The right has been pumping out disinformation and courting christofascists for decades in order to remain viable. You reap what you sow.
Republican senators say they are alarmed at how many Republicans, including those with higher levels of education and income, buy the unsubstantiated claims that the last presidential election was stolen.
A second Republican senator who spoke with The Hill said the growing strength of radical populism “makes it a lot more difficult to govern, it makes it difficult to talk to constituents.”
“There are people who surprise me — I’m surprised they have those views. It’s amazing to me the number of people, the kind of people who think the election was stolen,” the lawmaker said. “I don’t want to use this word but it’s not just a ‘red-neck’ thing. It’s people in business, the president of a bank, a doctor.”
How far up your ass does your head have to be to not see that your party is practically driven by conspiracy theories and falsehoods after the last decade??
XMark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them."
Barry Goldwater
Said in November 1994, as quoted in John Dean, Conservatives Without Conscience (2006).
Goldwater himself was considered a dangerous right-wing extremist nut by the standards of the 1960s. He was a rabid anti-Communist in the style of the John Birch Society, he was anti-Civil-rights, beloved by the Klan. He lost to LBJ partly cause the Democrats painted him as someone ready to start a nuclear war and the voters bought it. Basically on every issue but religion, today's right-wing nuts would probably love him.
driven by conspiracy theories and falsehoods after the last decade
True, but it's the last several decades.
I have been trying to wrap my head around why some Republicans seem genuinely surprised at what is happening. I have come to the conclusion that some thought it was a game. They honestly thought that when you had people calling Obama a secret Muslim, that it was "just politics", a bit of fun name-calling and that's all. They thought they were playing games, throwing fake red meat at the base to get them to have a fake angry response. Even after some of their constituents were goaded into attacking the government, they were still in denial about the reality of the situation they helped create. The monster is real, and they have spent multiple decades feeding it, and it was all fun and games when the monster was chained up, but Trump broke the chains, and now they are worried about what the monster will do to the village.
Perhaps. I mean, I was naïve enough to thing there was no possible way the Orange One could win in 2016, so I suppose I could see having a blind spot for this monster they've crated. Still, you'd almost have to be going out of your way as an actual politician to not see the results of all their "games".
If you went along with the crowd, it is not they, it is WE, who are the problem.
I’m just having dinner and a good laugh with the nazis, but I’m not one (wink, wink). Says every GOP senator
You let the foxes into the hen house, then get upset that you're out of hens?
Dr. Frankenstein meet your monster.
That's rich coming from Murkowski, who had multiple chances to do the correct thing.
There is no such thing as a good conservative. No. Such. Thing.
I would disagree. The conservatives nowadays are not even conservative. Pre reagan republicans were way different than post reagan ones and even pre trump is different than post trump. The party is just nutters now.
This.
Are you going to tell me Eisenhower wasn't a good conservative?
If you have to go back to the 50s to disprove the notion that there are no good conservatives, I feel like that's a pretty good indication that there are no good conservatives.
If they stayed in the party through The Trump years, through all the lies, gaslighting, irrationality, racism, scapegoating, boorishness, hostility, anti-intellectualism, misogyny, crime, opposition to democracy, and a failed insurrection... they're not conservative, they're radical right.
They have co-opted the term because it lends them credibility. They are not conservative, they are a death-cult.
Being 'conservative' in a political sense was once about how much you thought the government should pull economic levers. At least in Canada, where our Liberal and Progressive Conservative parties were once fairly close together.
"Conservatives" today are fundamentalists, which means they would make very poor conservatives, even if they knew what economic levers were. Gotta move beyond the fundamentals eventually.
We don’t have conservatives anymore.
It’s only because the media machine can’t reign them in any more…
Corporate media has been trying to turn against trump now for months and it’s not working…. They didn’t mind using racist dog whistles for decades as long as they could control their base…. Now they have curse pikachu face
I'll admit, even as a "lefty" there are a number of misleading or entirely false stories that have crept their way into my acceptance. I sometimes have to stop myself and think back to a time when something wasn't a conspiracy. It's not difficult to see how the vast majority of people, regardless of your political leanings, are swayed by the constant chatter we're exposed to by any or all sources.
GOP senators are saying they’re being increasingly confronted by constituents who buy into discredited conspiracy theories such as the claim that Democrats stole the 2020 presidential election or that federal agents incited the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Growing distrust with government institutions, from the FBI, CIA and Department of Justice to the Centers for Disease Control and National Institutes of Health, make it more difficult for Republican lawmakers to govern.
As we find ourselves living in a world of karma farming, being paid and trusted as nothing more than an "influencer", and the growing use of AI, I'm certain the worse is still ahead of us. Free Speech is a weapon of mass destruction when the audience is a bunch of numbskulls.
Without a fair and free (from corporate ownership) press doing their part as the fourth pillar of democracy, this democracy is going to teeter and fall.
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