Sean McElwee at Rolling Stone, Six Studies That Show Everything Republicans Believe is Wrong
Subtitle: “It’s time for the right wing to stop lying about the minimum wage, taxes, global warming and more”
The great 20th-century economist John Maynard Keynes has been widely quoted as saying, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” Sadly, in their quest to concentrate economic and political power in the hands of the wealthiest members of society, today’s Republicans have held the opposite position – as the evidence has piled up against them, they continue spreading the same myths. Here are six simple facts about the economy that Republicans just can’t seem to accept:
(Writers of newspaper stories and magazine articles don’t write their own headlines; the editors do, and sometimes oversell the story. In this case, the essay is limited to items about the economy.) The article is free, so I’ll just list the six items. The statements are what the writer claims are true, while Republican believe the opposite
- The Minimum Wage Doesn’t Kill Jobs.
- The Stimulus Created Millions of Jobs.
- Taxing The Rich Doesn’t Hurt Economic Growth.
- Global Warming is Caused by Humans.
- The Affordable Care Act is Working.
- Rich people are no better than the rest of us.
Items like the last one overlap with the results of the last few decades of psychological research, e.g. the widespread belief that poor or the homeless are that way not through bad circumstances but through their own laziness. (As in those David McRaney books, e.g. reviewed here.) Studies show that simply isn’t true, and for conservatives to believe that it is true seems, to me, to find some convenient circumvention for what their Jesus counseled them to do.
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Here are a bunch of other links I’ll just list by headline and subtitle, for now.
Washington Post: conservative writer Max Boot: The longer Trump stays in office, the crazier the GOP becomes. (Online title: Republicans, Not Democrats, Are the Party Controlled by Extremists.)
Salon via AlterNet: Chauncey DeVega: ‘Mass delusion’: Why Trump’s followers believe their leader has given their lives meaning
Salon, Amanda Marcotte: Trump’s big lies reveal a truth: Right-wing science denial was never about ignorance, just cruelty. Subtitle: “Conservatives have been gaslighting the public about science for decades. Now we’re reaping the consequences”
Salon, Heather Digby Parton: Is Donald Trump mostly evil or mostly ignorant? Bob Woodward’s book offers an answer: Both. Subtitle: “If Trump’s calculated dithering on the coronavirus was obviously malevolent, his foreign policy is just moronic.”
Salon, Amanda Marcotte: Trump’s claim he didn’t want “panic” is laughable — he wants it focused on imaginary threats. Subtitle: Trump doesn’t want “panic” over 190,000 dead — but he’s begging voters to panic over antifa invading “the suburbs”.
Alternet, Alex Henderson: 19 years after 9/11, America’s biggest terrorist threat is far-right white supremacists who love Trump.
The Atlantic, Tom Nichols (author of The Death of Expertise, reviewed here): This Republican Party Is Not Worth Saving. Subtitle: “No one should ever get a second chance to destroy the Constitution.”
And along the same lines, two pieces by the same writer at Washington Post, Jennifer Rubin:
It’s not just Trump. All Republicans must go. And Seven reasons to vote every Republican out of office
What are the seven reasons? She writes paragraphs of descriptions, ending with these summary points:
- Republicans facilitated corruption.
- Republicans thereby enabled Trump’s abuses of power.
- Republicans subverted U.S. national security.
- Republicans have supported a commander in chief unfit to lead men and women in uniform.
- Republicans have thereby helped foment racial division and violence.
- In short, Republicans have put their own political survival above the lives of Americans.
- Republicans have thus helped undermine the central attributes of democracy — free and fair elections, and the peaceful transfer of power.
Conclusion:
There is no doubt that if President Barack Obama had committed any of these offenses and Democrats had been as derelict in their constitutional and moral duties as Republicans, the entire right-wing media and political universe would have called for Obama’s impeachment and removal, and for the defeat of every spineless member of his party. Over and over again, Republicans’ hunger to retain power at all costs has triumphed over their obligations to their fellow citizens. They have put Americans’ lives and the nation’s democracy itself at risk. In doing so, they have lost the moral authority to hold power. All of them.
It seems that Republicans are the party of delusion and denial, and they will lead the US, if they stay in charge, to its destruction, or at least diminution in world affairs, setting the stage of dominance by… China?
I could add my standard disclaimer along the lines that, while not all Republicans are deluded and denialists (or racists, or science-deniers, etc. etc.), those who are deluded and denialists, ideologues along these lines, seems to be Republicans.
Enough for today.
