“Our Grand Old Planet And The Grand Old Party”: If The Evidence Contradict’s Faith, Suppress The Evidence
Earlier this week, GQ magazine published an interview with Senator Marco Rubio, whom many consider a contender for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, in which Mr. Rubio was asked how old the earth is. After declaring “I’m not a scientist, man,” the senator went into desperate evasive action, ending with the declaration that “it’s one of the great mysteries.”
It’s funny stuff, and conservatives would like us to forget about it as soon as possible. Hey, they say, he was just pandering to likely voters in the 2016 Republican primaries — a claim that for some reason is supposed to comfort us.
But we shouldn’t let go that easily. Reading Mr. Rubio’s interview is like driving through a deeply eroded canyon; all at once, you can clearly see what lies below the superficial landscape. Like striated rock beds that speak of deep time, his inability to acknowledge scientific evidence speaks of the anti-rational mind-set that has taken over his political party.
By the way, that question didn’t come out of the blue. As speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, Mr. Rubio provided powerful aid to creationists trying to water down science education. In one interview, he compared the teaching of evolution to Communist indoctrination tactics — although he graciously added that “I’m not equating the evolution people with Fidel Castro.” Gee, thanks.
What was Mr. Rubio’s complaint about science teaching? That it might undermine children’s faith in what their parents told them to believe. And right there you have the modern G.O.P.’s attitude, not just toward biology, but toward everything: If evidence seems to contradict faith, suppress the evidence.
The most obvious example other than evolution is man-made climate change. As the evidence for a warming planet becomes ever stronger — and ever scarier — the G.O.P. has buried deeper into denial, into assertions that the whole thing is a hoax concocted by a vast conspiracy of scientists. And this denial has been accompanied by frantic efforts to silence and punish anyone reporting the inconvenient facts.
But the same phenomenon is visible in many other fields. The most recent demonstration came in the matter of election polls. Coming into the recent election, state-level polling clearly pointed to an Obama victory — yet more or less the whole Republican Party refused to acknowledge this reality. Instead, pundits and politicians alike fiercely denied the numbers and personally attacked anyone pointing out the obvious; the demonizing of The Times’s Nate Silver, in particular, was remarkable to behold.
What accounts for this pattern of denial? Earlier this year, the science writer Chris Mooney published “The Republican Brain,” which was not, as you might think, a partisan screed. It was, instead, a survey of the now-extensive research linking political views to personality types. As Mr. Mooney showed, modern American conservatism is highly correlated with authoritarian inclinations — and authoritarians are strongly inclined to reject any evidence contradicting their prior beliefs. Today’s Republicans cocoon themselves in an alternate reality defined by Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page, and only on rare occasions — like on election night — encounter any hint that what they believe might not be true.
And, no, it’s not symmetric. Liberals, being human, often give in to wishful thinking — but not in the same systematic, all-encompassing way.
Coming back to the age of the earth: Does it matter? No, says Mr. Rubio, pronouncing it “a dispute amongst theologians” — what about the geologists? — that has “has nothing to do with the gross domestic product or economic growth of the United States.” But he couldn’t be more wrong.
We are, after all, living in an era when science plays a crucial economic role. How are we going to search effectively for natural resources if schools trying to teach modern geology must give equal time to claims that the world is only 6.000 years old? How are we going to stay competitive in biotechnology if biology classes avoid any material that might offend creationists?
And then there’s the matter of using evidence to shape economic policy. You may have read about the recent study from the Congressional Research Service finding no empirical support for the dogma that cutting taxes on the wealthy leads to higher economic growth. How did Republicans respond? By suppressing the report. On economics, as in hard science, modern conservatives don’t want to hear anything challenging their preconceptions — and they don’t want anyone else to hear about it, either.
So don’t shrug off Mr. Rubio’s awkward moment. His inability to deal with geological evidence was symptomatic of a much broader problem — one that may, in the end, set America on a path of inexorable decline.
By: Paul Krugman, Op-Ed Columnist, The New York Times, November 22, 2012
“Loons And Wackos”: In GOP Civil War, It’s Limbaugh vs The Consultants
The last time we checked in with the post-election GOP civil war, Herman Cain was threatening to form a new party to compete with the GOP, Bill Kristol sparked a schism over tax increases, and Grover Norquist, the high priest of anti-tax dogma, was losing his grip on congressional Republicans.
This week, the Republican soul searching and polite recriminations via anonymous quote exploded into an all-out war of words between representatives of two wings of the party that have never gotten along, but largely kept quiet for the good of the conservative cause.
In one corner are the consultants, Steve Schmidt, who managed John McCain’s 2008 campaign, and Mike Murphy, who advised Mitt Romney. In the other corner is Rush Limbaugh, the embodiment of the conservative id in human form. We don’t have a dog in this fight as there’s blood on both of their hands, so just sit back and enjoy.
Schmidt threw the first punch in this battle on “Meet the Press” with a left, left combo strike against the right flank of his party. GOP leaders have “succumbed to the base,” he said last Sunday, arguing that “to too many swing voters in the country, when you hear the word ‘conservative’ now, they think of loons and wackos.” As if that weren’t enough, when host David Gregory played a clip of Limbaugh, Schmidt took the bait. “Our elected leaders are scared to death of the conservative entertainment complex, the shrill and divisive voices that are bombastic and broadcasting out into the homes,” he said in a clear reference to the radio host.
A week later on the same show, Murphy tagged in and continued the pummeling, this time calling out Limbaugh by name. “If we don’t modernize conservatism, we can go extinct … we’ve got to get kind of a party view of America that’s not right out of Rush Limbaugh’s dream journal,” Murphy said. He continued to deliver the blows:
“We alienate young voters because of gay marriage, we have a policy problem. We alienate Latinos — the fastest growing voter group in the country, because of our fetish on so-called amnesty, when we should be for a path to immigration. And we’ve lost our connection to middle-class economics. We also have an operative class and unfortunately a lot of which is incompetent … The biggest problem Mitt Romney had was the Republican primary. That’s what’s driving the Republican brand right now to a disaster.”
It’s a rather stunning rebuke from someone who was a top strategist to the Republican Party’s standard bearer just a few weeks ago. And it’s a surprisingly earnest, clear-eyed diagnosis of the party’s problem — its policy — from a leader in a party that has spent a lot of time after the election talking about superficial fixes that won’t change much. (That said, it’s more than a little ironic for him to attack an operative class that doesn’t know how to win considering that he … is an operative who just lost.)
Limbaugh didn’t hesitate to fire back. “What, folks, did I or any of you have to do with the Republican primary? Did not Murphy get the candidate he wanted?” the radio host said Monday. Indeed, Limbaugh is right, at least in that he was never a fan of Romney during the GOP primary.
“All these consultants, do you realize they get rich no matter who wins or loses? Little-known secret,” Limbaugh said (right again). “We need to get rid of conservatism, is what is he’s saying. We need to get rid of all these people shouting stupid conservative stuff,” the radio host added.
Limbaugh then went after Schmidt personally, saying, “I don’t know where Schmidt has a victory to hang his hat on.”
Yesterday, he also put to bed any rumors that he would support tax increases, as he had hinted at earlier.
Schmidt’s membership card to Limbaugh’s conservative movement was revoked four years ago after McCain’s loss and when Sarah Palin seemed to make it her mission to destroy him. So it’s not particularly surprising that he would tangle with Limbaugh. But the addition of Murphy, and the openness and viciousness of the conflict, illuminates the front lines in the civil war as the party tries to remake itself for future elections.
By: Alex Seitz-Wald, Salon, November 21, 2012
“In Conspicuous Handcuffs”: The GOP Has A Fox News Problem
Poor Mitt Romney has become a Republican punching bag as leaders within the party denounce his post-election comments about how President Obama won re-election by promising government-funded “gifts” to minority groups and young voters. As Republicans jab Romney though, they’re missing the larger, more pressing point: They don’t have a Mitt Romney problem. They have a Fox News problem.
Romney’s “gifts” put-down echoed the infamous claim Romney made during the campaign that 47 percent of Americans see themselves as “victims” and are overly dependent on the government. With the campaign concluded, lots of fellow Republicans now feel free to bash Romney:
• “It’s nuts,” said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
• “I absolutely reject what he said,” announced Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal.
• “When you’re in a hole, stop digging. He keeps digging,” complained Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC).
Though prominent conservatives are now lashing out at the former presidential candidate, the truth is Fox News has loudly championed the divisive philosophy behind Romney’s “47 percent” and “gifts” comments for months and practically authored them for the Republican candidate. Last week Fox talkers cheered Romney’s “gifts” post-election critique, treating it as a universal truth. (According to Fox Business host Stuart Varney, Obama was “buying votes with taxpayer money. Handouts all over the place.”)
And it’s not just a Fox News problem. Republicans have an even more expansive right-wing media problem (television, radio, Internet, etc.), which now doubles as the face and voice of the GOP and which celebrates the kind of toxic “47 percent” and “gifts” rhetoric that’s being condemned within the party. The far-right press is convinced Obama won re-election by “offering” voters a “check” in exchange for their support.
As Media Matters noted:
Fox host Bill O’Reilly said that voters feel economic anxiety and just “want stuff,” while Fox host Eric Bolling said Obama is a “maker versus taker guy.” Fox contributor Monica Crowley said that the election showed that “more people now are dependent on government than not.” Rush Limbaugh compared the president to Santa Claus, saying that “small things beat big things” in the election and “people are not going to vote against Santa Claus.”
In fact, O’Reilly and Limbaugh rushed to take credit for Romney’s “gifts” comments last week, since both of them had been pushing the “maker vs. taker” narrative in the wake of Romney’s election loss.
The split over Romney’s “gifts” remark highlights the larger divide within the conservative movement between two distinct camps: activists and politicians who want to get more Republicans elected vs. right-wing media players who want to grow their audience.
Note that after the Republican flop on Election Day, talk radio’s Laura Ingraham dismissed conservative hand-wringers who worried about the political future by stressing that “talk radio continues to thrive while moderate Republicans like John McCain and to some extent Mitt Romney continue to lose presidential elections.” That’s how hosts like Ingraham view the political landscape. That’s how they determine success and failure, not by tallying the wins and losses posted by Republicans candidates, but by counting up the number of radio stations that carry their syndicated show.
The same is true with Daily Caller editor Tucker Carlson. Asked why the conservative media completely failed in their attempt to “vet” Obama, who easily won re-election despite four years of hysterical, far-right claims about him, Carlson told BuzzFeed his publication’s work had been a success because traffic to the site was up. (Carlson also blamed the “legacy media” for being hostile to his site’s supposed “journalism.”)
I’m sure that’s comforting news to RNC leadership. And I’m sure the Daily Caller chasing inane, anti-Obama conspiracy theories for the next four years will put the Republican Party on firm footing for 2016.
For now, it’s easy to blame Romney. That’s what losing parties often do after an election, they pile-on the vanquished candidate. The part that would take some guts and fortitude would be calling out the right-wing media that are generating the type of hate rhetoric that Romney embraced and routinely used during the campaign.
Republicans won’t because they’re intimidated by the right-wing media’s power. That’s why New Jersey Governor Chris Christie quickly got on the phone with Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch after Murdoch tweeted that Christie, in the wake of Hurricane Sandy and his bipartisan appearances with Obama, needed to re-endorse Romney or “take the blame” for the president’s re-election.
Murdoch: Jump! Republicans: How high?
That unhealthy relationship is the reason why, when it comes to the simple question of whether America is divided between “makers and takers,” and if the 62 million Americans who voted for Obama represent a decaying nation of moochers in search of handouts, there’s a wide gulf within the conservative movement. The right-wing media consider the claim to be a central tenet, while Republican leaders think saying it out loud is completely batty and a prescription for an electoral losing streak.
So yes, those are conspicuous handcuffs the GOP is wearing: Fox News has hijacked the party’s communications apparatus and is pushing the type of paranoid, blame-the-voter rhetoric that loses elections, and the type of rhetoric Romney’s now being blamed for. But the GOP can’t turn it off. In fact, most Republicans can’t even work up enough courage to ask Fox News to turn down the volume.
Unwilling to acknowledge the GOP’s future poses a long-term media problem (the topic is not to be discussed), Republicans pretend they have a short-term Romney one.
By: Eric Boehlert, Media Matters For America, November 20, 2012
“Homemade Trail Mix”: Obama-Fearing Gun Nuts Are, Well, Nuts
There seems to be a little confusion on the part of gun enthusiasts about what a second Obama term means for them, and how they can battle any efforts to control their firearms ownership.
First, there are the nervous sorts who raced out and bought guns rights away after President Obama was re-elected. The subtext is that somehow this president will take away their guns—and yet there is no evidence to indicate that. In fact, the opposite is true: Obama has not only not done anything to advance gun control, but he actually expanded gun rights early in his term, signing a law that allows people to bring guns onto federal land.
Nor does the ongoing Democratic majority in the Senate pose a plausible threat. The Democrats, while perhaps at heart in favor of sensible limits on guns, figured out a long time ago that they will only be the majority party if they keep pretty quiet about that—and allow some of their recruits to be staunchly pro-gun.
But while that seems a tad hysterical, as a reaction to Obama’s win, it’s positively rational compared to the behavior of the owner of an Arizona gun shop. Says a full-page newspaper ad in the White Mountain Independent:
If you voted for Barack Obama your business is NOT WELCOME at Southwest Shooting Authority. You have proven you are not responsible enough to own a firearm.
There are some obvious inherent problems with this policy. For one, how will the owner know whom a potential buyer voted for in the election? Secondly, wouldn’t a gun-owning, pro-Obama voter be more likely to pull the party even closer to an embrace of the Second Amendment (omitting the inconvenient part about a “well-regulated militia”)? And if someone opposes gun control, why initiate a de facto limit on gun ownership by denying your firearms business to the 51 percent of voters who indeed chose Obama?
Perhaps the owner believes there will be, as a Texas judge irresponsibly and irrationally predicted, some sort of civil war provoked by Obama’s re-election—and maybe he doesn’t want the other side to have guns. Or maybe it’s just about the “other”—Obama’s race, his unusual name, and the legions of African-Americans, Latinos, gays, lesbians, single women and everyone else who doesn’t fit into the Ward Cleaver mode—that are giving the gunshop owner such a case of the nerves. He might want to get used to it. He’s now in the minority.
By: Susan Milligan, U. S. News and World Report, November 19, 2012
“The Nile Is Not A River In Egypt”: Republicans Can’t Face Post-Election Reality
The Nile is not a river in Egypt; it’s the post-election operating principle for Republicans and conservatives. Rather than face reality many Republicans would rather stick their heads in the sand and complain about the voters. In his political thriller Julius Caesar, Shakespeare wrote “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in the stars, but in ourselves that we are underlings.” If Republicans want to get on track, they need to take a hard look at themselves and not blame everything on Mitt Romney.
Many conservatives and Republicans share Romney’s disdain for voters. I like to watch the Fox News Channel when things go badly for Republicans, so I’ve been watching the Fox News Channel a lot lately. I enjoy hearing the excuses that their commentators make for the GOP. The spin out of GOP-TV is that President Barack Obama won because voters are stupid, selfish, or sinful. Now, there’s a winning campaign message for you. Conservative columnist George Will said Sunday on ABC that the Republican Party must “quit despising the American people.” I knew that if I waited long enough, I would agree with Will on something.
The national GOP candidates have also put their heads deep into the sand.
Mitt Romney jumped in immediately after Election Day to remind the public of just how clueless he is. He blamed Barack Obama for his loss. Romney told big money donors that he lost because of the president’s “gifts” to young people, blacks, and Hispanics. Most people think that the things that Romney described as gifts are just basic human rights. One of these “gifts” was ending deportation for people who came to the United States as children with undocumented parents. President Obama ended the deportation because he believed the U.S. government should not punish children for their parents’ mistakes. Voters do not share the GOP’s hostility to immigrants. Data from the national Election Day exit survey indicated that two thirds (65 percent) of the voters want to create a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants while only a quarter (28 percent) of the voters felt that the government should deport them.
Romney’s running mate is just as clueless. Rep. Paul Ryan said that the election was not rejection of GOP tax policies. He was wrong. The former GOP vice presidential candidate apparently didn’t read the national exit poll that showed that almost half (47 percent) of the voters want to raise taxes on Americans who live in households where the total annual income is over $250,000. A small group (13 percent) of voters want to raise everyone’s taxes and only a third (35 percent) of the electorate oppose any tax increase.
If all else fails, blame the weather. I have seen or heard a few GOP pundits say that Hurricane Sandy blew Mitt Romney off course. If Republicans believe that it was Sandy that took the wind out of Romney’s sails, they face a long winding road back to the White House.
To be fair some conservatives got it. Both Sean Hannity and Charles Krauthammer endorsed amnesty for undocumented workers after the election results rolled in. Good for them, they are realistic enough to fear the impact that a growing Latino population will have on the future of the GOP.
But some of the solutions that conservatives have offered aren’t particularly constructive. One of our readers @MaltaSiege suggested that “all liberals should hang themselves.” I assume that includes me. Just to be sure I got the message, Mal was kind enough to include a picture of a noose. Even if we had enough rope to hang ourselves, I don’t think the 62 million Americans who voted for Barack Obama want to leave this earthly coil now that they re-elected a president who wants to eliminate tax breaks for billionaires and who will fight to allow people to marry anyone they choose without government interference.
Not all our readers appreciate my thoughts on the condition of the GOP and the conservative movement. Years ago, I told a female friend that I had finally figured out what makes women tick. My friend replied in horror, “What do you know about women, you’re a man?” I replied “We’re all people, aren’t we?” Well, some of you may resent my comments about Republicans, since I’m a Democrat. But we’re all Americans, aren’t we?
By: Brad Bannon, U. S. News and World Report, November 19, 2012
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