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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Rude Pundit: A Quick Tale of Right Wing Ignorance Before the Storm Arrives
The Rude Pundit, well stocked with enough vodka, sausage, and condoms to last a Siberian winter, is awaiting the bad part of Sandy, the not-at-all-related-to-climate-change-late-October-hurricane-for-fuck's-sake. He doesn't know when he will lose internet or power, so he'll just tell a quick story from this past weekend and save the vaguely articulate arguments for another day.
In a cozy bar in Morningside Heights in New York City on Friday night, the Rude Pundit sat across from the Elderly Southern Belle, who is white and in her 60s. The Elderly Southern Belle had already entertained the group by saying that she wasn't racist just before launching into her version of Black Person's Voice, which sounded like a toothless ghetto whore out of a 1970s TV cop show. The Elderly Southern Belle's own accent could best be described as "somewhere between Deliverance and Mama's Family." So doing another kind of accent to demonstrate that race's ignorance was a little like a rat acting like a pigeon to show what disease-carrying vermin are like.
The ESB started in about politics, the Rude Pundit having vowed that he would avoid the topic in order to keep the evening peaceful. The ESB talked about how bad she felt President Barack Obama had been for business in the nation. The Rude Pundit stayed silent. She talked about how Medicare could only be saved by a Romney presidency. The Rude Pundit stayed silent. She said to the Rude Pundit, "I hope you don't ever want to retire because that money ain't gonna be there." The Rude Pundit could remain silent no more.
"My retirement funds are doing great because the stock market is doing great under Obama," he said.
The ESB said, "Well, they're not gonna if Obama is reelected."
"No," the Rude Pundit said. "When Barack Obama took office, the Dow Jones was down to around 6500. It's now over 13,000. That's a fact."
She stared at him and said, "Well, that's because--"
"No 'That's because--,'" he cut her off. "It's a fact, it's indisputable, it happened, under Obama. Can you say it didn't happen?"
She was silent for a moment. Finally she offered, "It went down when he first came to office--"
"For a couple of weeks. And then some of his policies came into place, like the stimulus, and it turned around."
She tried one more time, saying, "Sure, but--"
"No 'but.' No nothing." The Rude Pundit had had enough. "This is a number. It's a fact. It's not an opinion. It's not open to interpretation. It was one number and now it's another number that's twice as high. Under Obama. Argument over."
She gave up and moved on to health insurance. That's a story for another time that involves the Rude Pundit saying at one point, "Fuck those doctors who quit."
This is what Democrats are up against. It can't be said enough: facts don't matter to Republican voters. Numbers are all lies. And, as we saw in that Chrysler's-sending-jobs-to-China ad this weekend from the Romney campaign, reality has no place in the rhetoric of the right.
The truly sad part is how many people, like the ESB, will always believe the lies that confirm their prejudices rather than the truth that challenges them.
http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2012/10/a-quick-tale-of-right-wing-ignorance.html
schmice
(248 posts)libodem
(19,288 posts)n2doc
(47,953 posts)I figure those are the only things that will go up/hold value in a Rmoney presidency. Kinda like W's...
navarth
(5,927 posts)Rude has expressed it beautifully and comprehensively. My respects.
Hydra
(14,459 posts)There's a whole section of our country(most of it?) that doesn't live in reality. They eschew logic in favor of what they want to believe or who they want to believe in.
Evolution? Ha!
Climate Change? A Conspiracy!
The Bible? Completely Factual!
It's not just the RW nutbars either. I am continually stunned when "normal" people look at me funny when I approach a problem logically. It's like it never occurred to them that they can fathom the "mysteries" of the universe(or politics) by asking questions and demanding the answers.
Magical thinking and faith are being exploited by all the wrong people, and I think in the long run it's going to kill a LOT of people(because it already has).
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)He was a lot nicer than I would have been.
bullwinkle428
(20,629 posts)bald-faced lies as brilliant political strategy, as they did in a report yesterday afternoon that nearly forced me off the road and into a tree!
K&R.
ieoeja
(9,748 posts)"For 150 years before the New Deal, the United States suffered an economic depression every 12 to 15 years. In the 80 years since then, we have suffered zero."
When they start arguing why, I reply "and I have my theories on why the New Deal ended economic depressions. But I don't care why. It worked. That is all I need to know."