The hostage-taking is a sign that the Republicans just don’t see a road back to power. If they did, they wouldn’t do this, because the Dems would do the same thing back to them.
I really could see the shutdown lasting to the next election at this rate. Obama isn’t going to give in on this, even if it takes a year, because I think he sees this as his last stand against this- and I think Republicans see it the same way. We’re going to suffer until one side wins.
Maybe the republicans position make sense.
A country for the rich. Where poor people die when they have a health problem. Where the rich make fortunes, and poor people is in the myseria.
Thats a option. Not a country where I would want to live (except If I am one of the rich), but is one way to design a country.
Weapons. The same idea. I would not want any random idiot to have weapons. It create lots of problems, and murders. But if you want the people to have the right to self-defense with more than his hards. Sort of make sense. More freedom, less safety. I can understand that. It make sense if is a choise and you select +freedom -less safety.
Republicans (by this i mean individual who self identify as such) all seem to feel that the ACA wasn’t a “compromise” but something that was shoved down their throats by a “liberal majority”. I guess the wacky equivalent would be all the states in the US vote to make Texas pay more taxes just for being Texas, or something similar. They’ve never forgiven Obama for it, even if they would have hated him anyway, and have used that moment to brand him “the most politicized administration ever.”
It’s a lot worse than that. Fascinating paper here:
Inside the GOP: Report on focus groups with Evangelical, Tea Party, and moderate Republicans
(Not a scientific paper. It’s lengthy and I’ve not yet finished reading it)
That world view by GOP voters though… Holy Shit. I can’t begin to figure out how they got there outside of over exposure to right wing media
What really bothers me is the extent to which people really, really don’t seem to know that “Marxism” means, other than “thing I don’t like”.
I blame the educational system.
I do wonder sometimes…there may be legitimate debate to how racially motivated the objections to Obama’s administration are. But I wonder what the alternate universe where President John Kerry tries to implement the exact same policies would have looked like.
On my way home there is this guy who puts out a yard sign every day (moving it in at night) which reads “Obama is a Nazi.” It’s sort of scrawled in black marker but then, a couple of weeks ago, he or his wife made a fancy plaid cloth border for the sign. I want to create a dense yard sign next to it which begins, “Actually…” before launching into a nuanced discussion of why this conclusion is illogical.
You don’t remember the shit storm when Hilary tried to propose health care as the president’s wife during the 90’s?
Well, if you look at the focus group they think that healthcare (and foodstamps, and…) is a method to build a dependent class of minority voters, so they’d probably still be pretty mad.
That’s an interesting paper. Page 16 made me wonder, if Fox news is in the middle, what is to the right?
Fortunately, there is Fox News, which they describe as the only network “in the middle.”
FOX is about the middle. (Evangelical man, Roanoke)
[Fox News is] about the only one that gives you both sides. (Evangelical man, Roanoke)
I don’t think they’re trying to make the news. I think they’re trying to report the news.
It seems like everybody else is trying to make the news. (Evangelical man, Roanoke)
(Emphasis mine)
Right, but the other thing that the focus groups point out is that this is a manifestation of the impression that white culture is under attack. Seen through this lens, a black man giving handouts to other minorities is more threatening than a white man doing the same. Additionally, I think having a minority to focus this complaint against allows them to turn their attention towards the division with racial minorities, rather than focusing more on, say, gender issues.