Political Theatre category archive

PoliticalProf passes on suggestions for improving the polling process.

Leonard Pitts, Jr., adds yet another article to the pile of paper (and electrons) on what the GOP must do to recover from the late Presidential debacle.

Frankly, I don’t think they are going to do anything other than more of the same. They have embraced a strategy of hate and fear for more than two decades: hate and fear of black and brown folks, lesbian and gay folks, non-male folks, poor folks, foreign folks, non-Fundamentalist folks.

When you embrace hate and fear for personal and political gain, hate and fear embrace you right back.

The current Republican Party has no soul left to sell. It is souled out.

I’ll cite one sentence in Pitts’s column; follow the link for the rest:

All that said, the biggest question here is not whether the GOP can transform itself, but whether it can even try. At this point, the Republicans are less a traditional political party than what disenchanted former GOP staffer Mike Lofgren has called an “apocalyptic cult.”

The Tampa Bay Times’s John Romano looks back on the campaign and separates the message from the medium. A snippet (emphasis in the original):

What Republican strategist Karl Rove said about the president’s victory:

“He succeeded by suppressing the vote.”

What I heard:

“Will someone please tell the Koch brothers there are no &%$#*!@ refunds?”

What Gov. Rick Scott said about six-hour lines for early voting in South Florida:

“What I’m trying to do is improve the way government works.”

What I heard:

“Let them eat cake.”

Read the rest. You need a chuckle.

The Booman does the math.

Who knew that math does irony?

I looked around and couldn’t find a larger version with clearer type, though I’m sure it’s out there somewhere on the innerwebs. If your browser has a good zoom feature (mine does), you should be able to enlarge them enough to read the legends.

But, even without reading the legends, this picture is indeed worth.

It shows that the Civil War continues apace, Appomattox to the contrary notwithstanding.

Via Delaware Liberal, which has additional interesting maps.

Local blogger Vivian J. Paige, responding to a post by a friend of hers (post linked at her site), discusses the Republican Party’s stance on not white people.

The Republican Party doesn’t have a black problem; they have a non-white problem.

Anyone who is not white is dismissed as a potential Republican voter. Voter ID laws that have passed in a number of states weren’t targeted just at black folk, but all minorities. Harsher stances on immigration weren’t targeted at black folk at all.

She’s quite correct, you know. The odious Southern strategy, created by the Republican Party, has consumed its creators.

Read the rest. It’s worth your while.

Via PoliticalProf.

Via Delaware Liberal.

You can’t hit a political website or a website that discusses politics without seeing an article wondering whether the Republican Party will reconsider their tactics in view of the fate of Mitt the Flip.

I am certain they will, with the full support of their rank-and-file:

Via Bob Cesca’s Awesome Blog.

Daniel Ruth considers the tremendous amounts of right-wing money expended on the recent election and the stunning lack of ROI for the rich guys who expended it. A nugget:

They (the Koch brothers–ed.) had plenty of disciples to keep them company on their Cirque du Soliel of stump chicanery. Las Vegas mogul Sheldon Adelson, the Daddy Warbucks of blackjack, also tried to buy an election and wound up holding an inside flush of jokers.

And Donald Trump, the Lord of the Lies? Can we all agree that the Great Pumpkin of Puffery has retired the title of the nation’s village buffoon?

As for talk radio’s conservative fringe — Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck and Todd Schnitt — in the run-up to Election Day, there was more foaming spittle flying through the speakers than Old Yeller in his death throes.

Certainly a case can be made election night was a triumph over the politics of stupid.

Read the rest. It’s a gem.

Alan Grayson is going back to Congress. An excerpt:

If we go back to the principle that a dollar is a dollar and just because you’re rich, and you get it through capital gains, doesn’t mean you get some sort of special tax break,” he said. “If we go back to the sense that a dollar is a dollar, they’re all green, let’s tax them equally, that itself will go substantially to reduce the deficit.

Via Raw Story.

Kathleen Parker has a sad.

Her sad does not extend to the role of the punditocracy in embracing ontheonehand/ontheotherhand and what Driftglass calls “But the Democrats” over fact.

The Onion identifies the GOP frontrunner (short but obnoxious commercial at the beginning):

Via Delaware Liberal.

Unskewered no more. Delaware Dem delivers the take-down.

Chauncey Devega asks

Will the Republican Party mature, reach out, and bring in the old guard centrists who were/are the adult voices in the room so that they can be competitive and work for the Common Good?

Answer of the day:

No.

Via Dick Destiny.

And, from Delaware Liberal, a grace note.

H/T Andrew for the image.

Warning: Some language.