Jay Lake (jaylake) wrote,
Jay Lake
jaylake

[politics] Being crazy isn't looking stupid, it's the native condition of the GOP

There's a new poll coming out today which appears to back up what the Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll said a few weeks ago. As you may recall, at the time GOP leaders and pundits reacted angrily, saying the poll was meant to make them look stupid.

The lede on the Harris poll is "Majority of Republicans: Obama is a Muslim".

Confidential to GOP in America: When you tell your followers that the president is a Muslim, a Socialist, and that he pals around with terrorists, you look stupid. When they believe you, your followers look stupid. When the real world notices this stupidity, you look stupid.

No one made you look stupid but yourselves.

Brighten up, Republicans. Your media strategy has been a success. People believe all those lies you've been feeding them for years. A significant portion of this country is convinced we have a Muslim Socialist Nazi fascist terrorist traitor in the White House. And many of them carry guns, for bonus fun! Never mind what any of those words actually mean, or how internally contradictory they are. Never mind what the actual facts on the ground are. Your message has succeeded wildly.

It's not looking stupid. It's sowing what you reap. Unfortunately, the rest of us have to live in this country.

Crazy isn't looking like such a great electoral strategy these days, is it?

Maybe you should try, you know, facts. Ideas. Governance instead of politics. Reality instead of rhetoric. But that passion that Beck and Limbaugh inspire is a powerful drug, isn't it? Hard to kick the buzz, hard to lose that "king of the world" feeling when the mob is shouting your name as their savior.

This is what Lee Atwater and Roger Ailes set out to do almost forty years ago. Demonize the opposition, activate the base, and turn the media. Hope you like our country now, conservative America.

You broke it, but we all have to buy it.

Tags: politics
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