The GOP: Modern Reactionaries - The Orange Mane

Rohirrim · 10-14-2012, 04:39 AM

Excellent piece on the evolution (I know they hate that word) of the modern GOP and their pogrom against the moderates. Of course, they are now running a candidate who was raised in the bosom of moderate Republicanism. Mitt's dad was one of the leading moderate voices in the party, and so was Mitt, until a few years ago, anyway.

THE MODERATES, either in exile or in a state of permanent denial, believe that their day will eventually come. Ultimately, they are probably right about this. The GOP cannot keep moving rightward indefinitely. As the economist Herbert Stein put it, any trend that can’t go on forever, won’t. Stein himself was a paradigmatic Republican moderate, one of the sole figures in his party of any standing openly to oppose the GOP’s embrace of supply-side economics and other forms of magical thinking. He died in 1999 an almost totally marginal figure within the party, so his famous maxim may offer limited comfort.

And eventually is a very long time. By the time the rightward migration of the party has finally halted, the definition of Republican “moderate” will likely have corroded beyond all recognition. Already the extremism of the party has advanced to such a point that its most fervent elements are identified less by their ideology—which is nearly impossible to distinguish any more from that of the mainstream—than by the degree to which their detachment from reality departs from paranoia as a mere figure of speech and approaches actual, clinical paranoia. “Radical” Republicans believe that Obama has created death panels, may have been secretly born overseas, and is plotting a United Nations invasion. The “mainstream” Republicans believe in goldbuggery and a massive plot by climate scientists, and deny the dramatic rise in income inequality in America.
http://www.tnr.com/article/books-and...s-own?page=0,0

Rohirrim · 10-14-2012, 04:45 AM

Recently a voter at a forum asked Paul Ryan about “the death panels that we’re going to have.” Ryan framed his answer as a mere semantic disagreement. “That’s not the word I’d choose to use to describe it. It’s actually called. It’s actually called, so in Medicare, what I refer to as this board of fifteen bureaucrats. It’s called the Independent Payment Advisory Board.” When a tape emerged recently of Romney regaling donors with a fever dream that 47 percent of the country had grown irrevocably dependent on government, it later emerged that he had drawn the notion of the moocher half-nation from conversations with Arthur Brooks, the president of the American Enterprise Institute. Here, then, was the most moderate candidate in the party’s presidential field, in conjunction with the president of its most prestigious think tank, producing a bizarre worldview of plutocratic hallucination.

It was a horrifying peek into the intellectual state of one of our two major parties, but only a peek. The changes in a party remain largely obscured when it is out of power. Many Americans found themselves shocked by the obstinate, anti-empirical methods of George W. Bush, who seemed in 2000 like a sensible man surrounded by establishmentarians. But in the GOP’s exile since the first Bush administration, the party had determined that its misfortune occurred entirely because its last president (George H.W. Bush) had betrayed the true faith. Through a thousand op-eds and foundation panels and talk radio sermons, the Republicans undertook a vast ritual of purification. But they lacked power to implement their own agenda, and so the full results of the transformation lay mostly hidden from sight until they revealed themselves. This time its radicalization in exile has occurred even more swiftly, the final results awaiting only the party’s chance to exert power once again. How long can the current respite last? (Ibid.)

Basically, what it boils down to is the New Radical Reactionaries of the modern GOP want to fashion a world where the lower class, working people (and that means you, middle class) shut the **** up and get to work without adequate compensation, a safety net, or any other such "morally weakening" props, while the true and rightful heirs to American exceptionalism, the plutocrats, bask in all the wealth the society can muster. It's a kind of scolding overlord type of world where the 47% are put in their rightful place. Actually, I guess it will turn out to be about 99%, when all is said and done.

So, once again, the Republicans are running a stealth candidate, much as they did with Dubya and his "compassionate conservatism." They put up the moderate face to try and win the election, but waiting in the wings are the radical extremists who will implement policy. The Cheney's, if you will.

barryr · 10-14-2012, 08:38 AM

Yeah, glad Obama isn't an extremist

You voted for a guy, and you know you will again, that hates America. Does Obama plan more apology tours if enough idiots vote for him again? But you'll vote Green, I forgot. Sure you will

Rohirrim · 10-14-2012, 09:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by barryr

Yeah, glad Obama isn't an extremist

You voted for a guy, and you know you will again, that hates America. Does Obama plan more apology tours if enough idiots vote for him again? But you'll vote Green, I forgot. Sure you will

Translation: Didn't read. Too long.

nyuk nyuk · 10-14-2012, 10:37 AM

Well, a liberal publication said it, so it's all true. I'm duly impressed at how our liberal friends are adopting Marxist jingoism such as throwing the word "reactionary" around. That's always a good sign. Perhaps "capitalist pig" and "imperialist swine" are on deck?

Rohirrim · 10-14-2012, 05:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nyuk nyuk

Well, a liberal publication said it, so it's all true. I'm duly impressed at how our liberal friends are adopting Marxist jingoism such as throwing the word "reactionary" around. That's always a good sign. Perhaps "capitalist pig" and "imperialist swine" are on deck?

Says the troll who posts a thread of Reagan lamenting about the bygone days of his youth that we should all return to.

W*GS · 10-14-2012, 05:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nyuk nyuk

I'm duly impressed at how our liberal friends are adopting Marxist jingoism

You're truly a dolt.

If you knew what Marxism was, you wouldn't use the phrase "Marxist jingoism".

You use the word "Marx" (and variants) in no sense other than red-baiting.

Pathetic. And typical.

razorwire77 · 10-14-2012, 05:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rohirrim

Recently a voter at a forum asked Paul Ryan about “the death panels that we’re going to have.” Ryan framed his answer as a mere semantic disagreement. “That’s not the word I’d choose to use to describe it. It’s actually called. It’s actually called, so in Medicare, what I refer to as this board of fifteen bureaucrats. It’s called the Independent Payment Advisory Board.” When a tape emerged recently of Romney regaling donors with a fever dream that 47 percent of the country had grown irrevocably dependent on government, it later emerged that he had drawn the notion of the moocher half-nation from conversations with Arthur Brooks, the president of the American Enterprise Institute. Here, then, was the most moderate candidate in the party’s presidential field, in conjunction with the president of its most prestigious think tank, producing a bizarre worldview of plutocratic hallucination.

It was a horrifying peek into the intellectual state of one of our two major parties, but only a peek. The changes in a party remain largely obscured when it is out of power. Many Americans found themselves shocked by the obstinate, anti-empirical methods of George W. Bush, who seemed in 2000 like a sensible man surrounded by establishmentarians. But in the GOP’s exile since the first Bush administration, the party had determined that its misfortune occurred entirely because its last president (George H.W. Bush) had betrayed the true faith. Through a thousand op-eds and foundation panels and talk radio sermons, the Republicans undertook a vast ritual of purification. But they lacked power to implement their own agenda, and so the full results of the transformation lay mostly hidden from sight until they revealed themselves. This time its radicalization in exile has occurred even more swiftly, the final results awaiting only the party’s chance to exert power once again. How long can the current respite last? (Ibid.)

Basically, what it boils down to is the New Radical Reactionaries of the modern GOP want to fashion a world where the lower class, working people (and that means you, middle class) shut the **** up and get to work without adequate compensation, a safety net, or any other such "morally weakening" props, while the true and rightful heirs to American exceptionalism, the plutocrats, bask in all the wealth the society can muster. It's a kind of scolding overlord type of world where the 47% are put in their rightful place. Actually, I guess it will turn out to be about 99%, when all is said and done.

So, once again, the Republicans are running a stealth candidate, much as they did with Dubya and his "compassionate conservatism." They put up the moderate face to try and win the election, but waiting in the wings are the radical extremists who will implement policy. The Cheney's, if you will.

While promoting the same old failed supply-side economic policy and regressive tax plan chicanery, it's important to muddy the waters and distract the rubes with plenty of red meat while you back the Cayman Islands moving van up to the back door and steal the silverware.

L.A. BRONCOS FAN · 10-14-2012, 05:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by razorwire77

While promoting the same old failed supply-side economic policy and regressive tax plan chicanery, it's important to muddy the waters and distract the rubes with plenty of red meat while you back the Cayman Islands moving van up to the back door and steal the silverware.

The distraction appears to be working, as evidenced by input from EpicNyuk, lonestar, DBruleU, barryr, and the rest of the right-wing brain trust.

Rohirrim · 10-14-2012, 06:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by L.A. BRONCOS FAN

The distraction appears to be working, as evidenced by input from EpicNyuk, lonestar, DBruleU, barryr, and the rest of the right-wing brain trust.

They're just the sheep. The plutocrats already count on those dummies being in the bag. No questions asked.

nyuk nyuk · 10-14-2012, 06:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rohirrim

Says the troll who posts a thread of Reagan lamenting about the bygone days of his youth that we should all return to.

Leave it to the left to mock patriotism, knowledge of our history, and commitment to nation.

Jetmeck · 10-14-2012, 06:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by barryr

Yeah, glad Obama isn't an extremist

You voted for a guy, and you know you will again, that hates America. Does Obama plan more apology tours if enough idiots vote for him again? But you'll vote Green, I forgot. Sure you will

tRANSLATION...........BRING ME A PIECE OF VIDEO WHERE OBAMA apologized just once ?

Then somebody slap this fool to wake him up.

Jetmeck · 10-14-2012, 06:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nyuk nyuk

Leave it to the left to mock patriotism, knowledge of our history, and commitment to nation.

Says the liar who will say anyhting on this board and are laughed at mercillessly for doing so......keep that in mind you clueless clown.

MARXIST
SOCIALIST
PALS AROUND WITH REDS AND PINKOS

FREE RIDE FOR WELFARE RECIPIENTS

dISCRACEFUL IS WHAT YOU ARE !

nyuk nyuk · 10-14-2012, 06:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by W*GS

You're truly a dolt.

If you knew what Marxism was, you wouldn't use the phrase "Marxist jingoism".

You use the word "Marx" (and variants) in no sense other than red-baiting.

Pathetic. And typical.

Because the word "reactionary" doesn't appear numerous times in the Communist Manifesto and because opponents of Socialism and Marxism throughout the 20th century haven't been frequently referred to as "reactionaries." You got me, brah.

Of course, as I believed I stated, the true reactionaries are the left, as they have a tendency to worship pre-industrial subsistence societies as "green." You can't get more reactionary than that.

nyuk nyuk · 10-14-2012, 06:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jetmeck

Says the liar who will say anyhting on this board and are laughed at mercillessly for doing so......keep that in mind you clueless clown.

Name one lie and explain how you know I lied. Namecalling only impresses the young, undereducated... And liberal.

Rohirrim · 10-14-2012, 08:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nyuk nyuk

Leave it to the left to mock patriotism, knowledge of our history, and commitment to nation.

Leave it to the drama llama troll to return to his tired old schtick of lapping up the drippings of Glenn Beck and running over here to soil this forum with whatever he was unable to swallow.

W*GS · 10-14-2012, 08:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nyuk nyuk

Of course, as I believed I stated, the true reactionaries are the left, as they have a tendency to worship pre-industrial subsistence societies as "green." You can't get more reactionary than that.

Strawman.

True conservatives worship (without irony) the 18th century (when only landed white men could vote), and preferably, even earlier, when church and state were one and the same.

barryr · 10-14-2012, 08:29 PM

The weak liberals around here are seriously considering voting for someone other than Obama. Yep, so believable. They don't even know what Obama stands for or his past, but that is ok since Obama is a black democrat so questioning anything means racism. It is ok to demean and question black conservatives and tell republican women to stay home and cook though. Phonies.

10-14-2012, 04:39 AM	#1
Rohirrim Partisan Human Cannonball Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Twixt Hell & Highwater Posts: 49,099	The GOP: Modern Reactionaries Excellent piece on the evolution (I know they hate that word) of the modern GOP and their pogrom against the moderates. Of course, they are now running a candidate who was raised in the bosom of moderate Republicanism. Mitt's dad was one of the leading moderate voices in the party, and so was Mitt, until a few years ago, anyway. THE MODERATES, either in exile or in a state of permanent denial, believe that their day will eventually come. Ultimately, they are probably right about this. The GOP cannot keep moving rightward indefinitely. As the economist Herbert Stein put it, any trend that can’t go on forever, won’t. Stein himself was a paradigmatic Republican moderate, one of the sole figures in his party of any standing openly to oppose the GOP’s embrace of supply-side economics and other forms of magical thinking. He died in 1999 an almost totally marginal figure within the party, so his famous maxim may offer limited comfort. And eventually is a very long time. By the time the rightward migration of the party has finally halted, the definition of Republican “moderate” will likely have corroded beyond all recognition. Already the extremism of the party has advanced to such a point that its most fervent elements are identified less by their ideology—which is nearly impossible to distinguish any more from that of the mainstream—than by the degree to which their detachment from reality departs from paranoia as a mere figure of speech and approaches actual, clinical paranoia. “Radical” Republicans believe that Obama has created death panels, may have been secretly born overseas, and is plotting a United Nations invasion. The “mainstream” Republicans believe in goldbuggery and a massive plot by climate scientists, and deny the dramatic rise in income inequality in America. http://www.tnr.com/article/books-and...s-own?page=0,0 Last edited by Rohirrim; 10-14-2012 at 04:51 AM..

10-14-2012, 04:45 AM	#2
Rohirrim Partisan Human Cannonball Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Twixt Hell & Highwater Posts: 49,099	Recently a voter at a forum asked Paul Ryan about “the death panels that we’re going to have.” Ryan framed his answer as a mere semantic disagreement. “That’s not the word I’d choose to use to describe it. It’s actually called. It’s actually called, so in Medicare, what I refer to as this board of fifteen bureaucrats. It’s called the Independent Payment Advisory Board.” When a tape emerged recently of Romney regaling donors with a fever dream that 47 percent of the country had grown irrevocably dependent on government, it later emerged that he had drawn the notion of the moocher half-nation from conversations with Arthur Brooks, the president of the American Enterprise Institute. Here, then, was the most moderate candidate in the party’s presidential field, in conjunction with the president of its most prestigious think tank, producing a bizarre worldview of plutocratic hallucination. It was a horrifying peek into the intellectual state of one of our two major parties, but only a peek. The changes in a party remain largely obscured when it is out of power. Many Americans found themselves shocked by the obstinate, anti-empirical methods of George W. Bush, who seemed in 2000 like a sensible man surrounded by establishmentarians. But in the GOP’s exile since the first Bush administration, the party had determined that its misfortune occurred entirely because its last president (George H.W. Bush) had betrayed the true faith. Through a thousand op-eds and foundation panels and talk radio sermons, the Republicans undertook a vast ritual of purification. But they lacked power to implement their own agenda, and so the full results of the transformation lay mostly hidden from sight until they revealed themselves. This time its radicalization in exile has occurred even more swiftly, the final results awaiting only the party’s chance to exert power once again. How long can the current respite last? (Ibid.) Basically, what it boils down to is the New Radical Reactionaries of the modern GOP want to fashion a world where the lower class, working people (and that means you, middle class) shut the **** up and get to work without adequate compensation, a safety net, or any other such "morally weakening" props, while the true and rightful heirs to American exceptionalism, the plutocrats, bask in all the wealth the society can muster. It's a kind of scolding overlord type of world where the 47% are put in their rightful place. Actually, I guess it will turn out to be about 99%, when all is said and done. So, once again, the Republicans are running a stealth candidate, much as they did with Dubya and his "compassionate conservatism." They put up the moderate face to try and win the election, but waiting in the wings are the radical extremists who will implement policy. The Cheney's, if you will. Last edited by Rohirrim; 10-14-2012 at 04:51 AM..

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10-14-2012, 08:38 AM	#3
barryr Ring of Famer New to the Forum Join Date: Aug 2007 Posts: 8,278 Adopt-a-Bronco: None	Yeah, glad Obama isn't an extremist You voted for a guy, and you know you will again, that hates America. Does Obama plan more apology tours if enough idiots vote for him again? But you'll vote Green, I forgot. Sure you will

10-14-2012, 10:37 AM	#5
nyuk nyuk Owns scary-looking rifle Governor No. 89148 Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: 5280 Posts: 2,874 Adopt-a-Bronco: Peyton Manning	Well, a liberal publication said it, so it's all true. I'm duly impressed at how our liberal friends are adopting Marxist jingoism such as throwing the word "reactionary" around. That's always a good sign. Perhaps "capitalist pig" and "imperialist swine" are on deck?

10-14-2012, 08:29 PM	#18
barryr Ring of Famer New to the Forum Join Date: Aug 2007 Posts: 8,278 Adopt-a-Bronco: None	The weak liberals around here are seriously considering voting for someone other than Obama. Yep, so believable. They don't even know what Obama stands for or his past, but that is ok since Obama is a black democrat so questioning anything means racism. It is ok to demean and question black conservatives and tell republican women to stay home and cook though. Phonies.