What A Country! What A People!
Peter T.
location: New Hampshire
listening to: Too much of everything!
registered: 1999.05.20
posts: 3016
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Thanks for the blow-by-blow details of last night's slugfest. You echoed what I heard on the news today (and
what I used to see on the interview segments of Vince McMahon's wrestling shows all those years ago).
Captain Lou Albano, The Grand Wizard, and Classy Freddie Blassie had that shtick perfected week after
week. As to your question whether a segment of the GOP wants to intentionally lose a few major elections, with the
hope that they'll wake up, realize the nuts they invited have spoiled (actually soiled) the party, and thus
transform into an earlier, more moderate, far less nihilistic incarnation that would really govern...I don't think
so. The GOP, like the Democrats, is a collection of many groups (the gun rights crowd, the evangelicals, the
business interests, the pro-defense types, the libertarians, the endangered dwindling number of moderates,
and surely a few others I can't recall). And of course there is overlap among these various groups. But I don't
think there is a concerted effort among sizable elements of any of these groups to willingly forgo the White
House for even one term, not with Supreme Court justice appointments on the line. I do think that the chickens have come home to roost. And the egg of this craziness probably began with
Gingrich's Contract For America. And if I may stay with the egg metaphor, it was allowed to boil for a few
decades in a toxic swamp of confirmation bias media outlets (you can guess the players). And all this was
going on while globalization, rapid technological change (and their punishing economic body blows to blue
collar America's perpetually stagnant wages). Throw in the perception of overflowing borders, fear of "the
other", and "the other" can be Muslims, immigrants, gays, secularists, scientists, liberals, the educated), and
you have FEAR and ANGER! I'm currently reading Dark Money, the story of the Koch brother's enormous, influential, and frightening
network of heavily funded foundations, think tanks, and political groups. This is ESSENTIAL reading, Reg. And the American public hasn't a clue what it's up against. Democracy is being undermined by the uber
wealthy who have little allegiance to anyone but themselves, their progeny, and their wealth preservation.To paraphrase Bill Hicks: Everything is fine America. Turn on the TV, put your feet up, turn off your mind. Peter T.
Peter T.
(view)
Thanks for the blow-by-blow details of last night's slugfest. You echoed what I heard on the news today (and
what I used to see on the interview segments of Vince McMahon's wrestling shows all those years ago).
Captain Lou Albano, The Grand Wizard, and Classy Freddie Blassie had that shtick perfected week after
week. As to your question whether a segment of the GOP wants to intentionally lose a few major elections, with the
hope that they'll wake up, realize the nuts they invited have spoiled (actually soiled) the party, and thus
transform into an earlier, more moderate, far less nihilistic incarnation that would really govern...I don't think
so. The GOP, like the Democrats, is a collection of many groups (the gun rights crowd, the evangelicals, the
business interests, the pro-defense types, the libertarians, the endangered dwindling number of moderates,
and surely a few others I can't recall). And of course there is overlap among these various groups. But I don't
think there is a concerted effort among sizable elements of any of these groups to willingly forgo the White
House for even one term, not with Supreme Court justice appointments on the line. I do think that the chickens have come home to roost. And the egg of this craziness probably began with
Gingrich's Contract For America. And if I may stay with the egg metaphor, it was allowed to boil for a few
decades in a toxic swamp of confirmation bias media outlets (you can guess the players). And all this was
going on while globalization, rapid technological change (and their punishing economic body blows to blue
collar America's perpetually stagnant wages). Throw in the perception of overflowing borders, fear of "the
other", and "the other" can be Muslims, immigrants, gays, secularists, scientists, liberals, the educated), and
you have FEAR and ANGER! I'm currently reading Dark Money, the story of the Koch brother's enormous, influential, and frightening
network of heavily funded foundations, think tanks, and political groups. This is ESSENTIAL reading, Reg. And the American public hasn't a clue what it's up against. Democracy is being undermined by the uber
wealthy who have little allegiance to anyone but themselves, their progeny, and their wealth preservation.To paraphrase Bill Hicks: Everything is fine America. Turn on the TV, put your feet up, turn off your mind. Peter T.
