House Speaker John Boehner is worried about the growing communication gap between Republicans and Democrats. Heavens to Betsy:
And while we have a good relationship sometimes the conversations that we have would be like two groups of people from two different planets who barely understand each other. And I don’t mean that in a derogatory way, but there is a reason why you have two major political parties with big disagreements.
Really? I mean, REALLY? Democrats and Republicans are just not communicating well enough? Let’s run with that.
Democrats were upset that Republicans invaded Iraq while bin laden was still on the loose and blew a trillion tax dollars on rebuilding Iraqi schools, bridges, and oil fields with nothing to show for it except a bunch of dead and injured Americans. Republicans are upset that Barack Obama and family engineered a massive international plot to fake his birth certificate while he was in utero so that he would be eligible to be President 50 years later.
Democrats are angry that conservatives crashed the economy, transformed a budget surplus into a 7 trillion-dollar hole in the deficit, and required a trillion-dollar bailout for the richest people on earth. Republicans are angry Barack Obama won’t mindlessly continue exclusively using those same conservative policies to fix the catastrophic consequences of those conservative economic policies.
Democrats are disillusioned with Obama for presiding over the largest tax cuts in history as measured by dollars. Republicans are furious with Obama for raising taxes more than any other President in the 6000 year history of the world.
Democrats are worried the conservative ideology is too control freaky, obsessed with deeply personal decisions such as who can marry who and forcing 12 year-olds to bear the children of their rapist. Republicans are worried the government is forcing hundreds of thousands of people into FEMA concentration camps and creating death panels designed to knock off grandma.
Democrats are frightened of the security state created by conservatives where citizens can be tortured in secret prisons without due process, where warrantless wiretaps are the norm and energy policy is decided in secret meetings by oil company executives appointed to positions of great power. Republicans are frightened the government has run amok in violation of the Bill of Rights by vaccinating children against cancer.
I could go on like this for quite a while, juxtaposing the laughably inaccurate caricature Republicans have created out of whole cloth against the empirical facts of recent history the rest of us use, but hopefully the point is clear. This isn’t an innocent communication gap, it’s a product of the GOP intentionally prying their base away from reality by fabricating bizzare stories and creating a fake history and fake science. Democrats seem angry over events that have actually happened and caused immeasurable harm, or items the GOP is publicly working hard to bring about. Republicans ignore their serial documented failures, when not trying to pawn them off on opponents, and the base is constantly kept whipped into a frenzy of hatred and fear over non-existent fringe conspiracies and tabloid plots. The two don’t speak the same language because they don’t occupy the same rung on the ladder of reality and any person, personality, celebrity, or media venue that pretends otherwise is not credible.
Democrats should work harder at communicating with Republicans. The first message should be “fuck you.”
Then they might want to consider using coarse language.
House Speaker John Boehner’s idea of communication is The Republicans say Jump and The Democrats ask How High?
Goddamn, well said! This is my exact problem with conservatives since I started paying attention to politics. Another good example is the late-term abortion thing: do you really think women who DON’T want the kid are going to carry it for 6-8 months just for the fun of going through an abortion that’s much more risky and expensive? Why the fuck would a woman who doesn’t want the kid go through that, as well as all the health complications with pregnancy? Answer: she doesn’t. Voluntary late-term abortions are only slightly more common than superfluous second assholes (not counting Mitch McConnel’s mouth), at least unless you count getting rid of a dangerous pregnancy that might kill you a “voluntary abortion.” But we HAVE to prevent this from happening or Baby Jebus will cry or something.
[Sigh] Some people seem to think that reality is a leftist plot to make the Tea Party look bad.
“Democrats were upset that Republicans invaded Iraq …”
To be fair to the Democrats, they (mostly) weren’t very upset at the time. In fact most of them seemed to be quite for it.
Mike.
Democrats were upset that Michele Bachmann told Chris Matthews that she thought there were members of Congress who should be investigated for anti-Americanism. Republicans were upset that Michelle Obama told her husband she was impressed by how a flag was being folded.
New reader here. Woo hoo! Right on – to both you and commenters here.
I blame it on religious training/thinking. If you teach people to believe ridiculous stuff with no evidence and that they’re evil if they question it, you have carte blanche to feed them any old balderdash you want – and they will have to lick your feet or go to hell. Makes for extremely gullible and loyal sheeple! Talking to sheeple is like spittin’ in the wind.
To be perfectly honest, when it comes to civil liberties, President Obama is no better, and in some cases worse, than President G. W. Bush. I would attribute it to him hearing the daily security briefings and flipping out at how dangerous the world is presented. Ed Brayton has been pointing out the atrocious record at scienceblogs and here for the last two years. In some cases, he has called for Obama’s impeachment. That’s his style, as he has also called for every school teacher who preaches to kids in science or math class, every pharmacist who won’t dispense birth control pills, and every school board member who tries to put creationist textbooks in middle school science classrooms to be fired.
And I will need some compelling evidence to convince me that most of the Democrats, in either the House or the Senate, are uncomfortable with the security state that’s been created since the USA PATRIOT Act was signed into law. There might be a few, but those have no power and are discounted like Ron Paul when he “blames America for 9/11.”
… a 7 trillion-dollar hole in the deficit…
My inability to fully grasp 7,000,000,000,000 is only one reason why I can’t quite visualize the meaning of this phrase.
Yes, but who is pointing that out, Democrats or Republicans?
I sent this article to a good friend who is a HUGE Obama fan and a Democrat. This is what he said: “I read it as an expression of emotion, not really something to measure in truth value. Very good points and well said.”
Disappointing. What do you think?