I just read a diary directing me me to a blog post by a Vanity Fair writer about the republicans.There are 2 quotes that stand out to me in that blog and that I think summarize the majorities thinking about how the GOP is behaving and how it relates to President Obama.
But in the last four years, the GOP has transmogrified into something ugly and vicious and, more important, something wedded to the politics of fantasy and ignorance.
Blind rage at the election of Barack Obama has wrecked a once great political party.
We all seem to think that this all started in 2008 with the election of Obama, and many believe it's because he is an African American.
I would like to disagree.
The republicans were like this well before Barack Obama was elected president. I think it goes back to the election of Bill Clinton. And I think it was not so much President Clinton or Hilary Clinton as much as it was the loss of the Presidency that caused this change in the republicans. It was the loss of the White House after the Reagan years, the loss of the cult of personality built up around Reagan, and the loss of the mythology built around "his policies" within the GOP that sent them over the edge.
These people thought they were going to form their own thousand year reich built on the shoulders of Ronald Reagan and to have that bubble burst just a mere 4 years later was more than they could stand.
We'll someone had to be at fault and they made it the Clintons. I remember the hatred for Bill and Hilary, it doesn't seem any different than hatred they have for Barack Obama now. Oh yes, he's black, and surely many of them don't like that. But many of them were ok Herman Cain and Alan Keyes before him. I really don't think it would have mattered who beat them in 2008, they'd be behaving the same way that they are behaving right now. There would be just as many lies, just as much obstruction, and just as much cheating.
The republicans have shifted from their policies of old to a new theology of greed and power wedded to Christianity. And like any other theology it doesn't have to make sense, it doesn't have to be demonstrable as effective or true. It is "the truth" and must be accepted as such without question. And woe be unto him who does follow the word.
It's all true and they are right, and because they are right and represent the truth it does not matter if they lie or cheat. Lying is ok because they represent the truth and goodness and the ends justify any means when you are the righteous. Voter Suppression? So what, they are only keeping people who aren't smart enough to see the truth from voting, nothing wrong with that.
If we allow ourselves to believe that this is all just because of Obama and because he is black we are making a big mistake. It started long before Obama and it is a clear and present danger to this republic.