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Forum Post: You see it Here: GOP-REJECTION Denial

Posted 11 years ago on Nov. 30, 2012, 10:02 a.m. EST by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR
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The Right-Wing Media Bubble Cocoons Republicans from Adapting to the New Political Landscape

The right can't confront the reality of their demographic challenges.

Republicans are responding to their recent losses not by moderating their rhetoric or rethinking their policy preferences, but by retreating deeper into the conservative bubble -- and hardening it lest any objective reality intrude.

In the Wall Street Journal, William McGurn approached the idea that villifying half the country as lazy “takers” dependent on the largesse of the makers may not be a way to win over the masses. He wrote, “Maybe Americans who have reason to feel insecure about their futures don't find a government that promises to be there for them when they need it all that menacing.” But he then rejects the notion and calls for better propaganda. “Conservatives' top priority,” he writes, “should be promoting an alternative—that in a highly competitive, global economy, the only real economic security for ordinary Americans is the security of opportunity.”

Victor Davis Hanson's analysis of the election was representative and equally informative. He wrote that Mitt Romney was an amazing candidate – “a glittering Sir Galahad who, given his impressive horse, armor, and lance, along with his decency and piety, assumed that he could win a joust in a fair charge against the other team’s knight.” Hanson claimed that 47 percent of the population are in fact dependent on government and mocked the idea that the Republican Party might try to reach out to non-white voters. “The only way Republicans can appeal to Latinos,” he wrote, is to “close the border, stop illegal immigration, and allow the melting pot and upward mobility to fracture 'Hispanics' along class lines.”

For Hanson and most of his readers, neither the message nor the messenger were problematic; only the pernicious bias of the traditional media prevented voters from embracing the plans Mitt Romney was going to detail right after his victory. Hanson then, without irony, warned his fellow Republicans of the dangers of falling into the comforting “cocoon” provided by the conservative media.

That cocoon is about to grow, and William McGurn may get more, if not better, conservative spin. According to CL Atlanta, “Cox Media Group, the parent company of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, plans to launch an 'independent (nonpartisan), anti-propaganda' national news website for conservative audiences that is 'rooted in the South away from the right and left coasts.'" Because Fox and the rest of the dedicated right-wing media apparently aren't enough.

The new “national news website for conservative audiences” will no doubt parrot Paul Ryan's line that Obama didn't win a mandate to govern “because [voters] also reelected the House Republicans." Never mind that House Democrats won the popular vote and the GOP retained its majority largely due to skillful gerrymandering following the 2010 Census.

So despite the fact that polls show a majority of Americans favor raising taxes on the wealthy in order to maintain programs that help lower-income people – and that more voters will blame the GOP than Democrats if the government starts down the fiscal slope – House Republicans are so far sticking with Ryan's disastrous “roadmap” for their next round of hostage-taking. “Our opening position is pretty much the Ryan budget, and we’ll see what they want to counter with that,” Rep. Tom Cole, R-Oklahoma, a member of the House Budget Committee, told The Hill.

Safely ensconced in their bubble, the conservative movement isn't sparing a moment for introspection, and certainly isn't going to change its tune anytime soon. Most believe the election was somehow illegitimate – either because Obama managed to bribe voters with “gifts,” as Mitt Romney sees it, or because Americans were hoodwinked. A conspiracy theory that massive voter fraud delivered Obama a second term has moved from the fringes – from Dean Chambers, the “unskewed polls” guy – to Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, who this week told a right-wing talk radio host that it was highly suspicious that Obama lost in all of the states that passed voter ID laws (all deep red states where Democrats never win, of course).

So the Tea Party is going to redouble its efforts to primary viable Republicans it deems insufficiently wingnutty. Despite costing the GOP four winnable Senate seats in the past two election cycles by nominating freaks like Richard Mourdock, Todd Akin, Sharron Angle and Christine O'Donnell, they are already gearing up to unseat senators Lindsey Graham in South Carolina, Lamar Alexander in Tennessee and Saxby Chambliss in Georgia, according to the Wall Street Journal. The Club for Growth is threatening to target West Virginia Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, a popular Republican with a long family pedigree in the state, after she announced her intention to run for the seat held by Democrat Jay Rockefeller.

Scott Walker is trying to do away with same-day voter registration and Pennsylvania will fully implement its voter ID law. Despite exit polls showing that only one in four Americans wants Obamacare repealed, Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, after briefly declaring that it was the law of the land, renounced his momentary apostacy and vowed to fight on for full repeal. A year after polls showed that voters diapproved of Republicans mucking with the debt ceiling by a 68-30 margin (PDF), Boehner declared that the coming limit was his “leverage” in negotiating a solution to the contrived fiscal slope “crisis.”

Even the supposed “break” from Grover Norquist's anti-tax pledge by a handful of Republicans like Linsey Graham, R-South Carolina, and Saxby Chamblis, R-Georgia, is a sham. The “rogue” senators will likely earn themselves a primary challenge from the right, but the reality is that their push for new revenues by eliminating unspecified deuctions while keeping rates on the wealthiest Americans low was the idea put forth by the guy who just lost an election to Barack Obama.

This is a movement that has swallowed its own rhetoric to such a degree that it is not capable of looking at the reality of its demographic challenges and adapting. It's a movement that's unprepared to accept the growing unpopularity of its positions on social issues. Republicans created a dedicated information infrastructure to combat what they saw as widespread bias in the media and academia, and now it's that same mighty wurlitzer that will prevent them from adapting to a changing America.

Joshua Holland is an editor and senior writer at AlterNet. He's the author of The 15 Biggest Lies About the Economy. Drop him an email or follow him on Twit

15 Comments

15 Comments


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[-] 2 points by VQkag2 (16478) 11 years ago

More self destructive behavior. They can't help themselves. They are like the monkey hooked up to a heroin drip, clicking for treats.

Let 'em click away.

[-] 0 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 11 years ago

Although I love your image, they are the ultimate deniers, fatal denial!

...and the zombie thang...

[-] 2 points by VQkag2 (16478) 11 years ago

Their brains have been eaten, & they now want ours!

[-] 0 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 11 years ago

don't die, don't feel, don't learn, just obey

[-] 2 points by VQkag2 (16478) 11 years ago

"Be a republican, It's easier than thinking"!

[-] 1 points by ivyquinn (167) 11 years ago

The GOP is still relevant? I thought that puppet show died when Herman Caine announced his want for a third Republican Party Lol

[-] 1 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 11 years ago

What should be ~ what is

[-] 1 points by ivyquinn (167) 11 years ago

What lol??

[-] 0 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 11 years ago

AlterNet Comics: Tom Tomorrow on Republicans' Somber Post-Election Introspection

http://www.alternet.org/election-2012/alternet-comics-tom-tomorrow-republicans-somber-post-election-introspection

[-] -1 points by TheRazor (-329) 11 years ago

The feds have $87 trillion in unfunded liabilities going forward and the entire net worth of America, the land values, the oil, the farms, the forests and the companies is $63 trillion.

So if we took everything from everyone, we would still be $24 trillion short.

Its spending entitlements, stoopid. Conservatives are correct. It isnt taxes although taxes could be adjusted upward a bit.

Doesnt even include city and state entitlment spending.

[-] 1 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 11 years ago

Real Cons, RayGun and Cheney, both said deficit spending was no big deal. Get back on the reservation, or they'll send the posse after you!

Your bosses raped and pillaged the country, didn't they tell you?

It's so funny to see and hear you conniving fools twist and lie, as if no one can see and hear you... twist and lie!!!

[-] -3 points by TheRazor (-329) 11 years ago

Its actually great for me. I am soon to retire and as someone with extensive real estate, I will retire at somewhere near $150-200,000 yearly investment income. Here is the fun part: I will on top of that collect $2300 in SSI benefits and my wife will collect another $1500. $3800/month to spend on extravangance. And I will. I once was going to donate it, but fuck that, Obama has a plan, and now i have mine.

[-] 1 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 11 years ago

IT???

Means Testing and Unearned Income Tax Raises, in the pipe line!

Are you happy to fuck your country, Scum?

[-] -3 points by TheRazor (-329) 11 years ago

How I am fucking my country? I paid in, I am within my rights to take out. All good and legal.

[-] 0 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 11 years ago

Yes, the Regents U implants made many violations, legal.

It's why all the Jamie Dimons don't have a room with a view of Bernie Madoff.

Enjoy the scam!