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2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumThe GOP’s Giuliani disaster: Why Rudy’s vile nonsense is a big problem for Republicans
The ex-mayor has long been a demagogue. But for Republicans, his nasty comments may hint at a new political threatELIAS ISQUITH
For millions of American workers, the pedal to the metal growth of the labor market means life is about to get better. But for those conservatives and Republican partisans who are looking to 2016 already, a healthier economy means life is about to get worse. Why? Because on the national level, electoral politics tends to operate on one of two channels one cultural, the other economic. And in a country thats more ethnically diverse and socially liberal than ever, its harder for the right to win if its attacking President Obama over issues of identity and culture than if its hammering him about dollars and cents.
Im hardly the first person to recognize the political calculus here. (The GOP establishment wing, in fact, seems convinced that focusing on economics is the only way they can win.) But while this dynamic has been present throughout the Obama years, its become more pronounced lately, as criticism of the president has begun to shift away from the unemployment rate, GDP growth and job-killing regulations and toward assertions that he isnt really one of us. Or, as ex-New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani put it this week before an audience of Manhattan conservatives, that Obama wasnt brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up through love of this country.
The thoroughly odious Giulianis whole political career has been built on an edifice of thinly-veiled racism and ferocious demagoguery, so it wasnt a surprise to see him channel such toxic undercurrents. (And it is similarly unsurprising to see him defend himself by cribbing the Obama is anti-colonial argument from Dinesh DSouza, a far-right provocateur and convicted felon who recently called the president a boy from the ghetto.) But Giulianis incendiary drivel was firmly in step with much of the conservative movement right now, which has begun to nurture a Captain Ahab-like obsession with what it sees as a telltale sign of Obamas foreign nature namely, his refusal to describe ISIS as Islamic, and his insistence that extremism, rather than Islamic extremism, is a danger to the globe.
more
http://www.salon.com/2015/02/21/the_tea_partys_mayor_why_giulianis_rabid_nonsense_is_a_big_problem_for_the_gop/
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The GOP’s Giuliani disaster: Why Rudy’s vile nonsense is a big problem for Republicans (Original Post)
DonViejo
Feb 2015
OP
busterbrown
(8,515 posts)1. He’s really not one of us..
Hes a great President.. Thanks for the post, well stated.
C_U_L8R
(45,003 posts)2. It pretty much proves Republican are not patriots.
They hate the Presidency
and have done everything
they can to harm it.
Indeed Republicans are traitors
as much as they are bigots
and grifters.
One nation under god, my ass.
blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)3. Noun, verb, 9/11.
applegrove
(118,696 posts)4. Not to mention that, for the GOP, calling ISIS Islamic extremists
Last edited Sun Feb 22, 2015, 02:49 AM - Edit history (2)
is necessary for them because "extremists" alone could denote/imply the GOP themselves and their base. Just like ISIS, the GOP is at war with good government and thrives in the insecurity it purposely builds up amongst the people. So there is that too.