Paul Krugman write an editorial after the 2008 election called the 'Party of the Stupid.' As Krugman noted,”Republicans, once hailed as the “party of ideas,” have become the party of stupid.”
Indeed, the GOP has had many ideas, but most of them like deregulation were misguided.
Krugman indicated the problem with the party is “know-nothingism — the insistence that there are simple, brute-force, instant-gratification answers to every problem, and that there’s something effeminate and weak about anyone who suggests otherwise — has become the core of Republican policy and political strategy. The party’s de facto slogan has become: “Real men don’t think things through.”
This 'know-nothingsim is no longer symbolized by George W. Bush. It is symbolized by his female alter ego, Sarah Palin. Sarah attended six different colleges in five years to get a BA is mass communication. She was unable to answer a simple question in a softball Katie Couric interview. She didn't know what the Bush Doctrine was nor could she name magazines she reads suggesting she doesn't read them.
Consider another GOP superstar, John McCain. He was another 'fortunate son' who finished in the bottom one per cent of his Naval Academy class, yet somehow managed to get in flight school which is normally reserved for the best and brightest academy grads. McCain was involved in five aircraft mishaps during his Navy career and was shot down after his 23rd mission in Vietnam. Do we really want some as undistinguished as McCain as our president?
However, if you really want 'dumb and dumber,' try Michele Bachmann in the US House Some of her famous quotes follow:
"Little children will be forced to learn that homosexuality is normal and natural and perhaps they should try it."
"Literally, if we took away the minimum wage—if conceivably it was gone—we could potentially virtually wipe out unemployment completely because we would be able to offer jobs at whatever level." —Michele Bachmann, 1/26/05, Jobs, Energy and Community Development Committee, testifying against SF 3, a bill to raise the MN minimum wage and advocating the elimination of the minimum wage altogether.
"If raising the minimum wage to $7.00 an hour is a good idea, that why don't we just raise it to $20.00 an hour, that must be even better." —Michele Bachmann, 1/26/05, Jobs, Energy and Community Development Committee, testifying against SF 3, a bill to raise the MN minimum wage.
"No one that I know disagrees with natural selection — that you can take various breeds of dogs ... breed them, you get different kinds of dogs," she said. "It's just a fact of life. ... Where there's controversy is (at the question) 'Where do we say that a cell became a blade of grass, which became a starfish, which became a cat, which became a donkey, which became a human being?' There’s a real lack of evidence from change from actual species to a different type of species. That's where it's difficult to prove." - Michele Bachmann quoted in the Stillwater Gazette, September 29, 2003.
Krugman also mentions that for years President Bush was the center of a cult of personality that presented him as a real-world Forrest Gump, a simple man who prevails through his gut instincts and moral superiority. “Mr. Bush is the triumph of the seemingly average American man,” declared Peggy Noonan, writing in The Wall Street Journal in 2004. “He’s not an intellectual. Intellectuals start all the trouble in the world.”
Say that again, Peggy! Bush caused a boat load of trouble in the world: torture, the $800 billion Iraq debacle, a failed FEMA effort during Hurricane Katrina, and the Wall Street financial meltdown. The cult of Bush began to fade after Hurricane Katrina. Obama is starting to clean up the political mess Bush created with the Russians.
The weak rationale for the Iraq was apparent from the 'gitgo.' Even if the Iraqis had WMDs, they had no delivery system that could reach the US. The UN inspectors, however, found no evidence whatsoever of WMDs. Bush contacted Tony Blair and planned false flag mission in which he was going to fly a U2 spy plane over Iraq painted in UN colors with the hope the Iraqis would shot at it.
Why were the conservative elite so hawkish? There is a standard conservative bromide that the war is a good idea, many conservatives believe war is good for the economy, but invariably recessions always follow wars. Likewise, a smarter president would raised taxes to pay for a war as all of the other presidents have done. But President Bush didn't want to deny his base of 'have mores' their election booty: huge tax cuts for the most affluent Americans.
GOP is anti-intellectual
Republicans would be wise to take seriously: it's time to abandon the anti-intellectualism that dominates the party's ideology.
Rich Lowry briefly referenced the party's "intellectual exhaustion."Republicans have come to think of reason, evidence, and scholarship as necessarily flawed, to be reviled as an enemy.
Columbia University's Mark Lilla, a former editor of the Public Interest noted with Republican glee over a vice presidential candidate "whose ignorance, provincialism and populist demagoguery represent everything older conservative thinkers once stood against."
It's a sad tale that began in the '80s, when leading conservatives frustrated with the left-leaning press and university establishment began to speak of an "adversary culture of intellectuals."Over the next 25 years there grew up a new generation of conservative writers who cultivated none of their elders' intellectual virtues. They saw themselves as counter-intellectuals. Most are well-educated and many have attended Ivy League universities.
These people, who should know better, openly mock the advice of Nobel Prize-winning economists and praise the financial acumen of plumbers and builders. They ridicule ambassadors and diplomats while promoting second rate journalists who have never lived abroad and speak no foreign languages.With the rise of shock radio and television, they have found a large, popular audience that eagerly absorbs their contempt for intellectual elites. They hoped to shape that audience, but the truth is that their audience has now shaped them.
David Brooks stated that conservatives' "disdain for liberal intellectuals" had slipped into "disdain for the educated class as a whole," and worried that the Republican Party was alienating educated voters. The GOP exceeded expectations in the 2008 election. The only demographic they won was people over 60 years of age. The rich, the educated younger Americans and students voted Democratic.The Republican Party that seems to embrace ignorance for ignorance's sake, as if "facts and figures" are inconvenient annoyances better left to eggheads who read books. Is it any surprise that Stephen Colbert's skewering or Republicans leaders and journalists has become immensely popular?
Nicholas Kristof hopes that Obama's election, among other things, may mark the end of "the anti-intellectualism that has long been a strain in American life."
If the party is sincerely looking for a way out of its self-dug ditch, taking facts, reason, and evidence seriously again would be a good start. Some intellectual honesty would also be helpful.
Stop the snake oil sales
If you look at the GOP platform, it offers little to Americans. John McCain wanted to maintain the Bush tax cuts that doubled the national debt and created one fourth of the jobs created in the Clinton Administration. An article in the Washington Post comparing the Mccain and Obama tax plans blew his cover.
What the GOP really tries to sell is abstract and symbolic conservative values: family values, 'opposite marriage,' old time evangelical religion, and Pro life. Many of the 'Party of No's' values are negative: abolish flag burning, stop gay and lesbian marriage, disband Equal Opportunity and Treatment programs, engage in voter suppression, discredit global warming, and stop the immigration of Hispanics from Mexico, just to mention a few.
The GOP is also anti-tax, but that one trick pony got clobbered in the last election when Obama promised middle class tax cuts. Tax cuts are really the fundamental issue that divides the two political parties. The GOP wants regressive 'flat taxes' and the Democratic Party want a progressive tax system.
Actually most taxes in the US are regressive. For example, the payroll tax system (FICA), a 12.4% Social Security tax on wages up to $106,800(for 2009) and a 2.9% Medicare tax (a 15.3% total tax that is often split between employee and employer) is a regressive tax on income with no standard deduction or personal exemptions.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities states that three-fourths of U.S. taxpayers pay more in payroll taxes than they do in income taxes. The Tax Foundation has stated that the burden of the corporate income tax (a 15-39% tax) falls on customers and workers of the corporations, who are often not rich.
Actually most taxes in the US are regressive. For example, the payroll tax system (FICA), a 12.4% Social Security tax on wages up to $106,800(for 2009) and a 2.9% Medicare tax (a 15.3% total tax that is often split between employee and employer) is a regressive tax on income with no standard deduction or personal exemptions.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities states that three-fourths of U.S. taxpayers pay more in payroll taxes than they do in income taxes. The Tax Foundation has stated that the burden of the corporate income tax (a 15-39% tax) falls on customers and workers of the corporations, who are often not rich.
The other big tax that Americans pay is property tax particularly real estate. It is also a regressive tax. So it sales tax. The main taxes that are progressive are personal and corporate income tax and the Estate Tax. Are you surprised the GOP is constantly trying to flatten the few progressive taxes that exist in the US?
Is there any hope for the GOP! This seems unlikely since nearly 60 per cent of conservatives want a turn to the right represented by Rush Limbaugh, who is the symbol of the aniti-intellectual right. Even after Sarah Palin resigned as the Alaskan governor, seven of 10 want her to run for president in 2012. How many more times will the Democrats get to drub the GOP before they wake up?
Apparently an old elephant can't learn new tricks.
Sources:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0LVZ/is_8_20/ai_n13726541/
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0LVZ/is_8_20/ai_n13726541/Vietnam
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1 comment:
This Blog caught my attention some time ago because I'm opposed to “thinking outside the box.”
I read you commentary with interest but have to admit I disagree most of it. It is quit diverse and I am limited with 'comment’ space. However, I'll start with this.
The only reason Mr. Krugman could refer to the Republican party as "stupid" is he just hasn’t looked in the mirror lately. His point that “know-nothingism” results when “there are simple, brute-force, instant-gratification answers to every problem” isn’t unique to the GOP. They way I see it, the Democrats are champions at it.
The problem: The economy and unemployment
Simple Solution: Spend $787 billion to fix it
Brute-force: Economist from across the ‘spectrum’ agree this is the only way to fix Bush’s mess
Instant-gratification: It must be passed immediately or unemployment will go into double digits
Results: The money couldn’t be controlled, no jobs have been created, the economy still faltering and the Administration is spending trillions a day.
Problem: Failure of the American Automobile Industry
Simple Solution: Buy them out and turn over 15% to the Union
Brute-force: Cash for Clunkers – we must get gas guzzling autos off the road for more environmentally friendly autos.
Instant-gratification: Attach $4 billion ‘Cash for Clunkers’ onto a bill to fund troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. (No one can oppose it without denying funds to our troops).
Results: Any idiot who wants to buy a double-cab Ford, Chevrolet, Dodge or GMC pickup truck that gets an average of 15mpg can get $4,500 from the tax payers towards the purchase. It's no help to the environment.
Problem: Collapse of the Housing Market
Simple Solution: Bail out the banks
Brute-force: Confuse everyone about sub-prime loans. Deny MAC and MAE were the cause.
Instant-gratification: Give BOA, Wells Fargo, Chase & etc. tens-of-billions each so they can lend money again and help the economy.
Result: Qualified home buyers (20% down group) can’t get loans. With no buyers there are no sales. There are predictions that 50% of all homeowners will be underwater by 2011. Money given to the banks is getting passed out to welfare children to buy school supplies.
Problem: Fossil Fuels and the environment
Simple Solution: Get energy from the Wind and Sun. Sideline nuclear plans.
Brute-force: Tax the utilities through a cap-and-trade program. It will create millions of jobs.
Instant-gratification: Introduce Cap-and-Trade program
Results: Impractical if not impossible idea. It takes 421 wind turbines or 4,500 acres of solar panels to generate up to 735 megawatts. Ignore the fact that we get over 26 trillion megawatts from a single nuclear plant.
Problem: Cutting Health Care Costs
Simple Solution: Introduce H.R. 3200
Brute-force: Every American is entitled to have health care. The opponents to it are un-American
Instant-gratification: It must be passed before the August recess
Results: See my Blog “Who’s Kidding Who About Health Care?”
So, applying Krugman’s policy, the Democrats are the “know-nothings.” For every problem they have a Simple solution, Used brute force tactics and sought instant gratification. As for their results, well maybe they just don’t think things through.
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