Sunday, October 19, 2008

The Right Wing Authoritarians (I.e. the GOP) as Self-Parody

I know this is rather late and rather obvious, but the GOP has gotten so bad now that it has passed beyond parody into the land where GOP press releases and straight stories about the GOP are literally indistinguishable from Onion headlines and stories.

My favorite one was Palin Preempts report, clears self, in probe. I laughed my ass off when I saw it. What is truly astounding, though, is to see the predictable gaggle of Palin supporters who eat that stuff up. Then again, given the relative level of discourse from these people, I am really not surprised.

But that only explains the 25% dead-ender RWAs. What explains the rest of the voters who take McCain up into the 40s in support? I'm sure some of it is inertia. For instance, with how disgusted I am with the utter disgrace that is the Republican Party right now, I would now have a very very difficult time ever pulling the lever (metaphorically speaking since we now use optical scan sheets in my district) for an "R" politico, even if things drastically change in the next 30 years. Though I would hope that this would be overcome by the facts on the ground at the time. It is very hard to vote for the party of Rove and Bush and DeLay after seeing just what they stand for and how they go about "governing." On the other hand, there have been many many anecdotal stories of people who have voted GOP their entire lives who are now going to vote Obama after what has happened the past eight years. So this may not be as big a factor this year as in other years. Then there are those who vote pure economics - though I must think that those who have half a brain realize that trashing the economy loses them far more money than they'd lose if they didn't get a top-bracket tax break. Or did they clean up anyway with this 700 Billion dollar bailout? In either case, this is tiny percentage of the population, and not everyone in that population votes GOP.

I know there are voters who only vote against, not for, a candidate. But I'd have thought that the vast majority of those were already in the 25% who think Obama is a muslim terrorist anyway.

Truly, it is an interesting question. The last factor is the fact that Democrats seem to be very poor at campaigning and ruthlessly exploiting power.

Oh, and I suppose there are those small slivers of Hillary supporters who seem to have gone off the deep end (like Violet Socks and perhaps Octogalore) in hatred of Obama. VS seems to like to pretend that she'd never vote GOP, but her site has become of late a big advertisement for Palin and I would not be terribly surprised to find that she pulled the lever for Palin despite claims to the contrary. Certainly she is totally blind to just how horrible a candidate Palin really is. But I wonder if there is really a significant population of people in that camp. I somehow suspect not.

Right now, I just want it to be over. I want it to be November 4th so I can watch the returns and finally see the GOP knocked out on their asses. I want Obama to win with 401 electoral votes, something within the range of possibilities. I don't want the GOP defeated. I want them destroyed. Though Conan said it best:



Yes, I know, this has been shown before. That doesn't make it any less true. This is what will be on my mind on election night. I want to see 63 Democratic Senators, 275 Democratic House Members, and 400+ electoral votes for Obama. The GOP needs to be utterly destroyed, with the Rovians completely wiped out. Anything less and they'll just come back doing the same old shit next election cycle.

4 comments:

hedera said...

I hope you're right about Violet Socks (??) being a member of a very small minority of Hillary worshipers who will vote for Palin (not McCain, I observe!) because she has ta-tas. And yet - yesterday my hairdresser (solid Democrat, she) told me of a customer who was totally for Hillary and is now going to vote McCain, because of Palin... Here a few, there a few - how many are there??

DBB said...

VS has a site - reclusiveleftist.com, I think it is. I was going to link it and then I forgot to put it in. I think she supports Palin more because she hates Obama than anything else.

I was going to say something snarky about the intelligence of someone who would be a solid D and for Hillary who would then vote McCain just for Palin, but I decided I don't want to be that mean just before bed.

DataWaveTaGo said...

Perceptions

Broadcaster Rod Serling touched on one of the most troubling and disquieting aspects of human nature, our perceptions.

Here, from the epilog of "The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street" he reveals the central issue that is at the root of our divisions.

"The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs, explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices - to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill, and suspicion can destroy, and a thoughtless frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all of it's own - for the children and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is that these things cannot be confined to the twilight zone." - Rod Serling

http://ca.youtube.com/user/DataWaveTaGo

hedera said...

All very true, datawavetago; but I'd like to share a comment I got back from a poster on a local forum I frequent, in response to my hairdresser story:

"Someone very close to me, I dare not say his name, has been a lifelong Republican, and in addition, has also been very upfront in his racism. He confided in me the other day, that after the last Presidential debate (why only then?), he has decided to vote for Obama. He told me, in defense of his position, that he never in a million years would have thought that he would vote for a Black, and (raises his voice) a Democrat, at that."

The times, they are a-changin' ...