The first two “official” Republican candidates for the
presidency, Ben Carson and Ted Cruz, are fumbling their way from one gaffe to
the next, and left-wing commentators and publications are having a field day.
From the shirt-rending hypocrisy of Ted Cruz signing up for Obamacare after
spending 24/7, 365 days a year trying to destroy it to Ben Carson’s
bloodthirsty homophobic rants, columns of eye-rolling, head shaking revelations
are being posted at Salon, The Huffington Post, Raw Story and many other zines.
The one point that is overlooked in all of the verbiage is
that in today’s Republican Party, ignorance is an asset. The religious right
and Tea Party members are deeply distrustful of people outside their ideological
circle, which is the majority of Americans, seeing them as snarky know-it-alls
who look down their noses at America’s true patriots and their bedrock values. As
difficult as it is, we have to come to grips with the fact that one of the two
major political parties in America values superstitious beliefs and
unquestioning adherence to a faith-based ideology over reason and objective
reality, and that this group is putty in the hands of today’s ruling elites.
Politics in America today is not about competing solutions
to our major problems, it is about competing views of reality. Our political
leaders can’t even agree on what’s real and what isn’t real. Despite all the
evidence to the contrary, we have people in positions of power who believe the
earth is 6000 years old, that humans and dinosaurs lived together; that global
warming is a hoax; that homosexuals should be put to death; and yes, that
dark-skinned people are inferior.
Many of us shake our heads in astonishment when Ben Carson
reveals he knows absolutely nothing about modern-day Israel, a country he
loudly supports with every fiber of his being, but that attitude only
strengthens him in the eyes of his supporters. Ignorance is strength. War is
peace. Up is down.
