Republicans don't accept Democrats as legitimate Americans

Paul Krugman is right,

...the modern G.O.P. fundamentally does not accept the legitimacy of a Democratic presidency — any Democratic presidency. We saw that under Bill Clinton, and we saw it again as soon as Mr. Obama took office.

We assume much of the right's opposition to President Obama is due to his race, but I think it goes much deeper than that.  Today's Republicans have convinced themselves the a) Democrats hate America and want to change it into a socialist, multi-cultural, hell-hole where hard working white people are taxed heavily to support the lazy parasites in the inner cities and the illegals who have taken all our jobs, and thus b) Democrats are dangerous enemies that must be defeated - vanquished completely.  Only Republicans, specifically Tea-Party Republicans, have the right answers so they must be elected to every office.

These Republicans have also convinced themselves that the federal government is largely a waste of money - except for security and the military, and that state and local government workers are overpaid and coddled.  Their ultimate goal is to keep cutting the federal government until there is nothing left but the military and national security.  Anything governmental, like licensing or policing, will be the state's responsibility and it will be done by low paid minions who can be easily fired if they piss someone off.  Some even go so far as to want to eliminate public schools and provide vouchers to help parents afford private schools where just about anything can be taught, including intelligent design and right wing propaganda.

These people have always been around.  My parents back in the 1960s would have been ardent tea partiers.  The difference today is Fox News, RW talk radio, a corporate media, and newsmen and newswomen who are scared to death of the maniacal right.  In years past, the tea partiers would have been ridiculed and labelled dangerous loonies.  Now we have people like Limbaugh, Coulter, and Beck who get filthy rich spouting hate and anti-government lies, a cable network that is a propaganda arm of the far right, and politicians that tell the voters crazy things that the politicians must surely know are untrue, just to get elected.

Democracy only works if the voters are smart, open-minded, attentive, and inclusive.  We are in trouble today because a significant portion of our population is not paying attention, are no longer smart enough or open-minded enough to evaluate both sides of the argument, and now we have a Republican party that does not accept Democrats as legitimate Americans.

Maybe we're just going through a phase, and over time sane leadership on both sides will bring us back together as a nation.  Or maybe this is the beginning of the end of the U.S. as a democracy, as the wealthy gain more and more power and the people become powerless, demoralized, and impoverished.

I'm betting the direction we take in the future will depend largely on leadership.  Right now there is a leadership vacuum and eventually someone is going to emerge with "all the answers" and a frightened, demoralized public will follow.  Will it be an FDR or will it be a Rush Limbaugh?  I have no idea.

--Trakker

Comments

[Dan D. Doty]

I wonder if this is still blocked?

Someone out there must be really paranoid.

[Dan D. Doty]

Trakker, you seem to be superimpossing at lot. Are you looking for excuses to hurt people because they think different then you?

And dude, what this? Everyone has to think just like you do?
Talk about ego.

Now free speech is bugging you as well; is there any part of The Bill Of Rights you don't dislike?

Let people send their kids where they want, not what you think is best.

" Our population is not paying attention, are no longer smart enough
or open minded enough to evaluate both sides of the argument."
In other words, you know best and anyone who believes otherwise is defective; nice way to friends there.

Trakker, stop trying to drag everyone and everything back into the 60's, it ain't gonna work; and all you're doing is making yourself miserable and getting really, really paranoid. Dude, you're end up hurting someone; you don't want to end up like Jared Lee Lougher, do you.

When you allow hate into your heart, you grant a most unworthy notion the power to captain your soul.