Political Theatre category archive

Via the Richmonder, who points out

The Republican Party isn’t so much an association of like minded people devoted to promoting a certain political ideological point of view so much as a complex and surprisingly elaborate spider web of lies.

(snip)

I worry about the depth of dishonesty to which Republicans have allowed them to sink. No matter what the issue, large or small, if Republicans meet with a check or challenge from someone who does not agree with them, their very first instinct seems to be to lie, to trample on the letter and spirit of the 8th Commandment. . . . “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”

Follow the link for a catechism of the lies.

At Science 2.0, Hank Campbell reports on a study that may shed some light on why Republicans practice the politics of fear.

Conservatives reacted more strongly to unpleasant images, they fixated on those more quickly and looked longer, while liberals had stronger reactions to and looked longer at pleasant images. Conservatives reacted more to a crashed car while progressives reacted more to a bunny rabbit. Neither is bad, obviously, but certainly different.

“It’s been said that conservatives and liberals don’t see things in the same way,” said Mike Dodd, University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) assistant professor of psychology and the study’s lead author. “These findings make that clear – quite literally.”

Mr. Campbell is careful to point out that, despite the researchers’ attempts to divine some evolutionary cause for this, correlation is not causation; the study does not explain why conservatives are more fearful than liberals (or perhaps it’s the reverse: the fearful are more likely to lean to the right).

It does, however, help explain why the Republicans tend to pitch their appeals to the dark side of human nature. It speaks to their followers.

Follow the link for more details and a desription of the study’s methodology.

In the Chicago Trib, Steve Chapman considers Little Ricky Santorum’s deep faith in the power of theocratic rule* to save the world. A nugget:

It sounds obvious that when people practice a religion that preaches strong morality and responsible conduct, they will behave better than people who follow their own inclinations. But what is obvious is not always true.

America is a good place to judge the value of faith in promoting virtue. There is a great deal of variation among the 50 states in religious observance — and a great deal of variation in social ills. It turns out that religiosity does not translate into good behavior, and disregard for religion does not go hand-in-hand with vice. Quite the contrary.

Follow the link above to explore the “contrary.” Visit Attytood to explore Little Ricky’s record of public (dis)service.

______________________

*His theocratic rule, natch, not someone else’s.

Via TPM.

Chart via Bob Cesca’s Awesome Blog; embed via Raw Story.

Read this.

If you can’t read the whole thing, read the scan at the end.

I don’t have anything to add.

Why are Republicans so interested in the sex lives of others?

Maybe it’s the sweater vest (Warning: “Santorum” defined in the video).

As I mentioned yesterday, Libertarianism is the latest iteration of attempts to create innocent-sounding ideologies to serve as sheep’s clothing for wolfish treatment of others.

Leonard Pitts, Jr., cuts to the chase (emphasis added):

Paul has long argued — and reiterated Sunday on CNN — that the Act, which liberated untold millions of African Americans from the tyranny of Jim Crow, “destroyed the principle of private property and private choices.” In other words, forcing a restaurant to take down a Whites Only sign infringed the rights of the restaurant’s owner. A similar argument was made by segregationists in 1964 — and by slave owners in the 1850s.

Maybe, it’s easy to make freedom an issue of “property rights” when you have never been the property.

Click to read the rest.

PoliticalProf wraps it up.

That’s it.

I’m a Southern boy. I can translate the code.

The Booman is not a Southern boy, but he translates it quite well in a long post over at his place. Essential to understanding the translation is putting the words of the code code words into context.

Here’s a couple of snippets from the Booman:

People who didn’t like the end of Jim Crow naturally resented the Federal Government for ending Jim Crow, and they developed an ideology to explain why what the government had done was wrong. It was unconstitutional. It violated people’s inalienable rights. Similar arguments were used to justify slavery and to oppose federal civil rights legislation. But the former arguments were made in overtly racist terms (during the Civil War era–ed.).

(snip)

Did anyone seriously think that these kinds of attitudes could be legislated out of existence? Or that a significant number of people wouldn’t resent the Federal Government for sending in enough troops to force the Southern people to break down segregation? Naturally, those attitudes persisted. But they persisted in less overtly racist ways. Ron Paul’s newsletters occasionally delved into the former style, but that’s more of a slip-up than a regular practice. People know better these days than to say white people are a superior race. The coded way to say that is to insist that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was an unconstitutional overreach that actually made race relations worse.

Because, you know, under Jim Crow, race relations were just fine.

Aside:

I suspect that much of the appeal that Libertarianism and Ron Paul seem to have for some college-age males is the youngsters’ ignorance of Libertarianism’s lineage.

The rest of the appeal is likely Libertarianism’s glorification of selfishness: it legitimizes their desire to pursue any and every woman as they congratulate themselves for the Galtian purity and exemplary idealism that guides their so doing.

Shaun Mullen translates John Boehner.

Daniel Ruth considers the Republican field. A nugget:

In recent weeks, I’ve been obsessed with wondering how other Republican icons might react to this bunch of Bowery Boy dunces vying for votes.

Really now, can you remotely fathom Dwight Eisenhower, or Abraham Lincoln, or Barry Goldwater, or Teddy Roosevelt, or Bob Dole, or Ronald Reagan or even Richard Nixon sharing a debate dais with the current crop of GOP candidates and not thinking to themselves: “Holy Toledo! These people are certifiably full of twaddle.”

Read the rest.

Via Bob Cesca’s Awesome Blog.

If you like World’s Dumbest, this is right up your alley.

Aside:

A news commentator in one of the snippets says that one of Mitt the Flip’s statements made him seem like Thurston Howell III.

This insults Thurston Howell III. Mitt the Flip has neither his humanity nor his sense of humor.

The Republican Party has become a deeply anti-democratic party.

The (Virginia–ed.) state Republican Party will require voters to sign a loyalty oath in order to participate in the March 6 presidential primary.

Anyone who wants to vote must sign a form at the polling place pledging to support the eventual Republican nominee for president. Anyone who refuses to sign will be barred from voting in the primary.

Words fail me.

Via Raw Story.