Krugman: 'Something has clearly gone very wrong with modern American conservatism'

[Newsjock]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/13/opinion/krugman-severe-conservative-syndrome.html

... As Molly Ball of The Atlantic pointed out, Mr. Romney “described conservatism as if it were a disease.” Indeed. Mark Liberman, a linguistics professor at the University of Pennsylvania, provided a list of words that most commonly follow the adverb “severely”; the top five, in frequency of use, are disabled, depressed, ill, limited and injured.

That’s clearly not what Mr. Romney meant to convey. Yet if you look at the race for the G.O.P. presidential nomination, you have to wonder whether it was a Freudian slip. For something has clearly gone very wrong with modern American conservatism.

... My short answer is that the long-running con game of economic conservatives and the wealthy supporters they serve finally went bad. For decades the G.O.P. has won elections by appealing to social and racial divisions, only to turn after each victory to deregulation and tax cuts for the wealthy — a process that reached its epitome when George W. Bush won re-election by posing as America’s defender against gay married terrorists, then announced that he had a mandate to privatize Social Security.

... The point is that today’s dismal G.O.P. field — is there anyone who doesn’t consider it dismal? — is no accident. Economic conservatives played a cynical game, and now they’re facing the blowback, a party that suffers from “severe” conservatism in the worst way. And the malady may take many years to cure.

[Skittles]

1. KRUGMAN NAILS IT

[1ProudAtheist]

2. My Favorite

bumper sticker

[IMG][/IMG]

[Sherman A1]

9. Excellent

I like that!

[1ProudAtheist]

3. Another Goodie

[IMG][/IMG]

[madrchsod]

4. they over reached and pissed off to many of their own

i can`t imagine any sane republican voting for any of these clowns.

[Martin Eden]

12. Sane or not, many will vote for the GOP nominee

Regardless of the extent to which the particulars of the insane rhetoric and tinfoil hat crap is actually believed, the sheer weight of the rightwing narrative has sunk in. A large segment of the voting public is rabidly anti-Obama, and above all else want him out of the White House.

As Krugman put it, "American conservatism end(ed) up so detached from, indeed at odds with, facts and rationality" because the Republican base "really believed in all the hokum."

Hopefully there are still enough voters in this country who are not batguano crazy. I think Obama will win, but he's going to have to run a good campaign without any October surprises.

[just1voice]

20. 2 People will be picked that are supposedly running for office

1 will be selected, but not by voters. That is the truth about elections in the U.S..

[Doctor_J]

18. Don't kid yourself

Don't underestimate their ignorance.

Here is a dedicated Tea Bagger

[Jackpine Radical]

22. Current events require a small edit to your comment:

i can`t imagine any sane republican.
There. I fixed it.

[madrchsod]

29. thanks....i see they revealed the secret building with all those petitions

i read the comments at captimes..dam there are some really low intelligent posters

[muriel_volestrangler]

35. Sadly, there are segments of the population where they have large leads over Obama

whether it's Romney or Santorum who would be the Repub candidate. Here's the breakdown of a poll: http://www.people-press.org/files/legacy-detailed_tables/2-13-12%20Horserace%20tables.pdf

Obama is behind both the others in the following groups:
Men (3 to 5 points behind)
65+ (4 to 5 points)
White, non-Hispanic (8 points)
WNH evangelical (51 to 55 points!!!)
WNH mainline Protestant (4 points)
WNH Catholic (8 to 13 points)
Attends religious services weekly or more often (15 to 19 points)
White men (23 to 24 points)

If the electorate were restricted to white men, as the Founding Fathers had intended, Obama wouldn't stand a chance. It's deeply worrying that Santorum or Romney get so much support from that demographic. (I speak as a white man, though not an American, so I'm not in the precise demographic concerned.)

[colsohlibgal]

5. To Be Sure

Nixon, Ike, and Ford seem like pinkos compared to where the R's reside now. It's startling and they should and may well drive right off the cliff. This pack depends heavily on duping regular, everyday people into screwing themselves by voting for them.....and the number dumb enough to do that looks to be dwindling, many may be tiring of carrying water for billionaires.

Santorum seems to have lost his mind, that rambling talk about liberals and the French Revolution was fruit loop city. Then we hear Romney talking about being a "severe" conservative, which is nonsense if you look at his past. R's still haven't figured out video and audio tape exist.

It seems now that Obama would have to work really hard to lose this November. Let's hope we wrestle back control of the House and further our edge in the senate.

[Old and In the Way]

6. I'm going to start using the phrase, "He/She is severely conservatated" when refering to

another outrageous thing or legislative act that said person says or introduces.

[demgrrrll]

7. One of the posters below this article wrote that the media might try to revive Rmoney by saying he

will bring the party back to sanity. I thought that was very insightful. I think that is exactly what the media will do. Rmoney has no interest in bringing the party back to sanity.

[Sherman A1]

10. Agreed

Watching how the media has manipulated the GOP field this campaign has been fascinating. It has been a circus of She's Up, She's Down, He's Up, He's Down, He's Up, Check what Sarah Palin Says, He's Down, He's Up, Oops He has a skeleton in his closet, He's Out.

This has always been about media news cycles (ad revenue/filling air time) & nothing more.

[Kennah]

8. More and more nails go into the coffin of the GOP for 2012

Perhaps they'll come back in 20 years with a reconstituted Whig Party. They have a thing for playing dress up with hats.

[no_hypocrisy]

11. The devolution of the Republican Party has been so complete

that the candidates in their own way can't pull back at this point in time. To do so would be heresy by the people who bankroll them.

[jtuck004]

13. I severely rec'd this post. n/t

[City Lights]

14. "Severely conservative."

I love this phrase!

Thanks, Mitt Rmoney, for the laugh!

to Krugman, for another great column.

[Doctor_J]

15. It's Hate Radio and Fox "News"

I don't understand why none of the analysts, including Prof. Krugman, avoid the obvious. Limpballs and all of his clones took over America 20 years ago, and we've been in a death spiral ever since - all of their minions are mean, ignorant, and evil.

[kemah]

16. Mega dittoes

Their is a cottage industry promoting conservatism and it pays very well. The low informed voters or stupid voters are always voting against their self-interests. The right wing play on racism, hatred, ignorance, and good old time religion to promote their cause. But the super rich just laugh at them behind their backs. That's why they push for charter schools, defunding public education, and home schooling. Ricky Santorum even said that the reason Obama wants more students in higher education was to brain wash them.

You can see from the tea party rallies their ignorance, their misspelled signs, their incoherent messages, their revised history. Glenn Beck was so worried that he banned signs from his rallies. Fox news with their palm trees in Wisconsin, promoting the tea party rallies, Dick Armey, $500,000 per year, grass roots, tea party hack.

[OnyxCollie]

24. I think the lack of signs at Beck's "Restoring Honor" event

had more to do with the Koch brothers/Americans for Prosperity/FreedomWorks maintaining a tax-deductible image advertising campaign than a concern over the stupidity put on display.

[Beartracks]

31. Only the brainwashed think education is brainwashing.

Once again, Santorum demonstrates how the right wing accuses others of the kind of deeds that they themselves already do or would do given the chance.

===========================

[BlancheSplanchnik]

17. yep.....my hatred for limpo and Fux, and all their ilk

knows no bounds.

the media-driven hate helped kill a relationship with someone I loved a lot, too. The poisonous effects of this garbage isn't limited just to the political realm. The whole society (meaning, many individual people on a large scale) is violated by it.



Krugman is right-on, once again.

[chervilant]

25. Mean, ignorant, and evil...

and they promote the same in their glassy-eyed minions. In fact, they strive to convince their pathetic sock puppets that these are virtues to be lauded.

[DallasNE]

19. It Is Like I Have Posted Before

I grew up during the McCarthy era, with Gabriel Heater the Rush Limbaugh of the day, and conservatives were more forgiving then. Their hero du jure was Ohio Sen. Robert Taft. Their Romney of the day did not bend to out Taft Taft by being severely conservative. Instead, Gen. Eisenhower stood his ground and went on to be a two term President. Romney is certainly no Eishenhower -- a man that saved the Republican Party and built the Interstate highway system.

[trumad]

21. The adverb that follows “severely”;

the adverb “severely”; the top five, in frequency of use, are disabled, depressed, ill, limited and injured.

[Ebadlun]

23. Modern conservatism is a bizarre, artificial construct

What do climate-change denial and gay-hating (sorry, defence of marriage) even have to do with each other? And yet this patchwork quilt of unrelated beliefs has hardened over the last 20 years into a rigid straitjacket.

[zipplewrath]

26. As I've said before

Krugman just keeps making my point:

After all, that health reform Mr. Romney wants us to forget followed a blueprint originally laid out at the Heritage Foundation!

This is the same blueprint that Obama claims was a basis for his HCR. We got the HCR that the GOP wrote, and they didn't even have to vote for it.

[WillyT]

27. HUGE K & R !!!

[caseymoz]

28. I think he my post!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=292238

Twenty years of post-fairness doctrine propaganda has finally created a generation of Republican leaders whose worldview is completely uninformed by reality. Now the GOP is at a disadvantage.

It goes to show how propaganda is harmful to its practitioners in the long run.

[Dont call me Shirley]

30. Freidmanism is nothing short of sociopathy.

[Crunchy Frog]

32. Nice to see that someone's finally noticed it and pointed it out.

I mean someone in the official media; most of us have realized it for at least the past decade.

[emulatorloo]

33. Great article, Thanks for posting! Kick and Rec