in re-evaluation and soul searching, and once again they seem to think that if they can just change the packaging the American Sheeple will see the contents differently.
That sort of thing is tough to pull of when you products is the politics of exclusion of divisiveness, and when your aspirations transparently trumpet the interests of the wealthiest among us. Time was when Republicans were people like Dwight Eisenhower; they actually possessed something resembling a heart and a social conscience. Now it seems that the underpinnings of their ideology are the Old Testament and the writings of Ayn Rand.
A credible argument could be made that the GOP is owned lock, stock, and barrel by the callous, the selfish, and the heartless. No reasonable observer could overlook the fact that Republicans have allowed their message to be hijacked by a cabal of “Kill-‘em-all-let-God-sort-‘em-out” uber-religious Social Conservatives and Rand devotees. That these zealots possess no knowledge of, and even less devotion to, the social contract says pretty much all one needs to know about the current state of the Republican Party. They’ve divided the world into “makers” and “takers,” with the “takers” being people they consider unworthy of assistance. There may be some slight disagreement on what constitutes a “taker,” but a good working definition is Mitt Romney’s 47%. Romney, and most of the rest of the GOP, has written off almost 1/2 of the population as lazy, shiftless sloths more willing to suck form the public teat than to do for themselves.
And then there’s Paul Broun (R-GA)….
I don’t begrudge Rep. Broun his evidently strong Christian faith. What I do object to is Broun’s willingness to force his narrow, intolerant, fear-based theology upon those who happen not to be “enlightened” enough to share his beliefs. His anti-science ideology is particularly disturbing when you take into account that Broun’s a licensed physician. The man’s not stupid, not by a long shot. Instead of using his considerable intellect to attempt to convince us of the superiority of his views, he’s fallen back on sheer, unadulterated religious wingnuttery. Rather than engage in reason and honest, open debate, Broun is quite happy to engage in demagoguery and a degree of willful ignorance you normally wouldn’t expect from someone with an M.D. behind his name.
Broun is hardly alone in his willingness to traffic in demagoguery and character assassination when it comes to President Obama. The list of intellectual and moral lightweights among Republicans in Congress is long and (not so very) illustrious. These are folks willing to accuse the President of being (in no particular order) a closet Muslim, a foreigner, a Marxist, a Socialist, a Nazi, and even a Communist, sometimes all at once. That the trolls tossing these accusations around likely couldn’t define any of those pejoratives is disturbing enough. The manner in which they blithely employ those pejoratives smacks of thinly-veiled racism.
Paul (“Lies straight from the pit of Hell”) Broun, as are many of the rest of his fellow demagogues, is not stupid…but you wouldn’t know it from listening to him speak to his constituents. Instead of making reasonable, intelligent, well-supported arguments, Broun appeals to the baser instincts of his constituents by engaging in fear-mongering and character assassination.
Before the GOP fiddles with the packaging, they might want to take a good, long look at what (and who) they’re selling. Without making meaningful changes in the core of what the Republican Party is and what it stands for, it’s the same old stinky cheese.
As long as Americans keep electing demagogues like Broun to represent them in Congress, Washington will continue to be gridlocked and unable to accomplish even the most basic tasks. And Congress will continue to be less popular than jock itch and Hugo Chavez.
WE DESERVE BETTER…but that starts with each of us taking our responsibilities seriously. As long as Americans votes based on fear and ignorance, we’ll continue to represented by those who shouldn’t be entrusted with managing a Dairy Queen, much less occupying a Congressional seat.
