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| -Short Attention Span Theater- |
| For GOP, defeat is not enough |
| 2016-10-31 |
| Just a note: The individual who posted this did NOT write this. The writer is Leonard Pitts from the Miami Herald. [OregonLive] So yeah, I don't want the GOP defeated. I want it immolated. Your BLM buddies have been doing a magnificent job of immolating their own neighbohoods. You'd almost expect Republicans to do the same with their own, except decent people won't destroy themselves or their property to make a point. I want it razed to the foundation, reduced to a moonscape, left unlivable even for cockroaches, much less newts. I want it treated like boot heels treat ants and furnaces treat ice cubes, treated like a middle-school basketball team playing the '71-'72 Lakers. Defeat is not enough. Let there be humiliation. Let there be pain. There may well be the last two in large quantities come November 9th, for both sides. You never know. This lavish disgust has nothing, absolutely zilch, to do with conservative ideology. It is not in opposition to Republican positions on taxes, regulation, LGBTQ rights, immigration or foreign policy. But it has everything to do with the party's willing and expedient embrace of crazy. Both sides are guilty of embracing crazy. The right has no monopoly. Granted, Republicans did not invent paranoia, persecution complexes or reality estrangement. I remember as a child hearing the barbershop regulars spin elaborate theories of how the moon landing was a hoax and Neil Armstrong's "one small step for a man" actually took place in a New Mexico desert. It seemed pretty harmless at the time. The GOP's innovation was to harness and nurture that craziness for votes. It flattered and wooed the guy in the barbershop - and the woman in the beauty parlor - by taking them seriously. Through its media partners - Fox "News" and talk radio kingpins from Limbaugh on down - and with the timely arrival of the internet and social media, it gave them support and a megaphone. So you're blaming your own industry for harnessing craziness, but you want to destroy a political party. In return, it reaped the nigh-nuclear energy of kooks, cranks, outcasts and iconoclasts whose take-no-prisoners anger invigorated a Grand Old Party. But they also pushed that party further and further to the right - past Nixon, past Reagan and the Bushes, past political and intellectual coherence. Past decorum. Nixon was no conservative. Neither was Bush the Elder, nor is Donald Trump. Reagan was, to the extent that he managed to temporarily change the conversation about the relationship of the average citizen to their government. Until finally, the party sold its soul to the Donald. You aren't paying much attention to what is going on on the ground. A large number of Republicans, conservatives and liberals alike have decided either to vote for a third party or not vote at all for president. And in case you missed it, a large part of the Republican leadership failed to "circle the wagons" to defend Trump against any of the latest spurious allegations. That has angered rank and file Republicans who believe that the party must unify around a candidate, not an agenda. We don't know how much this will affect the down ballot, but it's not hard to think that it will. That is a picture of a political party shattered by Donald Trump voters, Never Trumpers and others. That is not selling your soul to Donald Trump. The damage to GOP credibility is profound. The damage to America is worse. We find ourselves a nation that cannot have meaningful discussion of its issues because some of us have pulled away from the center, from common cause and shared mission, choosing instead to dwell in a pestilential swamp where newspaper hacks collude with presidents and Billy Bush is Jason Bourne. Newspaper hacks are for the most part backing Hillary. And as for hacks colluding with presidents, you should witness the news/opinion writers from the NY Times and others who have done everything they can to advance Hillary's cause as well as Obammer's. So the crazy must be rebuked emphatically, refuted in a way that leaves no doubt: We are better than this. That's what's best for the nation. It's also what's best for principled conservatives powerless against a virulent cancer that has metastasized through their party. Maybe they'll be able to save that party - or build a new one. Either way, the mission statement here for thoughtful Americans could not be more clear. Do not defeat the GOP. Nuke it. Readers can contact Leonard Pitts at lpitts@miamiherald.com |
| Posted by:badanov |
| #8 The Left never has tolerance for the real 'will of the people', democracy or a republic. It only wants power. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2016-10-31 16:23 |
| #7 Well Mr. Pitts, you should re-examine who you came to this dance with. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2016-10-31 14:19 |
| #6 Liberal fascism at it's best. I love it when these dangerous morons self-identify. |
| Posted by: SteveS 2016-10-31 12:48 |
| #5 I used to read Mr. Pitts' articles as, once in a while, they were actually quite thoughtful. When he immediately jumped on the Travon Martin 'victimhood' bandwagon without his usual research, he lost my respect. Later, his writing during the 'Hands Up, Don't Shoot' farce, he lost me for good. |
| Posted by: Mullah Richard 2016-10-31 12:39 |
| #4 Lets see what enemy#1 has to say. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2016-10-31 12:34 |
| #3 The damage to America is worse. Pitts has a serious lack of self-awareness. |
| Posted by: Raj 2016-10-31 12:30 |
| #2 Apparently Mr. Pitts reads his editorials and non other. |
| Posted by: jvalentour 2016-10-31 08:07 |
| #1 ...That scared, eh, Lennie?... Mike |
| Posted by: Mike Kozlowski 2016-10-31 05:04 |