Will Losing Their Health Insurance Help Republican Voters Wake Up?

Seeing video and photos of Trump and congressional Republicans celebrating the passage of the catastrophic Trumpcare legislation turned my stomach in a way that so many other recent images have not. Why? Because the clusterfuck of mostly rich white males guffawing and ass-slapping each other like they’d just gotten free tickets to a Three Stooges film marathon were laughing at you and me. That’s right, good citizen, we were the butt of the joke in Washington, D.C. yesterday, as Republican members of congress and Trump celebrated our utter stupidity, our unassailable ignorance, our inability to distinguish fact from fiction. And by “we,” I mean the millions of Americans who keep voting for Republicans.

To Republican candidates, a large swath of American voters are country hicks in the big city who will stand at the Three-Card Monte table indefinitely, continuously betting that they will win the next hand. And that characterization is highly accurate. Part of this is because the marks get their information and their biases confirmed from a corporatist network media and delusional right-wing cable “news” shows. FOX News has been the most watched cable news show for years. Bolstered with misinformation and appeals to their darkest fears, Jesus-loving whites turn out on election day eager to vote for the Christian con-artist with the shiniest American flag lapel pin.

It is very unlikely that the Trumpcare legislation will pass in the Senate and become law, but that doesn’t mean a slightly less onerous bill couldn’t succeed in the future. As long as Trump is president and both houses are controlled by Republicans, there will be no end of legislation designed to benefit the .01 percent at the expense of the rest of us. Today it’s healthcare, tomorrow it will be taxes and the next day energy and on and on, with the pigs at the trough never getting enough.

Will it take the total annihilation of this country to open the eyes of the American voter? What will it take to break the trance of values voters and get them to see the con-artists for who they truly are? Will losing their health insurance be enough? What will wake these people up?

Angry Town Hall Attendees Need To Look In The Mirror

Across red state America from Idaho to Florida, congressional Republicans are returning to their hometowns to face angry voters. Those conservative reps brave enough to attend Town Hall meetings are being met with large hostile crowds who are demanding answers about their support for Trump and his toxic agenda.

And I don’t get it.

The majority of the people attending these Town Hall meetings are Republicans. They likely voted for the representative they are now booing and probably voted for Trump. Yet here they are criticizing the person who they knew was a conservative, who they knew would support the Republican presidential candidate, and who they knew would follow Donald Trump’s lead. They’re mad at their representative, when they should be mad at themselves for their ill informed, self-defeating choices.

There’s a ton of analysis out there about why people continue to vote against their own best interests, but what does it take to get them to stop? Do they really believe a Democrat would do a worse job then their current congressperson, who they now revile? Red state Americans willingly voted for a president who was an avowed racist (a point in his favor, I guess), a misogynist, a serial liar and a corrupt businessman basically because he wasn’t Hillary Clinton or another Democrat. And then they are disappointed with the results. 

How bad will things have to get before Republican voters realize the leaders of their party have no interest in helping them or making their lives better? And how long will it take for Democrats to wake up and realize that neo-liberal, corporate-sponsored candidates like Hillary Clinton and John Kerry won’t win the hearts and minds of Middle Americans?

I know it can be hard to admit your own mistakes, but when your very survival and the survival of your children is at stake — and with Trump at the helm this isn’t hyperbole  — isn’t it time to reconsider where your loyalty lies?

Grandma and Grandpa, Let’s Be Honest. Republicans Don’t Care About You.

I am as happy as anyone with the turnouts at Republican Congressional Town Halls being held around the country (for those Republican reps who had the courage to hold one). Constituents are expressing their anger and frustration with conservative ideologues more interested in their billionaire donors than the people who elected them to congress. Seeing corporate lapdogs like Mitch McConnell, Joni Ernst, Chuck Grassley and Tom Cotton get verbally pummeled by angry Grandmas is truly heartwarming.

But, and you knew there had to be a “but,” why did so many of these same people think at one point in time that McConnell, Ernst, Grassley or Cotton were going to work for them when they never had in the past? The Republicans now in congress are the same band of money worshipping, democracy hating corporate toadies they always were, the only difference is Trump is president. Where were the cries of “Do your job” when they spent eight years obstructing Obama? Or when they wasted millions of taxpayer dollars and congressional time chasing the fictitious Benghazi boogieman?

I’m glad Americans are finally getting angry at Congressional Republicans and their destructive agenda, but they need to get a firm grasp on WHY they are angry and start rethinking their choices at the voting booth. Grandma, Republicans don’t want to help you because you have so little to offer them. They may say the love Jesus and apple pie, but they don’t love you. They do love the Koch brothers, and General Electric and off shore tax havens, but constituents? Pffft. So please, the answer is crystal clear: Stop voting for Republicans.

The Republican's Benghazi Blunder

The political sites I visit online are all leading off with articles about Hillary Clinton extending her lead over Bernie Sanders in the polls. Gee, why the sudden surge in popularity for Hillary? Let me think….

Benghazi!

Benghazi!

Benghazi!

That’s right, folks. We have the walking brain-dead Republicans to thank for Clinton’s sudden rise in popularity. It apparently never occurred to any of them that a calm, articulate, intelligent woman being hounded for eleven hours by a rabid, redneck lynch mob might not play well with the public. So wrapped up in their delusional hatred of Clinton, Congressional Republicans gave full voice to their ignorance and ineptitude last week, and voters are responding accordingly.

The failure of the Benghazi witch hunt is just the latest example of how out of touch with reality Republicans have become. Just look at their presidential candidates. Their only concern right now is who can throw the largest chunk of red meat to their loony followers and, as of today, that honor goes to Ben Carson. I can hear Carson preparing for tonight’s Republican debate right now.

Carson: I don’t believe abortion is right under any circumstances.

Consultant: Crazier.

Carson: I don’t think abortion is right under any circumstances, and any woman who even thinks about it should be arrested.

Consultant: Give me more crazy, Ben.

Carson: I don’t think abortion is right under any circumstances, and all women should be jailed for the term of their pregnancy to prevent any abortions.

Consultant: Perfect.

No one, not even some Republicans, believed the Benghazi hearings were anything but a partisan hit job on Hillary. The fact that the pinhead Gowdy and his posse thought this public hearing would be a good thing for Republicans simply blows my mind. Lost in their delusional fog, Republicans continue to believe that they can bend reality to justify their ideology, but that never has and never will work.

Should the Republican Party be classified as a terrorist organization?

How could anyone propose such a horrendous idea? Well, it’s actually quite easy. Today’s Republican Party is doing more to destroy those ideas and principals that made America a great country than all the actual terrorist organizations combined. I present my case:

They want to destroy our form of government – The conservative propaganda is relentless: government is bad, government is bad, government is bad. We get it. You hate our government. So does ISIS. Ignoring everything good that government has done, the ongoing attacks on our leadership and active efforts to weaken the executive branch have zombefied many Americans who repeat the chant without giving it a second thought. By overtly working daily to destroy our form of government, conservatives in Congress and their Right Wing megaphone are accomplishing what al Qaeda and ISIS and the Taliban could never dream of achieving. Their conscious and unconscious ineptness becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

They want to destroy our educational system – A strong system of public education during the forties, fifties and sixties truly made America the envy of the world. Young people from all economic strata and ethnic backgrounds could (theoretically) get the same education as sons and daughters of the elite. Republicans reject the idea that Americans should have a strong, healthy public education system, and have spent decades criticizing, defunding and demonizing the public education sector. As with everything else having government ties, they want to completely privatize education, allowing schools across the country to teach whatever they feel like, filling the minds of young people with whatever religious beliefs or political propaganda the local community desires.

They are at war with science – In recent years there has been a relentless attack from Tea Party Republicans on science and scientific findings that clash with their religious beliefs or campaign funding sources. Like their Middle East brethren, many conservatives refuse to accept established science and continue propagating myths and superstitious mumbo jumbo. How can America possibly compete on the world stage if our children are being taught religious theory instead of scientific facts? There is a subset of Republicans who attack science to protect their funding sources. Climate change deniers often fall into this camp, doing the oil and energy industries bidding at the expense of the world’s future health. In both cases, the result is an assault on science that is dooming not only the United States, but the world at large.

They are intent on crippling our economy – Conservatives slavish devotion to illogical and demonstrably wrong economic theories like austerity, free markets, supply side economics and deregulation have resulted in an economy that is as unequal as it’s been in over 100 years. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, conservatives continue to believe, and act on the belief, that tax breaks for the already wealthy will stimulate the economy. Ignoring the fact that this has been tried over and over with the same dismal results, it remains an article of faith among Republicans. The Republican Party is the party of the elites, and whatever they can do to please their financial supporters, that is the course they will follow with no regard for anyone else. The middle class is being destroyed as a result of their misguided economic policies. The great irony is that American voters have been convinced to vote against their best economic interests by double-talking conservatives who play on their emotions and religious beliefs.

They want to turn America into a theocracy – Conservatives have been more than willing to rewrite history to try and support a major tenet of theirs; that the United States is a Christian nation. Ignoring accepted history surrounding the founding of our country, the right wing continues to promote the idea that the founding fathers were fundamentalist Christians who built this nation on biblical principals. They want to rewrite and revise our fundamental documents to align with the Bible, and rule the country using a Biblical foundation. Like their Middle Eastern counterparts, they want their particular religious views woven into the entire fabric of our country, from schools to the workplace to the halls of power in Washington, D.C.

From shutting down the government to conducting illegal foreign policy to flagrant attacks on the very institutions that once made America a true world power, I think the evidence is irrefutable that the Republican Party is intent on destroying the current version of American and replacing it with a theocracy. What would you call that?

Republicans rely on poorly informed voters to win office

The headline for an article at Campaign for America’s Future says it all: “Polling Irony: People Think the Economy is Rigged; Trust the GOP to Fix It.” While the economy is not in great shape, it’s better than it was when George Bush left office and the deficit is down two-thirds from 2008, yet voters are still under the impression that the economy is worse now than it was under Bush.

Apparently Americans have been in a coma for the past six years. They seem to have no understanding of what’s happened in Washington D.C., of the Republican obstructionists in Congress who did everything in their power to make sure the economy did not improve under Obama. They shut down the freaking government, yet voters still think they will fix our broken economy.

And why can’t the Democrats get the very simple, straightforward message across to voters that Republicans in Congress are to blame for our current economic stagnation? What is so difficult about that? The facts are the facts, yet candidates can’t seem to articulate this argument in a way that resonates with voters.

Then there is the failure of the mainstream media to provide voters with a true picture of what has transpired in Washington since Obama took office. Afraid to offend viewers and lose ratings share, the networks offer up a slushy “he said, she said” analysis of politics that avoids any truth that might be construed as partisan.

I have to admit that the Republicans hatched a brilliantly simple plan right after Obama was elected and it has worked to perfection: Wreck the economy and blame it on the President. They bet that fickle, poorly informed voters would focus their anger and frustration on Obama, not Congress, and, unfortunately, they were right.