Understanding the Republican Bubble
A popular comedian noted many times how Republicans live in their own little bubble, their own reality. Having been a former Republican myself I can give you a little insight into this phenomenon.
The irony is amazing. As a Republican, we are taught to believe that there is a liberal bias in the main line media. A tactic used to keep Republicans uninformed, subject to right wing propaganda, and prevent intelligent thought. And it works!
Let’s investigate this phenomena a little deeper. It isn’t, at least at a basic level, a lie. It is the perpetuation of a false ideology based on propaganda. It is an ideology based on greed. It is a belief system that permeates the entire Republican Party. Its core benefit is to the wealthy. The wealthy in turn control the media and thus the discussion. This ideology is built around “supply side - trickledown economics”. It is the justification of greed in the name of capitalism.
Supply-side believers really think that tax breaks to the wealthy combined with free market capitalism make the most efficient engine for our economy. They believe government is inherently wasteful and that by its very nature is a destroyer of incentive rather than a creator of opportunity.
They are both right and wrong. Right in that government has been known at times to waste resources. They are wrong in the true cause of this waste. It is the influence of “free market capitalism” in government that is the real cause of such waste. Not the nature of government itself.
When we elect Politicians to go to Washington as our representatives and they in turn seize the opportunity to increase their own wealth and power this may be free market capitalism but it isn’t the intent of government service. When elections go to the candidate who has the most financial resources rather than the best principles or policies that may be free market capitalism but it isn’t the intent of government. And when influence can be bought by lobbyists from Corporations that may be free market capitalism but it isn’t government service.
Let me make this real clear. Free market capitalism may be an efficient engine for business, using ‘survival of the fittest” to evolve and reform itself. But the influx of free market capitalism in government is destroying the very foundation of our democracy.
Let’s look at how some of these false beliefs are perpetuated with the use of the media.
I noticed the schizophrenic nature recently of the NBC news empire and its various outlets.
The most obvious dichotomy is MSNBC with Morning Joe presenting the conservative bias in the mornings and other programming through to mid-afternoon, a transition to a mix, and then a clearly liberal focus in the evening.
The contrast is amazing. You can see how false core beliefs infect the Republican representation of the facts. Fact has become a commodity to be mixed with opinion to target certain markets.
Let’s take the second Presidential Debate for example. After noting how right wing media would change the meaning of what was said just by where they edited their news clips of the Debate I was prepared. In the second Presidential Debate I noted the same tactic being used but I noted one thing in addition to this.
It was clear President Obama had won the Debate. Republicans once again got to work spinning the content and claimed the higher ground.
For example, let’s take the exchange about Libya. Mitt Romney clearly screwed up. He was even fact checked live by the moderator. I saw this Debate and it was all clear. After the debate the right wing media added to what was said in their follow-up coverage in the news to “fill in” the blanks left by Mitt Romney in his response about the Libya issue. They explained the event to suit their agenda. It was subtle and effective. I bet most viewers didn’t even notice that opinion was interjected as fact. You had to be there to notice the difference.
We need to bring our social discussion into the world of reality. The first thing we need to do is de-bunk supply side economics once and for all for what it really is, “greed.”
It is a way for the wealthy to remove from our economy “graft”, a cut of our economic prosperity. This prosperity is, in reality, created by “government stimulus”, either by domestic spending in the form of subsidy for teachers, firefighters, police, highways, students, etc or abroad by funding the military machine and wars.
Even though Republicans claim that the domestic stimulus failed they took stimulus money themselves. Then, many of them sat on money to “mute” their economic benefits. Like Republican Governor Chris Christy of New Jersey who sat on almost $200 million in foreclosure assistance to homeowners while other states used these funds. Or like Governor Rick Perry of Texas who refuses Medicaid money that would help the uninsured of his state and the hospitals that have to eat the costs of the uninsured and pass it on to the rest of us.
So is the President’s policies really failing or are they being sabotaged because a full economic recovery without Republican “attached” tax breaks for the wealthy exposes the true engine of economic growth, “economic stimulus?”
This all would also imply that the wealthy profit by the death of Americans caught up in war, a disgusting reality. Is American patriotism exploited by the same people who find ways for them or their own children to avoid serving in war?
This Republican bubble is itself created by the focus on the few rather than the contribution of the many.