Doublethink is basically the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.
This exerpt and concept from George Orwell's novel, 1984, is an integral component to much of contemporary conservative thinking. Meanwhile, the higher the United States' $14 trillion national debt shoots, the scarier the threat of a Republican-directed federal government is to all logic-based, independent-minded Americans.
Debt-fueled economic uncertainty throughout a jittery Europe already nearly sank the Greek economy and still threatens the continent today, from Ireland to Portugal. Meanwhile, responsible financial forecasters in the United States wait, watch and worry about America's national pastime of deficit spending.
Which, of course, leaves thinkers wondering if perhaps this makes the Tea Party trend the most ironically thoughtless political movement in American history.
On its face, Tea Party Patriots say the most important problem facing the United States might be an inevitable and impending national bankruptcy born of reckless spending and make-believe middle class tax hikes ("The impetus for the Tea Party movement is excessive government spending and taxation," begins their official mission statement).
Indeed, the entire Republican Party has managed, with no small amount of success, to paint itself the party of fiscal conservatism most suited, willing and able to control that budgetary beast. But if that issue alone, if government (over) spending were the one concern a voter had, they should absolutely be dyed-in-the-wool-Democrats, and hosting tea parties to denounce the tax-cut-and-spend GOP. How many Tea Party candidates have invoked Democratic President Bill Clinton's name, praising him as the only president to produce a budget surplus in the last 40 years?
It can only be admired as the most effective bait-and-switch scam ever pulled on the electorate. Tea Party and traditional Republicans alike talk day and night about the need to end superfluous government spending and instead cut burdensome taxes, before it is too late. And that sounds good, and that wins elections as proven by so many Tea Party victories in the 2010 midterms. But empty and misleading rhetoric is not a sound financial strategy to buoy the largest, and struggling, economy in the world.
The GOP conveniently and constantly uses the gigantic federal debt as a reason to just say no to programs they don't want. Yet Republicans have never met a tax cut they didn't like, nor will they ever make a peep about budget busting when they want to fall ever deeper into the red by slashing those taxes. Every single Democratic spending measure is labeled as simply adding untold billions to the deficit, yet every last conservative measure/tax cut is touted as just what we need to dig us out of the dire economic straights Barack Obama is blamed for manufacturing after just two years on the job.
Why is it, during the initial weeks of Obama's presidency, Republican screamed we couldn't afford the much-debated stimulus; the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009? The same one independent evaluators, most notably the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, have said is actually working just as intended. Republicans made it crystal clear that the economic stimulus would do nothing but heap further onerous financial burdens on the country, greatly expanding the deficit and debt, while simultaneously accomplishing nothing. Oops.
The "Bush tax cuts" for those families making more than a quarter million dollars a year were set to expire at the start of 2011. Republicans adamantly demanded continued extensions to those wealthy and costly tax reductions, to the point of holding hostage desperately needed unemployment insurance extensions for millions of people in the not filthy rich-category until Democrats acquiesced to Republican demands to pile more onto the budget deficit.
Returning to the Tea Party-fueled shellacking of the Democrats in the historic mid-term elections of 2010. The resulting fresh and feisty Republican majority in the House of Representatives joins a newly and closely divided Senate. Republicans are looking for the electorate to keep the tide rolling through the 2012 elections. With sufficient conservative majorities teamed with a Republican like Sarah Palin in the White House, the Republican faithful envision a conservative quick fix to Obama's ruined economy, dreaming of the next "Great Communicator" to carry forward the mantle of Republican icon Ronald Reagan.
The incessantly invoked conservative-Jesus Christ, many Republicans believe and assume Ronald Reagan's enduring legacy will be credit for single-handedly ridding the world of communism, making the planet safe for capitalism. But wouldn't it be interesting if, 50 years from now, Reagan is remembered instead as the Godfather of the Federal Budget Deficit, for his inspiration and leadership in steering the United States to spend trillions more than the treasury took in?
The man undeniably brought deficit spending into vogue. It's been claimed former Vice President Dick Cheney responded to criticism, from within his party, of one of his own administration's rounds of proposed tax cuts by countering, "Reagan proved deficits don't matter."
Doublethink is basically the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.
Tea Party Princess Sarah Palin asserted on Twitter: "To reduce deficit spending and our enormous debt, you reign in spending. You cut the budget." One assumes this fiscally conservative Sarah Palin would agree, of course, that those continued tax breaks for the superwealthy, those top-level extensions looking to add $36 billion to just this year's federal deficit, should have been the first to go. On Facebook, however, the former Alaska governor and unofficial Tea Party leader wrote a note titled "The Case for Extending All the Tax Cuts." This incarnation of Palin needed "to remind people that tax cuts help everyone."
Indeed, George Orwell's Doublethink is the driving force of the Tea Party movement, without which its anger over the United States' ever-expanding national debt, and simultaneous passionate defense for every debt-inflating tax cut on those who could afford it, could never exist.