Saturday, November 08, 2008

Slow Learners


I cannot describe the disgust that I feel when I see Sarah Palin. It is worse than what I feel when watching Bush gesticulate like a banana rewarded primate sign language experiment. Every wink and inflection reeks with a sense of rigged inauthenticity like a bad Shakespearean performance on opening night by high school students pretending to speak old English. Or like a 98 pound Asian porn star with watermelon jugs hanging from thin pendulous stalks. I could go on, and am tempted to because analogies don't describe the emotion.

I relaxed when polls showed the devastating hit the selection of Sarah Palin made for the McCain campaign. Ah ha! I thought, people are seeing what I am seeing. Shwhew. With a group that voted Bush in twice, you never know exactly how to calibrate the zeitgeist.

But now days after the decision, word has it that Sarah Palin is seen as the future of the republican party. "Only if they're stupid" says Bill Maher. Are they really that stupid? Are they even serious? 

I stumbled on an article from New Republic which addressed it thusly: 

""At a recent meeting of conservative activists," writes an approving Midge Decter, "the very mention of her name set the whole room cheering and the women present all but dancing on the tables."

This week, Republicans are holding a series of confabs to plot their way forward. The most popular themes appear to be Palin in particular and the return to a more traditional conservatism in general. A recent, pre-election Democracy Corps poll found that Republican voters, by a two-to-one margin, think their party "needs to get back to Republican issues," as opposed to devising "better ways to make government work for people, make America secure and address new problems." I have seen the future of the Republican Party, and it is the present of the Republican Party. Only perhaps more so."

There is your official dose of stupid for the day. Instead of learning that their brand of conservatism is precisely what demolished John McCain, these guys want to just increase the deck space on the Titanic. They are oblivious. 

Now, I don't think nutty religious right/ talk radio conservatism is dead at all. I also don't think this election proved any major shift to the left for the populace (and the poll numbers show this). But I have to think that running on these tired, meritless, non-evidence based beliefs will likely never win an election again. This is because they are simply outnumbered, and becoming more so every day. The republican party must either jettison a large part of it's "base" (ie... the people who think Palin is the future of the party), or spend the rest of their time as an angry cult of snake handlers and strychnine  drinkers prepping for Armageddon. 

To my astonishment, they haven't yet seemed to show any awareness of the obvious choice ahead. 

"I have seen the future of the Republican Party, and it is the present of the Republican Party. Only perhaps more so."

2 comments:

upinVermont said...

I don't see any evidence that the Republican Party intends to change. They're going to be looking for more charismatic candidates, that's all; and, if they're smart, they'll take note that a large contingent of blacks and hispanics voted for Prop 8. (Apparently, blacks in California thought that civil rights only meant "black rights".)

It's a breathtaking twist of irony, isn't it. If blacks now have the same opportunities to express bigotry and prejudice, then Martin Luther's dream has truly come true. They are the equals of bigoted and prejudiced whites. At last!

The future of the Republican Party will be multi-ethnic, much to the horror of doe-eyed liberals. Prejudice belongs to everyone, not just whites. It bridges all races & ethnic groups.

Hallelujah, Aaron!

Aaron said...

The black vote on prop 8 didn't surprise me as much as it seems to have surprised others. It is a religiously driven issue and the black church is pervasive. As long as people believe in father god in the sky and not natural selection, they will see same sex marriage as an abomination of the way god created things. There is nothing to be done about this in terms of persuasion.

The next thing for the republicans is to take a bite out of the black and hispanic population somehow. Religion is the way they have traditionally done it, but will it ever work again?

I have to think that Obama's long ads to the hispanic populace spoken in his own near perfect Spanish pronunciation did much to sway them over versus McCains voice over interpreter.

*I am glad to see my trend of not adding question marks at the end of sentences is being duplicated by someone who has taken far more English classes than I have.