Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 06:45 pm
The GOP has got nothing, and it knows it. The entire party lacks a platform and its candidates have resorted to the handy expedient of hurling insults and hysterical denunciations at one another and at their Democratic rivals. It is no wonder that conservative pundits were a bit put out by Saturday’s debate.
Look at some of what’s being alleged: by Rubio that Cruz is a “serial liar” and by Cruz that Rubio is a “liberal sleeper.” Outside of the debate you can turn to recent denunciations by Fox’s Crystal Wright that Sanders is to be compared to the “Grand Wizard of the KKK,” or, if you think that’s bad, according to Michele Bachmann (and others), that Obama is the Antichrist.
Bachmann has a new twist on this oldie but goodie: First, though, he has to seize control of the powerless and completely ineffectual United Nations. Figure that one out on your own time. Speaking of unhinged, Palin said a bunch of crazy stuff too but unfortunately not in English.
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Pat Robertson just settles for saying Obama is ushering in the End Times while the American Family Association’s Sandy Rios points to Beyoncé as the one ushering in the Antichrist. I guess we can expect her to introduce Obama at the next Super Bowl?
I think this is no longer news but some bizarre form of entertainment, when they can’t point to even a single factual issue with either Obama or Beyoncé other than both of them being black people in positions of power, and that hasn’t been an actual crime since 1865. Less biblical(?) is Alex Jones calling Sanders “The Final Plague” upon America.
We have Donald Trump joining the conspiracy theorists (of course) and abandoning his recent acquisition of fact (about Bush) at the debate by suggesting that Obama had something to do with Justice Scalia dying.
And this may not be worse but it is far more bizarre: according to Trump, Ted Cruz’s “excess sweating” may adversely affect his relationship with Trump’s hero, Vladimir Putin.
Obviously, not having a sweating problem makes Trump better qualified in the foreign affairs problem. I won’t even speculate as to what type of affair Trump sees Cruz having with Putin that sweating might be a problem. Other Trump insults: Ted Cruz is an “unstable liar” and Marco Rubio is a “choke artist.”
You wouldn’t know any of these guys actually have platforms. Republicans have given up on even the pretense that issues even matter.
And if you think Trump is bad, try his supporters. One of them, The Apprentice alumni Omarosa Manigault, went after Fox News’ Tamara Holder’s boobs, first mispronouncing her name and then saying “You want to come on with big boobs, then you deal with the pronunciation of your name.â€
Yes. He said that. Large breasts now preclude women from asking questions. What this has in any way to do with Trump’s qualifications for the highest office in the land is anyone’s guess.
What this does prove is that grotesque as Trump is, his supporters are worse.
Charles Krauthammer called the debate “thermonuclear,” and Frank Luntz tweeted, “Seriously, this is insane.”
Krauthammer avowed that “if you counted up the number of times the word lie and liar was employed, it would exceed the number of times it has been used in all previous debates.” For once, Krauthammer himself was not lying.
Fox News’ Charles Gasparino, unable to level any fact-based attacks on Bernie Sanders resorted to accusing the Vermont senator of being a “freak to look at.”
Well, we can’t vote for him then can we? Do they seriously think this is a compelling political argument? If we are going to start lining up candidates on account of their appearance, the GOP has plenty of reason to be nervous. Fortunately for Gasparino himself, and unlike Republicans, we Democrats have plenty of facts to point to.
The GOP is adding new rules to the selection of Supreme Court justices, suddenly discovering that it is inappropriate for an outgoing president to nominate one, or appealing to the so-called “Thurmond rule” after saying “it’s not a rule” back when George W. Bush was president.
Mitch McConnell has outdone all the others: he has added a new amendment to the Constitution that a president’s second term is only three years long!
If there is even a single reality-based thread in all this, you are welcome to find it. As Donald Trump does what we knew he’d do all along and Monday threatened a third party run because everybody isn’t bowing before him, Robert Reich says the GOP is dead and has been replaced by six warring tribes.
It is not a wonder this is happening. What is a wonder is that voters are not abandoning the GOP in droves, but they are going along with this charade, somehow imagining that name-calling is politics. Certainly name-calling has always been a part of politics, which is why the Founding Fathers hated the idea of political parties (prescient as usual), but there are supposed to be issues in there somewhere with all the insults.
Instead, all we have are the insults: Obama is black, Hillary is a woman, and Bernie is a commie. This isn’t even the party of no anymore, but the party of gibberish.
Issues you will not find in Republican rhetoric. They have been missing for years now, but with the top office in the land at stake, they have been thrown under the bus and driven over until they are completely forgotten.
We are left with sound-bites and insults and about as much thought as Bill O’Reilly puts into any of his mystery novels. It is to be doubted whether anyone not a Republican ever had high hopes, but c’mon man.
Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.
