From Trump on Down, the Republicans Can’t Be Serious

[applegrove]

From Trump on Down, the Republicans Can’t Be Serious

by Paul Krugman at the NY Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/07/opinion/paul-krugman-from-trump-on-down-the-republicans-cant-be-serious.html?WT.mc_id=2015-AUGUST-OTB-INTL_AUD_DEV-0801-0831&WT.mc_ev=click&ad-keywords=IntlAudDev&_r=0

"SNIP...............


Mr. Trump’s declared intention to deport all illegal immigrants is definitely extreme, and would require deep violations of civil liberties. But are there any defenders of civil liberties in the modern G.O.P.? Notice how eagerly Rand Paul, self-described libertarian, has joined in the witch hunt against Planned Parenthood.

And while Mr. Trump is definitely appealing to know-nothingism, Marco Rubio, climate change denier, has made “I’m not a scientist” his signature line. (Memo to Mr. Rubio: Presidents don’t have to be experts on everything, but they do need to listen to experts, and decide which ones to believe.)

The point is that while media puff pieces have portrayed Mr. Trump’s rivals as serious men — Jeb the moderate, Rand the original thinker, Marco the face of a new generation — their supposed seriousness is all surface. Judge them by positions as opposed to image, and what you have is a lineup of cranks. And as I said, this is no accident.

It has long been obvious that the conventions of political reporting and political commentary make it almost impossible to say the obvious — namely, that one of our two major parties has gone off the deep end. Or as the political analysts Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein put it in their book “It’s Even Worse Than It Looks,” the G.O.P. has become an “insurgent outlier … unpersuaded by conventional understanding of facts, evidence, and science.” It’s a party that has no room for rational positions on many major issues.



...............SNIP"

[Warpy]

1. You wouldn't think so but they've given every indication they're off in la la land

and in la la land, opinion is fact and they can manage to believe their own horseshit.

Be afraid, be very afraid.

The only cure is a complete collapse. Sadly, they'll take us with them.

[rbrnmw]

2. Kasich was the only one who seemed sincere

[spanone]

3. K&R...

[Xipe Totec]

4. Dumbing Down The Message for the Masses

This is the Republican strategy: Make the message simple and the sheeple will remember it.

Sad but true.

Orwell mentions this strategy in Animal Farm, in the famous quote "4-legs good, 2-legs bad" which made it easy for the sheep to remember which side to support.

The real frightening thing, to me anyway, is how old this recipe for success really is. Older than Karl Rove, Orwell, Goebbels, and even older than Machiavelli. I found a quote that goes all the way back to the early middle ages and scares the hell out of me every time I read it:

"It is striking to see the most cultivated and the most eminent representatives of the new Christian elite, conscious of their cultural unworthiness compared to the last purists, renounce what they yet possessed or could acquire in the form of intellectual refinements so that they could make themselves accessible to their flocks. They chose to grow stupid in order to conquer. If this leaves us dissatisfied it is nonetheless impressive. This farewell to antique literature, often uttered by men fully aware of the circumstances, is by no means the least moving aspect of abnegation of the great Christian leaders of the early middle ages…. …Caesarius of Arles took this point of view further:

I humbly beg that the ears of the educated may be content to bear rustic expressions without complaint, so that all the Saviour’s flock can receive heavenly food in a simple and down-to-earth language. Since the ignorant and the simple cannot rise themselves to the height of the educated, let the educated deign to lower themselves to their ignorance. Educated men can understand what has been said to the simple, whereas the simple are not able to profit from what would have been said to the learned."

Jacques Le Goff
Medieval Civilization 400-1500
Barnes & Noble 2000


For the record, originally posted 11/4/2004

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1322135

[pampango]

5. "Mr. Trump is definitely appealing to know-nothingism ..."

19th century nativism lives on in the 21st century republican party.

Appealing to fear and emotion over science and history goes way, way back.