Tag: Republicans

Republicans Are Scaring Me Again

debate
Kasich, Bush, Rubio, Trump, Cruz, Carson, Christie (left to right)

W.J. Astore

I watched last night’s Republican Presidential Debate from New Hampshire.  And then I slept poorly.  John Kasich and a subdued Ben Carson excepted, all of the candidates were determined to frighten me and mine.  As they shouted and gesticulated, I wrote down some of their words and some of the thoughts and feelings they generated.  It went something like this:

We’re in danger!  Obama’s gutting our military!  Muslims are shouting “death to America”!  China!  America is weak!  We must build a HUGE WALL to keep out illegals! Abortion is murder!  Take their oil!  Chopping heads!  Dying in the street! Waterboarding isn’t torture, which doesn’t matter, because we need more torture!  Respect the police! People need to fear us again!  We don’t win — we need to win again!  Iranian and North Korean nukes!  America must get back in the game and be strong!  Tough!  Win!

Well, you get the picture.  The prize for most obscene statement of the night (among a wealth of obscene statements) was Ted Cruz’s claim that America’s possession of overwhelming airpower — its ability to carpet bomb enemies into oblivion — is a blessing.  A blessing — I’m assuming he meant from God, not the Dark One, but who knows?

My wife’s impression?  She said the candidates reminded her of low-blow fighters, or teenage boys in high school.

It’s simple, really: If you want more bombing, more killing, more war, more torture, more police, more walls, and lower taxes on corporations (yes — that came up too), vote Republican in November.

My nightmare scenario: this is exactly the vision Marco Rubio had in mind when he repeatedly called America “the single greatest nation in the history of the world.”

 

The 2016 Presidential Candidates in a Word

face plant
Politics: Sometimes I just want to do a face plant (Photo: Barbara Neiberg)

W.J. Astore

Continuing our election coverage, I thought I’d try to sum up each major candidate with a single word (excluding profanities).  I encourage readers to submit your own words for each candidate in the comments section below.

 

The Democrats

Clinton: Compromised.  No candidate is more beholden to special interests and the establishment than Hillary.

Sanders: Revolutionary.  Let’s face it: It would be revolutionary for a Socialist Jew to win the Democratic nomination.  And “revolution” is one of Bernie’s favorite words.

O’Malley: Eclipsed.  I had to strain to remember his name, and I’ve watched the debates.  Simply overshadowed by Hillary and Bernie.

 

The Republicans

Trump: Bombastic.  Trump makes a lot of noise, and my dad always told me “the empty barrel makes the most noise.”

Cruz: Oleaginous.  There’s something slippery about Cruz.

Rubio: Callow.  An eager beaver, apple-polishing type.  Not quite ready for prime time.

Bush: Uncertain.  He doesn’t seem to believe the words coming out of his own mouth.  This is one reason why Trump calls him “weak,” because The Donald never doubts himself.

Carson: Serene.  His calm is perfect for a neurosurgeon, but he’s out of his element on the political stage.

Christie: Angry.  He seems to despise both Obama (“feckless weakling”) and Hillary.  Like Tony Soprano but without the charm.

Kasich: Grey.  A conventional Republican governor, he blends into the background due to the strutting peacocks that surround him.

What do you think, readers?  Have at it!

 

The Republican Alternate Universe of Paranoia

repubdebate-162-master675
Paranoia will destroy ya

W.J. Astore

I watched last night’s Republican debate so you wouldn’t have to.  Leaving aside the usual mugging by Donald Trump, the usual jousting over side issues like whether Ted Cruz is a natural born citizen, I thought I’d take an impressionistic approach to the debate.  You can read the debate transcript here (if you dare), but here is my admittedly personal take on the main messages of the debate.

  1. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are coming to take your guns. So you need to elect a Republican who will allow you to keep your guns and to buy many, many more guns while carrying them openly in public.
  2. Related to (1), ISIS is coming to these shores. In fact, they’re already here.  That’s one big reason why everyone needs guns – to protect ourselves from ISIS and other terrorists out to kill Americans on Main Street USA.
  3. America is weak. Obama has gutted our military.  The Iranians and Russians laugh at us.  To stop them from laughing, America needs to rebuild its military, buy more weapons, and use them freely.  In fact, all the next commander-in-chief needs to do is ask military leaders what they need to win, give them exactly that, then stand back as our military (especially Special Ops troops) kicks ass.  Victory!
  4. America is weak (again), this time economically. The Chinese are kicking our ass.  They’re tougher than us and smarter than us.  We need to teach them who’s boss, perhaps with a big tariff on Chinese imports, combined with intense pressure on them to revalue their currency.
  5. The American tax system is unfair to corporations. We need to lower corporate tax rates so that American companies won’t relocate, and also so that American businesses will be more competitive vis-à-vis foreign competitors.
  6. The most oppressed “minority” in the U.S. are not Blacks or Hispanics or the poor: it’s the police. Yes, the police.  They are mistreated and disrespected.  Americans need to recognize the police are there to protect them and to defer to them accordingly.
  7. The only amendment worth citing in the U.S. Constitution is the Second Amendment.
  8. The National Security Agency, along with all the other intelligence agencies in America, need to be given more power, not less. They need broad and sweeping surveillance powers to keep America safe.  Privacy issues and the Fourth Amendment can be ignored.  People like Edward Snowden are traitors. “Safety” is everything.
  9. Bernie Sanders is a joke. Hillary Clinton just might be the anti-Christ.
  10. Immigrants are a threat, especially if they’re Muslim. They must be kept out of America so that they don’t steal American jobs and/or kill us all.

What I didn’t hear: Anything about the poor, or true minorities, or gender inequities, or the dangers of more war, and so on.

My main takeaway from this debate: Republican candidates live in the United States of Paranoia, a hostile land in which fear rules.  Think “Mad Max, Fury Road,” but without any tough females about.  (I have to admit I missed Carly Fiorina/Imperator Furiosa on the main stage.)

Only one candidate struck a few tentative notes of accord through bipartisan collaboration and compromise: Ohio governor John Kasich.  In his closing statement, he spoke eloquently of his parents’ working-class background.  He’s also the only candidate with the guts not to wear the by-now obligatory flag lapel pin.  I’m not a Republican, but if I had to vote for one, it would be him.  Why?  Because he’s the least batshit crazy of the bunch.

Yes, it was a depressing night, one spent in an alternate universe detached from reality.  In the end, old song lyrics popped into my head: “paranoia will destroy ya.”  Yes, yes it will, America.

Halloween Special: Republican Zombies Stalk A Cold War Bogeyman!

W.J. Astore

It’s Halloween, America, which perhaps explains the gruesome results of the latest Republican presidential debate.  I watched a sliver of them (terrifying!), and read as much as I could stand of the debate transcript (horrifying!).  As usual, the Republicans want you to be afraid, very afraid, of the bogeyman.  With respect to the economy, the bogeyman is variously described as a socialist, a Bolshevik, even a Menshevik (!), someone who favors big government to make all of your decisions on health care, education, and what not.

The Republican solution?  Trust the free market!  Empower the makers by cutting their taxes.  Vilify the moochers and takers while starving them of their entitlement candy.  Something like this cartoon, perhaps:

cartoon

Long ago, George H.W. Bush described Reagan’s “supply side” tax plan as “voodoo economics.”  That’s the idea you can cut taxes on the richest and most privileged Americans, thereby supposedly stimulating investment and growth, in which case the benefits would “trickle down” to the lowest of Americans on the economic ladder, even as the federal budget miraculously balanced itself.

If you thought that voodoo was thirty-five years in the grave, think again.  It’s been exhumed from the graveyard of dead ideas, stalking us yet again, this time from the stage of that presidential debate in Boulder, Colorado.

For me, the scariest part of the Republican debate was its total lack of original ideas.  Talk of Bolshevism is Cold War rhetoric that was dead a generation ago; supply-side economics was dead on arrival almost two generations ago; but like zombies these dead ideas are consuming the brains of the Republican candidates.

I don’t need to watch the TV series “The Walking Dead” to see zombies.  For that, I just need to watch the Republican presidential debates.

How Republicans Talk About Foreign Policy

The ideal Republican candidate for president
A Barechested Putin Riding Bareback on a Bear: The Ideal Republican Candidate for President!

W.J. Astore

At the New York Times, Robert Draper had a fascinating article last month on how Republican candidates for president are positioning themselves on foreign policy.  Rand Paul excepted, all of the Republican candidates are calling for a more “aggressive” U.S. foreign policy, one that promises more military interventions and higher military spending.  The goal is apparently to show more muscle than President Obama, who has been “weak,” according to these same Republicans.

The language here fascinates me.  Again and again in Draper’s article, you see references to “a more muscular foreign policy.”  Showcasing muscles appears to be a favorite trope of Republican advisers, as is the need to be more “aggressive” overseas (Obama, of course, is viewed as being passive and timid).  Republicans according to Draper favor the “aggressive promotion of American values” (whatever those are), an aggression that will somehow avoid recklessness (good luck with that).  So, ISIS will be aggressively “destroyed,” even as the Middle East is stabilized by infusing it with “American values” (freedom? democracy? human rights?) promulgated by (as near as I can tell) American military muscle.

To cite just one example, consider this political ad featuring Senator Lindsey Graham, seen in his Air Force reserve uniform, highlighting his promise to “destroy” ISIS.

A muscular and aggressive foreign policy to destroy America’s enemies: If that excites you, vote Republican.  But consider the cost of this love affair with muscles and aggression.  And then ask yourself: Are they not the real “American values”?

All this talk of bulging military muscles and coldly calculated aggression: the ideal candidate for gung ho Republicans is not the reincarnation of Ronald Reagan.  It’s an American Vladimir Putin.

Republicans and Fear

 

PFC Jones with Mine-Detector. Want to talk about fear?
PFC Jones with Mine-Detector. Want to talk about fear?

W.J. Astore

Why, looky here, another article in the New York Times that examines the Republican “hawks” posturing for a presidential run in 2016.  As the article blurb states, “Republicans are scrambling to outmuscle one another on national security issues.”  It’s all about looking tough and calling for more boots on the ground in battles against ISIS and terror everywhere.

Here’s the money quote:

“There’s a lot of fear out there,” said Katon Dawson, a former chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party, noting that the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, had become a regular topic of discussion at his regular breakfast spot in Columbia, the Lizard’s Thicket. “The waitresses and managers and everybody there has a notion about ISIL. People understand who this group is now.”

I should think the waitresses at “Lizard’s Thicket” would be more fearful of paying their weekly and monthly bills, given the low wages earned by wait staff in America.  Or that they and their customers would be more fearful of their sons and daughters in uniform being deployed to Iraq to showcase those “muscles” that Republican politicians are always trying to flex.  (Don’t worry: No politicians, Republican or Democrat, are eager to send their own sons and daughters overseas to fight.)

Once again, Republican politicians are banging the drums of fear – and as my dad always said, the empty barrel makes the most noise.  The music is as tragic as it is predictable: endless war in the name of looking tough and defeating terror.  And anyone who dares to suggest the folly of this risks being tarred as an appeaser to ISIS and its ilk.

What burns my butt is that none of these blowhard politicians has any skin in the game.  They risk nothing in bleating for war.  It’s not their sons and daughters who are being deployed to the front lines.

The other day, I was talking to a young woman at my eye doctor’s office.  Her brother is in the Army.  She told me he’s an EOD, an explosive ordnance disposal specialist.  A risky job, I said, to which she replied, “He volunteered for the extra money,” money that the Army has yet to pay him.  He’s got a four-year commitment and is due to be deployed after his training is completed.

So, as they seek to “outmuscle” their political rivals, how many politicians’ sons are in the Army right now, training for EOD duty and risking their lives for the extra money that comes with this hazardous duty?  My educated guess: none.  Absolutely none.

It’s easy to flex (and to risk) the muscles of others, America.  Stop listening to politicians and their fear-mongering.  No foreign terrorist is coming to get you as you enjoy your coffee and hash browns at “Lizard’s Thicket.”  No – the biggest risk is blowhard politicians who are so, so, eager to send your sons and daughters off to yet more wars in the cause of outmuscling their rivals for political office.

Conservative Kookiness in Iowa

Scott Walker serves up some red meat
Scott Walker serves up some red meat

W.J. Astore

OK.  I should know better.  When you pay attention to what conservatives are saying at the Iowa Freedom Forum, attended as it is by religious activists, you’re going to hear kookiness and craziness.  But what’s sad is how the “red meat” issues raised by the likes of Ted Cruz, Scott Walker, and Rick Santorum are so devoid of nutritional value.  Empty calories, all of it.

You hear the usual talk about lower taxes and less governmental regulation, even though Republicans under Reagan and the Bushes (along with the Democrats as well) oversaw expansions in government.  George H.W. Bush famously said, “Read my lips — no new taxes,” before proceeding to raise taxes once he became president.  Along with lower taxes and smaller government, Republicans also claim to support “family values,” a vapid phrase that basically means whatever you want to read into it.  I’m not a fan of Obama’s priorities and policies, but one thing I can say for the man is that his life, his wife, and his teenage girls have exuded family values, Thanksgiving controversy or no.

So we know Republicans are supposedly for lower taxes, smaller government, and family values.  What else are they for? Abortion, of course, as in restricting it further or even eliminating it.  Voter ID laws, because we all know how the “wrong” kind of people are being bussed in en masse to skew voting results in favor of socialism (talk about an urban myth!).  And more gun rights, like open carry laws and easier approval for concealed permits to carry.

Egads!  These are the issues that sway the activist base of the Republican Party?  Fetuses, the specter of more disadvantaged people of color voting, and guns.

Wow.  Our country faces serious issues.  A crumbling infrastructure.  An unsustainable prison system.  Perpetual wars.  Climate change (even Republicans admit it’s real, though they won’t blame humans for it).  Ever widening gaps between rich and poor.  Student loan and credit card debt that threaten a fragile economic recovery.  Mediocre education.  Ever rising health care costs (still the number one cause for personal bankruptcies in America).  But forget all that: let’s talk about fetuses, non-existent voter fraud, and guns.

And Republicans like Santorum wonder why “too many people don’t think we care about them.”  Gee… I wonder why, Rick.

(A personal note: In 1976, though too young to vote, I supported Gerald Ford rather than Jimmy Carter.  In 1984, I voted for Ronald Reagan because I believed Walter Mondale lacked the gravitas to be president at a crucial moment in US-Soviet affairs.  Ever since then, the Republican Party has lost me with its cynical culture wars and active suppression of democracy, among other reasons.)

Election Result: More Military Escalations Are Coming

James_Madison_1894_Issue-2$
James Madison warned that perpetual war is the worst enemy of personal liberty

W.J. Astore

So, Republicans now control the Senate as well as the House.  As we the people endure the forced march to 2016 and the next presidential election, our new political landscape is sure to produce more military escalations.

The reason is as obvious as it is sad.  De-escalation of military conflicts is defined, especially by Republicans, as “losing” whereas escalation is defined as “doing something,” as being “decisive,” even when decision is nowhere in sight.  Even when military action just makes matters worse.

Once again, as we approach 2016, the Republicans will bash the Democrats as appeaseniks.  And the Republicans will be right.  The Democrats are appeaseniks — to the national security state.

You can almost guarantee that the hawkish Hillary Clinton — doing her best imitation of Margaret Thatcher — will be the Democratic candidate.  Meanwhile, Republican candidates will run to the right of Attila the Hun as they blame Obama for having “lost” both Iraq and Afghanistan (even though both of those countries were never ours to “win”).  Dishonest (or disingenuous) the Republicans may be, but they know how to win elections via the Big Lie.

As Tom Engelhardt noted this week, the national security state has built a militarized escalation machine that will execute its function of perpetual war regardless of whom is sworn in as the next commander-in-chief.

As my wife said to me today, our country is in big trouble.  Yes, we are, because as James Madison pointed out, perpetual war is the enemy of democracy and freedom.

As for me, I’ll vote for any candidate who has the spine to stand up for an end to perpetual war.  Show me a candidate who’s willing to abandon fear-mongering about overseas threats while telling the truth about the threats we face right here at home from America’s power brokers and I’ll show you a candidate worthy of being elected.  Either that, or show me a candidate who’s so worried about those overseas threats that he or she takes up arms (I mean literally) in the trenches against the enemy, and I’ll show you a candidate who at least is not a hypocrite.

But I fear 2016 will be the year of Benghazi!  Benghazi! and who lost Iraq/Afghanistan/and similar countries we never “found” to begin with.

Did I mention my smarter wife said our country is in trouble?