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(Article changed on November 20, 2012 at 10:31)
Stuck dancing with the sclerotic herd that brung you
Beyond rightwing foment and self-flagellation, epic
dilemmas bedevil all Republican dreams of regaining a national majority:
1) Fealty to manifestly discredited belief systems (cultural,
economic, religious, and scientific);
2) Fealty to disgraced, ideological leaders whose arteries are
hardening, rhetorically-suicidal and/or slow to get demographic "death
spirals;"
3) Justified anxiety that "rebranding" different enough to engage
newly-empowered centrists will alienate far more base zealots already feeling
besieged from both sides.
4) Reactionary robber barons will keep afloat any "anti-business
Obama" gang, whatever the setbacks, with plenty more billions to secure
favorable permits, subsidies, laws, and deregulation.
In a nutshell, how does a party of insular, rigid true
believers, thrusting warlike middle fingers towards modernity, talk itself into
modernizing just because it lost one election? Aside from putting lipstick on a
pig, where's the miraculous (earthbound) agency that modernizes angry,
resentful Tea Partiers whose outrage targeted the very diverse, younger,
secular crowds now crowning the future?
GOP loyalty to losers
On point, unlike liberal losers who politely leave the stage
(nearly all but Carter and Gore since 1980), Republican flops and misfits
endure for decades, poisoning hate media and Sunday talk shows, even wreaking
havoc across GOP primaries. That Newt Gingrich, or shameless, still illiterate
Sarah Palin types get to harangue anyone beyond pets, testifies to the unholy
resilience of party-wounding blowhards. In fact, Mitt Romney looks to be the
exception by getting the quick boot, but then his staggeringly dumb remarks
justify exile to the W. gulag. Dick Cheney gets more respect.
What close observer thinks that rightwingers will adapt
simply because minority status looms? In fact, authoritarian control freaks
live off opposition, especially from upstarts with darker skins with less money
(thus moochers voting themselves
"gift' handouts). Face facts, as Mittens speaks for most Republicans (certainly
hordes of over-compensated CEOs), his party is beyond "rebranding" but needing
once-a-century reformation -- or more devastating national defeats.
Further, since Tea Party fanatics would rather fight and
lose than switch, they won't abandon prime commandments. Certainly not 1) big
government is bad government, except when killing enemies. Or 2) only low taxes
guarantee growth and job creation (ditto, less regulations and red tape). That
3) states rights are still divinely-ordained (bring back the Civil War), or 4)
Christianity is, let's be honest, the world's best, truest religion. And,
finally, what reluctant reformers doubt 5) free-market capitalism isn't
authorized by whatever Biblical texts defend profits, exploiting the earth, and
infinitely expandable markets. Hands, anyone?
Disasters only blessings in disguise
Why should hard-hearted, religious fundamentalists, in lock step with economic
fundamentalists called robber barons, reconfigure such magical thinking simply
because unwashed minorities screw up popular elections. That'd be surrendering
under siege, and good Christian soldiers reflexively distort momentary defeats
into blessings in disguise, spiritual tests airmailed by God. After all, the
big, cosmic truths are self-evident and fixed, and quick, selective historical
readings proving majorities are far less perfect than the Good Book. Plus, the
GOP is still armed and dangerous, knowing how to organize, collect billions,
forge unanimity of thought, marry old-time religion with employment and
regressive values, even do what Mormons once celebrated, "lying for the Lord."
For more on the narcotic of lying, see Amanda Marcotte's excellent
piece, "Conservatives' crisis of confidence."
Of course willful ignorance extends beyond politics, and the enduringly dumb
war against science goes beyond secession chatter after a loss. Blithering
idiots indict both the competence and honor of the entire modern science
complex, snubbing reproductive and evolutionary biology, geology, anthropology,
archeology, ecology, climatology, astronomy plus incontrovertible carbon
dating. Nor do like-minded Biblical literalists hesitate to impugn the world's
greatest experts on language, scriptural texts, even independent scholars
proving the "inerrant Holy Bible" was a calculated amalgam edited by fallible
humans, promoting consensus-building, with marketable chapters that favor
church expansion. Will those who defy this sweep of intellectual and moral
advancement reverse entrenched fantasies because a black hustler, born who
knows where, finagled his way into a second term? Is that the incentive to
abandon all that wishful thinking driving glorious conspiracy theories?
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