“An Apocalyptic Cult”: The GOP’s Biggest Problem Is Itself
“How ya like me now?” — Barack Obama
OK, so Obama didn’t really say that, but surely he must have thought it behind a private smile at some point Tuesday night.
There are no smiles among the Republicans, however, only a pressing question: Can the GOP fix itself? Can a party whose appeal is wholly white and mainly male learn to appeal to a rainbow electorate which is neither? Especially after it has spent so many years denigrating that rainbow, drawing lines in the sand, placing chips on its shoulder.
There are hopeful signs that our long national hissy fit may at last be over. House Speaker John Boehner was making conciliatory noises about resolving the economic impasse the day after the election. Some of the party’s most prominent voices, including Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, have been speaking of the need for the GOP to broaden its appeal. So maybe the adults are finally returning home.
But the place is a wreck, because the kids (looking at you, Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain) have been having quite the party. And repairing it is going to be a long and difficult process.
In the first place, any sudden GOP outreach to those it spurned while courting angry older white men must unavoidably appear conniving, self-conscious and self-serving. And once you get past the problem of appearances, there is the simple question of what it will take to undo the damage the party has inflicted upon itself with those groups.
How long will it be before gay men and lesbians are willing to forgive and forget that the party has routinely demeaned their relationships and impugned their moral fitness?
How long will it take before Hispanics are willing to let bygones be bygones with a party that spoke of “self-deportation” and cheered the notion of a border fence to electrocute undocumented Mexican workers?
And how much time must go by before African-Americans are willing to look past the GOP’s unrelenting and deeply personal disrespect toward the nation’s first African-American president, its insistence on treating him as some foreign Other who, in John Sununu’s memorably tawdry phrase, must “learn how to be an American”?
All that said, the biggest question here is not whether the GOP can transform itself, but whether it can even try. At this point, the Republicans are less a traditional political party than what disenchanted former GOP staffer Mike Lofgren has called an “apocalyptic cult.”
And cults are remarkably fact-resistant. Cultists live in a reality of their own construction and, far from being chastened by it, they thrive on rejection. So while the grownups in the party may be reading the writing on the demographic wall and believe it calls on them to abandon extremism, there is every reason to believe the rest of the party will think that writing requires them to double down on it instead.
Indeed, even as Rubio and Boehner were talking sense, party icons were talking the same old craziness. Donald Trump called for revolution in the wake of Obama’s re-election. Ted Nugent called Obama supporters “pimps, whores … welfare brats” and “soulless fools.” Bill O’Reilly said people voted for Obama because he will “give them things.”
And so on.
This, then, is the dilemma Republicans have created for themselves by their own short-sightedness. It was all well and fine to embrace angry white male extremism so long as white male extremism was able to deliver elections. That day is passing and the party awakens in a new America, desperately needing to change but quite possibly prevented from doing so by the very craziness it has so long cultivated.
Ain’t that a kick in the head? For years, the party has won elections by inventing enemies for angry white men to fear. But at this point, the GOP has no bigger enemy than itself.
By: Leonard Pitts, Jr., The National Memo, November 12, 2012
“From Eve To 2012”: What’s Behind The Slut-Shaming
As leading Republicans have been asked about Rush Limbaugh’s typically despicable attacks on Sandra Fluke—the law student who testified before congressional Democrats about the importance of health insurance coverage for contraception—they’ve offered some pretty weak responses. Mitt Romney said that when Limbaugh called Fluke a “slut” and a “prostitute,” “it’s not the language I would have used.” Perhaps he meant that he would have called her a “harlot” or a “trollop.” Rick Santorum, whose opposition to contraception is well-established, said that Limbaugh was “being absurd, but that’s, you know—an entertainer can be absurd.” Before we move on to this week’s controversy, it’s important to note just what kind of venomous beliefs this episode has brought to the fore. Republicans are insisting that this isn’t really about contraception, it’s about religious freedom. But for some people, it’s about something much more fundamental: the dire threat of uncontrolled female sexuality.
Limbaugh is indeed an entertainer, and he’s an entertainer who understands his audience very well. Does anyone think that when he called Fluke a “slut” that millions of his listeners didn’t nod in agreement? The real threat, as Limbaugh sees it, the thing that must be shamed and ridiculed, is the idea that a woman might be in control of her own sexuality. As Limbaugh said, “So Miss Fluke, and the rest of you Feminazis, here’s the deal. If we are going to pay for your contraceptives, and thus pay for you to have sex. We want something for it. We want you post the videos online so we can all watch.” In other words, her sexuality is only acceptable if it can be placed in a context where it exists for his pleasure and not hers.
In rushing to Limbaugh’s defense, Bill O’Reilly offered only a slightly different take. “Let me get this straight, Ms. Fluke, and I’m asking this with all due respect,” he said. “You want me to give you my hard-earned money so you can have sex?” Displaying his typical ignorance, O’Reilly, like Limbaugh, is under the impression that this issue is about taxpayer money and not what is being covered by the private insurance that women themselves are paying for. It’s convenient, because that way he can still consider himself involved, and claim the right to withhold his payment. And that way, the decision about whether a woman will have sex, and what will happen to her if she does, still lies in some measure with him.
It’s no wonder that even when a group of conservative state legislators passes a law requiring any woman who wants an abortion to get it only if she’ll submit to a series of humiliations, they usually insert exceptions for rape and incest. If it were about the fetus, it wouldn’t matter how a woman became pregnant. But if she was raped, then she wasn’t committing the violation of willingly having sex, so she need not be punished. So long as her sexuality doesn’t belong to her, she hasn’t fallen.
This is an old story, of course, going all the way back to Eve, through Hester Prynne, and going strong in 2012. So if you thought there weren’t still people, lots of them, who view the idea of a woman controlling her own sexuality with horror and rage, then the last week was a helpful reminder.
By: Paul Waldman, The American Prospect, March 5, 2012
The “Sluts Of America” Are Fighting Back
I am a slut.
Before this week, I didn’t know I was a slut. But Rush Limbaugh set me straight:
What does it say about the college co-ed Susan Fluke, who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex? What does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute.
Sandra Fluke is the Georgetown law student who testified about the necessity of providing insurance coverage for birth control. She spoke about her friend who suffers from polycystic ovarian syndrome, which was being treated with birth control pills, until she could no longer afford to shell out $100 a month for her treatment.
Ms. Fluke did not talk about her own sexual activity. She did not claim that she was having so much sex that she could not afford the cost of contraception. She did not demand that she be paid for having sex.
But no matter—according to Rush, Ms. Fluke is a slut. I don’t know what dictionary Rush is using, so let’s see if we can suss out what exactly he thinks makes Ms. Fluke a slut:
- Maybe it’s because she can use the word “contraception” without blushing. So can I. Guess that makes me a slut.
- Maybe it’s because she cares about women having affordable access to necessary medical care. So do I. Guess that makes me a slut.
- Maybe it’s just because she’s a woman. So am I. Guess that makes me a slut.
And you know what? If you can talk about contraception, care about women’s health, or have the audacity to possess a vagina, you’re a slut too.
When he was called out for his obscene attack on Ms. Fluke, Rush didn’t back down; he doubled down:
It was Sandra Fluke who said that she was having so much sex she can’t afford it. […] She’s spending $3000, $1000 a year, on pills and she’s going broke and wants us to buy it. […] By her own admission, in her own words, Sandra Fluke is having so much sex that she can’t afford it. […] Does she have more boyfriends? They’re lined up around the block. Or they would have been in my day.
Ms. Fluke said none of those things, but you know the Republican rule: When you’re losing an argument, just make shit up and hope no one notices. This afternoon, Rush issued an “apology,” in which he basically said he was sorry if any sluts were offended by being called sluts, but if they weren’t such sluts, he wouldn’t have to call them sluts. Some apology, eh?
Of course, people did notice. Like Republican Rep. Darrell “Vaginas violate my religious liberty” Issa in Congress:
Democrats are largely to blame for the name-calling and personal insults of the contraception debate, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) charged Friday. […]
“While your letter raises important concerns about these inappropriate comments and the tone of the current debate over religious freedom and Obamacare, I am struck by your clear failure to recognize your own contributions to the denigration of this discussion and attacks on people of religious faith,” Issa said in response to Cummings.
You see, if those damn sluts hadn’t objected to Issa’s No Girls Allowed hearingabout how birth control makes Catholic bishops sad, Rush Limbaugh wouldn’t have had to attack those sluts for being sluts. See? It’s all their fault. You might even say they were asking for it.
Bill O’Reilly, who once had to pay millions of dollars to settle a sexual harassment claim, so you know he’s highly educated about what makes a woman a slut—refusing to have sex with Bill O’Reilly and his falafel—also joined Rush Limbaugh in his slut crusade:
“Let me get this straight, Ms. Fluke, and I’m asking this with all due respect,” he said. “You want me to give you my hard-earned money so you can have sex?” (Fluke is actually calling for her university’s private insurance plan to cover birth control.)O’Reilly went on, saying that, since Fluke wanted society to cover her “activities,” the government should also have subsidized his college football uniforms, since an injury might “cost society a lot.” He also said that perhaps taxpayers should pay for gym memberships for men so they could stay physically fit.
But a funny thing happened on the way back to the 17th century. Women Sluts took notice too. Known slut and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi called Limbaugh’s attack “obnoxious.” The sluts at the Washington Post wrotein an editorial, “This is not the way a decent citizen behaves.”
Even President Obama, the slut-in-chief himself, called Ms. Fluke to offer his support:
“He encouraged me and supported me and thanked me for speaking out about the concerns of American women,” Fluke said. “What was really personal to me was he said to tell my parents that should be proud, and that meant a lot because Rush Limbaugh questioned whether or not my family would be proud of me, so I just appreciated that very much.”
The sluts of America are fighting back, and they’re hitting Rush right where it hurts: his corporate sponsors. Sleep Train, Select Comfort/Sleep Number, Quicken Loans, Cleveland Cavaliers, Citrix and LegalZoom have all pulled their support from Rush’s show. [Late today, the CEO of Carbonite announced that despite Rush’s “apology,” Carbonite is pulling its supporttoo.]
So, sluts, you know what to do: Click here to send an email to Rush’s other corporate sponsors, demanding that they stop supporting him and his slut crusade.
And then click here to tell Bill O’Reilly’s sponsors to drop him like a hot falafel.
By: Kaili Gray, Daily Kos, March 3, 2012
Good News!: If Top Tax Rates Return To Reagan Era, Bill O’Reilly Might Quit
Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly boasted the other day that he enjoys “more power than anybody other than the president.”
Apparently, though, this rather extraordinary degree of influence over national affairs isn’t quite enough for the conservative media personality. In fact, O’Reilly is so concerned about his potential tax burden under the “Buffett Rule,” he told his television audience last night he might just quit working altogether.
“I must tell you I want the feds to get more revenue. I don’t want to starve them as some people do. We need a robust military, a good transportation system and protections all over the place.
“But if you tax achievement, some of the achievers are going to pack it in. Again, let’s take me. My corporations employ scores of people. They depend on me to do what I do so they can make a nice salary. If Barack Obama begins taxing me more than 50 percent, which is very possible, I don’t know how much longer I’m going to do this. I like my job but there comes a point when taxation becomes oppressive. Is the country really entitled to half a person’s income?”
In case anyone’s interested in the relevant details, let’s clarify a few things.
First, we don’t know if President Obama is eyeing a top rate of 50%, and even if he did, the likelihood of congressional passage would be roughly zero.
Second, a top rate of 50% does not mean O’Reilly would lose “half” his income. I know this can seem a little complicated, but that’s just not how marginal tax rates work.
And third, a 50% top rate for millionaires and billionaires would be a departure from the recent past, but to describe it as “oppressive” is to forget much of the 20th century.
In Ronald Reagan’s first term, for example, the top rate was — you guessed it — 50%. Did Reagan’s “oppressive” tax rates prevent robust economic growth? Did “the achievers” decide to “pack it in”? No and no.
For nearly all of Dwight Eisenhower’s presidency, the top rate was 91%. That’s not a typo. Did this Republican president’s “oppressive” tax policy prevent the U.S. economy from growing in the 1950s? Apparently not.
That said, if O’Reilly is contemplating retirement to avoid helping America pay its bills, I’m not inclined to discourage him.
By: Steve Benen, Contributing Writer, Washington Monthly Political Animal, September 20, 2011
A Catastrophe For America: Liberals Should’t Even Consider Gloating About Donald Trump
Now that Donald Trump appears on the verge of launching a presidential campaign, it is worth reflecting on the meaning of this low moment in American political history. Trump is a clown and a buffoon, and the odds of him winning even one Republican caucus or primary appear slim. But there is no denying that Trump has managed to tap into something genuinely worrisome in American politics. Democrats may be tempted to take pleasure in the fact that Trump will likely push the GOP presidential field to the right, and thereby help Obama in 2012. But this would be sheer myopia, and any delight over Trump’s arrival on the political scene is entirely misplaced. The Trump ascendancy calls not for glee, but for serious concern about the state of our country.
It’s true that the media erred in awarding Trump such a large spotlight—did all the cable news networks really have to cover his press conference on Wednesday?—but, at this point, the Trump phenomenon does not seem to be a mere media creation. His popularity (he currently leads in several polls) can no longer be denied. So what is Trump’s appeal? Why do his message and vulgar personality resonate with such a significant percentage of Americans? Trump’s embrace of birtherism has been the most widely discussed aspect of his rise. But this only scratches the surface of the Trump phenomenon.
What Trump actually stands for is an exaggerated sense of victimhood. This is the theme that unites his personal style with the political views he has thus far expressed. Are you tired of being pushed around? Are you tired of our country being pushed around? Trump’s political acuity lies in his ability to take these grievances and turn them into politics. His foreign policy views in essence consist of a pledge to bully other nations.Chinais “decimating our country.” OPEC is imperiling the economy. And ungrateful Libyans and Iraqis are trying to build a society from oil that is rightfully ours. (“We won the war. We take over the oil fields. We use the oil.”) When Bill O’Reilly, in an interview with Trump, seemed taken aback by the idea that we could simply force OPEC orChinato do our bidding, Trump appeared surprised that anyone could view international relations as anything more than a contest of machismo. “The messenger is the key,” Trump told O’Reilly. “If you have the right messenger and they know how to deliver the message … you’re going to scare them, absolutely.”
Trump’s thinly veiled accusation that President Obama benefited from affirmative action when he applied to college derives from the same theme. This time the victims aren’t Americans as a whole, they are white Americans; but the message—of anger, resentment, and victimhood—is identical.
Americais currently engaged in three wars. The country faces major economic challenges. Global warming is continuing apace. There is no chance any of these issues can be solved by yelling at foreign countries, or stirring up anger at Iraqis or Libyans or minority applicants to elite colleges. Donald Trump has appointed himself spokesman for some of the nastiest impulses in American politics, and he seems to have a following. The sooner the Republican mainstream rejects him, the better. And we liberals should be cheering them along as they do.
By: The Editors, The New Republic, April 29, 2011
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