Political Absurdities - or Are They Serious?

A lot of lefties (those of us who Voted For Obama)  have been highly amused sitting back (with popcorn) watching the right wing meltdown over the election results.  Even more amusing has been the parade of quotes showing how clueless many right wing pundits were about how close the election really wasn’t, beginning with Rove.  The video clips of his virtual meltdown on the air is one of the year’s highlights, as far as I’m concerned, and if anybody posts something really creative with it, they’ll be (in my opinion) in direct competition for the Internet version of an Emmy!

[Wait a minute while I wipe the tears of laughter from my eyes…]  Ok, got it.

Really, though, as amusing as I find the cluelessness to be on one level, the bare fact that so many right wing believers were so clueless is actually quite alarming.

Rachael Maddow had a very good monologue the other day about this, and I think the idea here bears repeating.

A good, healthy democracy depends on having a rousing competition of ideas and policies regarding the various ways and means for that entity to solve the problems every country inevitably faces.   Even a healthy, happy and well adjusted society will face stresses and strains from different issues and problems, some domestic and others with neighbors and competitors internationally.  Just as inevitably, the solutions for those stresses and strains will be different for each group striving to set national policy, depending on each groups’ point of view and political approach.

All of that is healthy, and normal.  Humans, once you put at least two of them together in a room, will have disagreements and arguments.  With each person that joins the discussion, the possibilities increase exponentially.

The whole idea is that as reasonable people, you can have a discussion and debate the issue along with the different solutions and out of those discussions and debates, decisions can be made on how to proceed.

The key word here is “reasonable”.

And if there is one thing the Republicans have failed to be in the last four years is reasonable.  Not only failed, but failed miserably, spectacularly and just plain bombed it.  That would be simply disappointing if that were the result of simple incompetence.  But the problem is that the failure of civility and reasonableness is deliberate.  It is the result of a combination of religious fervor and fundamentalist certainty of purpose that has eliminated any possibility of compromise.

I mean, if you are certain that god is on your side, compromising with anyone who disagrees with you is the same as compromising with the devil, isn’t it?  Since that is a sin, compromise is a sin, so you can’t compromise.

I know, I’m repeating myself.  I’ve written about this before, almost ad nauseum.  But this is the only thing that makes sense of what many people see as completely baffling.  I mean, how many times have you heard it?  “Why are they so crazy?  It’s almost like they’re living in an other world!”  Lots of us lefties get a kick out of saying that they live on a world called Wingnutia, or something similar.

But while that is funny, and amusing and entertaining, it fails to explain the real reason why the political atmosphere in the United States seems to be going off the rails over a thousand foot drop.

But realizing that this talk, the crazy stuff and the failure to see reality, is due to the fact that they really do see the world in another light, as if there really is this supernatural deity that sees all, knows all and nothing that happens isn’t part of his plan, including bad stuff, cause that’s the devil’s work, and the devil is part of his plan, too, explains a lot and makes the crazy stuff suddenly very very scary.

I hate to sound constantly negative and to be constantly drumming up this “conspiracy theory” about this religious group that plans to “take over the country”, but there really is this religious group that believes that there really is this supernatural deity that sees all, knows all and nothing that happens isn’t part of his plan, including bad stuff, cause that’s the devil’s work, and the devil is part of his plan, too, and it is scary because you and I, if we aren’t part of their group, are either working directly with the devil or are under the devil’s spell and are doing his work anyway - so we are all in trouble when they take over the country.  Or maybe they won’t and all this is just a real life horror movie gone bad.

No, all these political pundits aren’t part of the conspiracy, as much as I’d like to think they are.  They do take the side of these folks, cause those people, from the religious perspective of the far right wing, make themselves sound very very plausible to those extremists.  So the crazy talk just gets nuttier and nuttier and the politicians get more and more like religious fundamentalists and the fundies sound more and more like politicians until they don’t sound any different from each other.

So, while all this is scary and it does worry me, as they get nuttier and nuttier, at least at this point in time, that’s ok.  Let ‘em, I say, because for now, most of the more reasonable people capable of thinking for themselves are beginning to run away from them as fast as they can.  When they say these crazy things, you can almost see the moderate Republicans wince and take a deep breath, because they know that if this keeps up for any length of time, they will push their party to the fringes so far they won’t win another election for decades, if they don’t just fade away altogether.

I just wish it didn’t take so long for the fading process to work.  We've got a democracy to fix.