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So the G.O.P. has found its issue for the 2008 election. For the next three months the party plans to keep chanting: “Drill here! Drill now! Drill here! Drill now! Four legs good, two legs bad!” O.K., I added that last part.
And the debate on energy policy has helped me find the words for something I’ve been thinking about for a while. Republicans, once hailed as the “party of ideas,” have become the party of stupid.
Now, I don’t mean that G.O.P. politicians are, on average, any dumber than their Democratic counterparts. And I certainly don’t mean to question the often frightening smarts of Republican political operatives.
What I mean, instead, is that know-nothingism — the insistence that there are simple, brute-force, instant-gratification answers to every problem, and that there’s something effeminate and weak about anyone who suggests otherwise — has become the core of Republican policy and political strategy. The party’s de facto slogan has become: “Real men don’t think things through” [Paul Krugman, "Know-Nothing Politics," New York Times, 2008.08.07].
Not so long ago, I thought the Republican Party offered real principles, honest conservatism, and common sense. Now all the McCain campaign appears to offer are anti-intellectualism, sexism, fear-mongering, and deficit spending forever.
Maybe the GOP will actually benefit from the ideological enema the Shovelnuts are trying to deliver... oops! or maybe not.
As a lifelong Republican, I am insulted at the notion that I should have to pledge allegiance to a 65-point platform dictated by the "party faithful." I am a human being, not a programmable android.
ReplyDeletePerhaps the Wingnuts are at least partly correct in one respect: I'm an independent who lacks the audacity to break away. I cling to the hope that the G.O.P. will beam back down to the real world.
Reality check for krugman
ReplyDeleteI am also constantly stunned by the density using the argument that it won't produce anything for 10 years...so what! Does anybody think we won't need oil in 10 years? Krugman also completely ignores every single other aspect of conservatives energy policy: nuclear, coal-to-gas, oil shale, natural gas, new refineries, ANWR. The fact is Obama's policy, like democrats in general, focuses on decreasing consumption only. He ignores production entirely.
Oh. and I forgot to mention the belittled support G W Bush gave to the Hydrogen economy.
ReplyDelete