Being Drunk Makes People Lean Conservative

The GOP’s chief tool is learned helplessness, carefully trained helplessness, leading to hopelessness. Once they have you there they can play on your anger and humiliation like a violin. They’ve been using this tool for several decades, while they’ve gradually stolen the incomes and security of the working classes. They’ve gotten us where they want us.

Here's an article about that from Salon.

From the New Yorker, another interesting psychological study demonstrates that the more drunk people are the more they will bow down to an authoritarian master, more likely to choose conservative over liberal ideas and choices.

Is America drunk––or punch drunk? And who has delivered the beating? We’ve lived through three decades dominated by Big Money and Reaganomics, which were a gift from the GOP. That's what has beaten us down. It's bludgeoned millions of Americans into this submissive mindset. And the irony is they talk and think this way while parroting the lines they've been taught by their masters. Lines like "freedom" when they're not free, and "independence" when their independence has been taken from them.

I've written before about the addled thinking of Trump supporters.

They pray for a leader who will hurt people, because they have been hurt, but they assume this leader will not hurt them.

They pray for a dictator who will do "what needs to be done" but they assume those things that will be done will be things they want done––they assume this dictator will take dictation from them personally. This isn't magical thinking. This is drunk thinking. This is fear talking, too. Scientists have also shown how making people fearful makes them choose conservative options.

There is a psychological difference between conservatives and liberals.

From Scientific American.

From Mother Jones.

Ever wondered who this Mother Jones was that they named a magazine after her? She was a tough old woman who inspired mineworkers to stand up to their bosses and throw off the burden of poor pay, unsafe working conditions, awful living conditions and a predatory pay and credit system that ruled company owned towns. They achieved this by organizing. A good place to learn about this story is on PBS, where you can watch this excellent documentary about that battle from a century ago.

Really? Can That Be True?

The Independent of London published a story today explaining how Margaret Thatcher was actually a liberal. Really? I said. Then I read the article. Not really.

Actually it said, or seemed to say, that Margaret Thatcher was liberal toward arch-conservatives, tolerant of her own race and class, openhanded and generous with the very rich, and permissive with capitalists who found corrupt practices useful and government regulation a nuisance. She was not a liberal. It was just a tease. "We dare you to read this article." It was a provocation.

That is the point. Not honesty. Not truth. Not fact or provable logic. It’s all about provocation.

My wife summarized it in one word: CLICKBAIT.

News media are starved for validation, for numbers that will justify their ad rate, just as we are starved for the validation of “likes” on Facebook. That validation is the volume of clicks. The reader may exit the page dumber than he was going in. He may stop partway through and throw his laptop across the room in disgust. No matter. The website already scored the click. Clicks are drawn by provocation. “Come see the bearded lady” who is really a man in a dress. “Come read about this outrage.” This is the most popular because one provocation arrives with sidebars about other provocations, some of them less about issues that they are about sexual titillation.

The point is this: DONALD TRUMP AND BEN CARSON ARE CLICKBAIT FOR THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.

It doesn’t matter if they are wrong or lying or depraved or monstrous or sociopathic or psychopathic, they drive the key numbers that justify media ad revenue. Sarah Palin, the dumbest of them all (who last week said Jesus would fight for Second Amendment rights, which caused me to ring a little bell on the revenue justifier for whichever site reported it) is the ur-clickbait candidate.

We are growing stupid because of this––because journalism is supposed to inform. It’s supposed to make us smarter, to inform our judgments. Instead it is turning us into 300 million rats in a giant advertising experiment.

We are entering a second and more voluble age of yellow journalism. (I expect soon to read some editorial demanding war with Spain) with the national conversation corrupted and whipsawed for profit. It’s not just a dumbing down, it’s a brutalizing process. Donald Trump eggs on some of his followers beating up a black man one second and the next he’s lying that thousands of Muslims cheered when the Twin Towers were attacked on 9/11. Really? Is that true? “Some say…” is the FoxNews standard.

I used to have a friend who constantly said “Really?” about stuff we were kidding about. We would drop some preposterous falsehood into the conversation and she’d say “Really?” and we would all laugh at her. (We were brutes. This was years ago.) This is now the business model of journalism. The spokesmodels for this are Pat Robertson, Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, Rick "Oops" Perry and Victoria Jackson. The beneficiaries are the monied backers who want a large gullible electorate to give them power.

The GOP Math Problem

FoxNews morning hosts are disappointed with 271,000 new jobs. They were expecting more than 180,000.

Congressional Republicans show a graph that contradicts the numbers on it.

The ur-document of all the goofball Republican math is something aptly called “The Laffer Curve.” Don’t laugh.

Republican math is given more active heroic labels like “Dynamic Scoring.” DS measures what will happen after their next tax cut in the Republican Utopia. (Reuters offers this explanation.)

Like in the Republican Wonderland called Kansas where lower taxes was supposed to increase revenues and balance the Kansas budget but did the opposite.

(Forbes examines the corpse.)

TIME gives a second opinion on cause of death.

Salon explains the mathematical deficiencies of Reaganomics' faith-based math.

Doonesbury explains Kansas more humorously and clearly than anyone else.

In Kansas the people who live there are living with their mistake. How much do they regret electing the math-impaired Governor Brownback? The view from Kansas.

In Wisconsin, Brownback’s evil twin, Scott Walker, has similar problems with the numbers. The Washington Post explains.

Despite all the evidence, Republicans keep doubling down. Down is Up. Subtracting makes the number larger. The Atlantic reports.

If you have a dismal record as a CEO that makes you a stellar Republican candidate for president. Carly Fiorina is the reincarnation of W, the perfect Republican who fails upward and upward.

Is it real math or “Republican math”? Even FoxNews's favorite Fox Blonde has her doubts.

In Congress the math is also upside down. The Democrats got 1.4 million more votes nationally and still have far fewer seats in the House. Bloomberg explains, or tries to.

Since the Right and the GOP begin and ends with FoxNews, here is a graphic they used to describe the failure of Obamacare.

The Republican Clown Car

Our news media forces itself to make “all things equal” when reporting on politics and policy.

The frequent stupidities of the pols on the Republican side are downplayed and underreported. If they were all reported it would make the mainstream media appear biased. Can’t have that. And the rare occasion when a Democrat goes slightly left of center calls for a media-wide news alert. Democratic stupidity is as rare as Republican stupidity is commonplace, but it’s the job of the media to balance the two, to make the two parties appear equally intelligent and equally right about everything.

It’s always best to err on the side of judging Democrats more harshly. It’s become a national habit. There’s a mindset that says Republican = Grown Up and Democratic = Radical. That hasn’t been true since we learned how radical and unevolved Nixon was and how consistently Democrats are on the right side of nearly every pressing national issue.

Here are a few bits I saw in the news stream today:

Lindsey Graham’s announced that he would order drone strikes on American citizens in this country if they “even thought about” getting involved with a terrorist group. "I’m not going to call a judge. I’m going to call a drone, and we will kill you.” He did not specify whether he thought the biker gangs who shot up that restaurant in Waco were terrorists. It would be safe to assume he’d restrict his drone kills to Muslims and persons of color. Senator Graham is running for president.

As reported at Slate.

Reported at Talking Points Memo.

David Brooks is the Right Side talking head in just about every two sides panel on radio and television. It’s his job to disagree with any policy proposed by any Democrat and to justify every policy enacted by every Republican. Which is why he’s never stopped loving George W. Bush’s War in Iraq.

David Brooks as Salon tries to make sense of him.

When Jeb Bush tried again to explain whether he’d invade Iraq, knowing what we know now, he said No, but carefully explained that his brother’s White House were unlucky and got bad intelligence about Saddam.

Which isn’t really true. Bad intelligence was all that they would accept. All they wanted was intel that told them to invade immediately and that our troops would be greeted as liberators and that it would be a cakewalk. Candy and flowers. (Candy and flowers are what you give your spouse when you’ve committed an unforgivable sin. I put the Iraq War in that category.)

Jeb Bush's very very bad week explained by Mother Jones.

Of course most “serious” news sources are more focused on whether he was able to dissemble skillfully. A well-told falsehood is more admirable than a sound foreign policy. If one Republican makes a fool of himself it’s always necessary to come up with one who didn’t.

The Hill does its best to put Jebbie's stumbles in context. (It's always inside baseball stuff in their minds.)

The really scary thing you don’t hear on the nightly news is this: Jeb Bush’s stellar foreign policy brain trust are the same idiot who brought us the Iraq War. They’re also the same guys who traded arms for hostages with Iran and illegally funded right wing death squads in Central America.

The Washington Post has a very useful Venn Diagram to explain why Republicans keep making the same mistakes and loving the same stupid policies.

And they’re also the same idiots who didn’t see 9/11 coming, even though the CIA was ringing the alarm bells for months.


FirstLook puts its finger on the crux of our problem, the biggest idiot of them all, the eminence grise behind the eight year train wreck we call the Bush presidency. (It should really be called the Cheney presidency.

Serious Threat of Government Takeover in Texas (and related stories)

From NPR we have this report In Texas this week, Republican Governor Greg Abbott ordered a mobilization of the National Guard to defend his state against a takeover by the federal government. Texans have become very alarmed recently about the joint U.S. special forces and military exercises scheduled to begin in Texas and adjacent states. Concerned Texans have been emailing back and forth about imminent roundups of conservatives who will be sent to FEMA camps for indoctrination. These rumors contain a lot of vague information about secret underground tunnels at Walmart stores where this mass arrest will supposedly take place.

There’s more:

This public access program features a wonderful example of pure-hearted level-headed and completely sincere American womanhood who honestly believes the first black president is the leader of an alien invasion bent on destroying America, perhaps by sapping our precious bodily fluids. It is impossible not to believe every word she says. She has documents.

Watch and Learn.

It is in this alien conspiracy theory video that we learn, for the first time, key details of the use of tunnels underneath Walmart stores for the enslavement of patriotic Americans. Watch and inform yourself before you go out and buy large weaponry and canned goods. (But not at Walmart.)

The swift action by Texas Governor Greg Abbott precipitated some letter writing between a few apparently sane and deeply embarrassed Texas Republicans and their governor. (We may assume the letter writer is one of the Texans who has already been kidnapped by the aliens and indoctrinated in the tunnels under one of those Walmarts in Texas. They’re also warning us about Lowes stores.)

Two top talk radio hosts believe Obama is arming black urban gangs to take over the government in a coming race war. Right Wing Watch reports. It’s the typical nonsense. What’s scary is how closely this resembles the official Republican line.

Meanwhile, Back East, VOX is reporting that Senator Lindsey Graham (another patriotic Republican) has identified the greatest existential threat to Americans and our way of life. That threat, says Senator Graham (R, SC), is comprised of ANYTHING originating in the Middle East that starts with the word “Al”.

Al Qaeda begins with “Al”, which is why this makes so much sense.

Al is the Arabic word for “The.”

Again. Firearms. Canned goods. Not from Walmart.

And, for God’s sake, not from the Middle East where these items will come with the word “AL” somewhere on the label.

The tragic thing is while we’ve been worrying about the mass imprisonment and police shootings of African Americans in this country, the actual kidnapping and enslavement of real Americans in tunnels underneath Walmart stores has been planned and possibly has already begun and nobody seems to be paying any attention to the imminent danger except Governor Abbott, Senator Graham and this woman on YouTube.

Ironic.

More Observations On America's Nuttier Half

The only Republican presidential hopeful who isn’t a man has a strange opinion of working Americans. (Raw Story reports Carly Fiorina thinks working Americans watch porn all day.)

Conspiracy Theories shape the way the Right looks at the world. (Vox reports on the GOP rumor that Harry Reid got on the wrong side of the mob.)

(I wonder what Republicans would say if Scalia showed up with a black eye?)

Is this more or less bizarre than the rumor I told you about last week––that Obama tried to drop a nuclear bomb on Charleston? (Bloomberg reported on that GOP rumor.)

How’s the Supreme Court looking after a few decades of libertarian rule? (Salon's take on where SCOTUS is headed.)

Don’t worry. Scalia is so perfect he can just wing it. What does it matter if a few more innocent people are executed? Tony doesn’t know any of them. (Slate reports on Scalia's casual approach to death penalty appeals.)

Meanwhile, how’s our brilliant and always perfect private sector doing?

Private for-profit prisons find it’s more profitable to feed inmates garbage… actual garbage. Food that’s been thrown in the garbage. Brilliant. (Think Progress reports on the for-profit prison diet plan.)

Republicans believe every task that involves repairing society’s ills or dealing with pain and fear of death is a wonderful profit opportunity.

What happens when the task is less important than the profit? The Republican half of the U.S. doesn’t believe we have any obligation to treat other Americans with respect. Other Americans are just a profit opportunity. America’s problems are only a business model, nothing more.

Republican Nuttiness

New Arizona law passed by Republican legislature requires doctors to tell women that abortions can be reversed and to urge them to do so. (Reported in SLATE)

Arizona legislator (Republican) proposes law that would require all Arizonans to go to church. (Reported in the Arizona Republican)

In Oklahoma (in case you missed it) a Republican has proposed a law that would require persons wanting to get married to get permission from a clergyman. (Reported by the religion site PATHEOS)

Wisconsin billionaires appear able to pay governor money and have their taxes disappear. They get unions to disappear too. (in the Milwaukee Journal-Star)

(You save big money for the Menards, in Milwaukee Magazine)

Republicans believe bizarre rumor that Obama tried to nuke Charleston SC. (Reported in Bloomberg, which has obviously decided weird stories about a weird political party have to be reported)

A Cunning Plan To Make America Fail

The GOP Plan Looks Like A Conspiracy To Make America Fail

97 of the 100 poorest counties in the US are in Red States. True? Certainly factual. (PolitiFact) The interpretation might depend on your politics. Rural tends to mean poor. It also tends to mean Republican. Why? That is very hard to understand. Which doesn’t make it untrue nor does it make the voting habits of those poor counties seem rational. But it does supply a rationale for the leaders who like to have stupid people under their supervision, in their electorate.

Republican hero Scott Walker has led Wisconsin toward the worst end of the economic spectrum (National Memo). Why do Republicans admire that? The money men admire it because it means they’re sucking the maximum amount of wealth and income away from the majority who work for a living. Their spare change can persuade the victims that it’s a great thing for them.

This kind of outright stupidity and greed and bad planning may explain why America’s worst enemy is America itself. (New Yorker article)

The Republicans’ (and their rich clients’) uniting principals are 1. kicking the working poor off healthcare and 2. keeping unregistered immigrants outside the law so they can go on hiring them for slave wages. There is an really cruel, greedy, heartless beauty to this. (New York magazine article explaining the GOP plan to replace Obamacare.)

This is only a winning strategy because they have all the money and money buys advertising and advertising creates fear.

The Terrible Horrible No-Good Very Bad Party

I can’t decide how to characterize the GOP these days.

Are they the stupid party?

The New York Times, not prone to such language, called them idiots after their letter to Iran.

Alternet reports on the author of that letter, Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas), telling an uninsured constituent not to use Obamacare because Russian mobsters would steal her identity...

Stupid?

Or are they the incredibly insanely horrible party?

Raw Story reports on a GOP candidate in Indiana expressing frustration that nobody has the guts to let people just wither and die. (Death panels, anyone?)

Vox is reporting that Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) promised if he were president he would send troops into Congress. (Would he wear knee pants and lace like Oliver Cromwell?)

From DailyKos: A state senator in Missouri has raised a few eyebrows for subjecting two abused girls with severe emotional problems to exorcisms. When the exorcisms failed to work as expected he gave one of the girls to a friend who raped her. He insists that he is the victim.

Raw Story: Former Republican presidential candidate Pat Robertson recently advised a caller to his television program to quit her job because working alongside Buddhists might infect her with Buddhism. Buddhism being a kind of disease.

It hasn’t always been this way. A new book reviewed in the Washington Post describes how the Republican Party used to be the practical party, the party that got things done, the progressive, problem-solving party. It’s been downhill since Eisenhower.

Is Dishonesty The Best Policy?

Scott Walker is so good at driving Wisconsin into the ground he’s become a Republican superhero. People in Wisconsin love him for what he’s doing to them. Lower wages––hooray! Fewer jobs––hooray! Dumber citizens––hooray!

A conservative from the Daily Beast explains why this is so exciting(!!!)

“We create our own reality” ~Karl Rove (Meaning torture is what they say it is. If they do it it must not be torture.)

The New York Review of Books has an article describing how hard it was for the CIA to believe the White House really was giving them permission to torture.

If it takes a top scientist to understand how Republicans are lying, does it mean most people will keep believing the lies?

An interview in Salon explains a lot, but it won't be read much by people in working class bars.

Conservatives are beginning to worry that Google will begin giving a higher ranking to pages that don’t contain lies and misinformation about things like science, math, economics and law. Lying about these things is the GOP’s best strategy.

"Save us GOOGLE! You're our only hope!"

(Or: Can a kid who closes his eyes while he flies really blow up the Death Star?)

Republicans will need to hope Americans will stubbornly ignore the truth. The diehard Republican voters are a safe bet. They’re obedient. They ignore what they’re told to ignore. For them, dishonesty is the best policy. Ignorance is bliss.

Republican leadership says to states: ignore the federal laws you don’t like. The Confederacy lives!

The March of Stupid

Republican Chairman of the House Science and Technology Committee: "Why immunize my kids? They aren’t sick." (From Mother Jones)

James Inhofe, Republican Chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee: “How can there be global warming? It’s cold out today." (Reported at Vox.com)