Underestimating your enemy is one of the worst mistakes it's possible to make in war..

[Fumesucker]

"War is a merely the continuation of politics by other means" -Carl von Clausewitz

I constantly see statements on DU about how stupid Republicans are.. If Republicans are so damn stupid how have they been handing the supposed smart people their asses for decades?

National level Republican politicians say a lot of things that sound stupid to us but I don't for a minute think that remotely implies that they are stupid. I really wish we could drop the "Republicans are stupid" meme because it leads to greatly underestimating their long proven ability to get their "stupid" ideas enacted into policy.

Stupid is as stupid does Forrest Gump remarked, Republicans now control both houses of Congress and could well end up taking the Presidency in 2016, that isn't the result of stupidity, rather it is the result of guile, cunning and a great deal of political and social insight into the segment of the population that votes for Republicans.

[trumad]

1. Ain't gonna happen

Weird election cycle---they will be crushed in 2016....and probably snuffed out for good.

[Scuba]

15. What are you smoking?

[Fumesucker]

17. Freeper, I think..

It's kind of reminiscent of Labrador.

[guillaumeb]

52. Labrador?

Is that a Canadian shot? (Labrador is the biggest part of Newfoundland)

Or a shot against dogs?

[Fumesucker]

55. Semi-obscure cultural reference

[kairos12]

53. Voter suppression, phony scandals, and dark money could conjure the White House for the Rethugs.

Make not mistake. That is their only game plan.

[heaven05]

65. and

gerrymandering......

[YarnAddict]

16. Ha, ha, ha!!!!!

The first time I heard that was from a history professor in 1977. Carter was pres, we were just a few years post-Watergate, and my prof was certain that the GOP was circling the drain.

Just a couple of years later, we ended up with the Ray-gun Revolution. Carter was crushed in the next election, Mondale was crushed worse, and then we ended up with Bush I in 1988. Even after we managed to regain the WH in 1992, we got whooped in the mid-terms.

It's like a bad zombie movie.

[AverageJoe90]

44. Maybe, but....

It's important to remember that the Republicans weren't nearly as off-the-wall even 20 years ago as they are now, let alone in the '70s: there were still a fair number of Republicans who were moderates, like Nelson Rockefeller and Howard Baker.....whereas now, it's just Rob Portman, Jon Huntsman, Susan Collins, and maybe a few others, and of those three, it would seem that only Collins actually acts like one by and large.

I guess the one bit of good news is that if history is any guide, Americans can only tolerate so much extremism before they begin to protest en masse(just look at how many people turned against the Dixiecrats in the mid '60s), and given current trends, there are many good reasons to believe that such a backlash may be just around the corner.....though whether or not it'll come before or after another Gopper has a chance of sitting in the WH is still up in the air, I suppose.

[Fumesucker]

88. The Overton window has slid far, far to the right from where it once was.

Try taking the US back to Eisenhower Republican levels of taxation and even the liberals will be whining about confiscation.

[JustAnotherGen]

2. Well said fumesucker!

" . . . rather it is the result of guile, cunning and a great deal of political and social insight into the segment of the population that votes for Republicans"

They are snakes - but they are snakes that have been known to win.

[Fumesucker]

6. Be ye therefore as wise as serpents...

The Republicans have forgotten or never learned the second portion of that scripture though, and as harmless as doves.

[Xyzse]

3. I must submit that one should never underestimate the power of stupid.

It is infectuous, and malevolent, capable of leading large swaths of people to ruin.

I agree that one should never ever use the word "stupid" for dismissing something, but I am sorry, I just can not underestimate "stupid" since it is actually very scary, and one must always make plans and formulate strategies with the assumption of the stupid factor.

[Fumesucker]

7. Stupid is easy, smart is hard

It's easy to get people to believe comforting lies over disquieting truths and the Republicans are masters at comforting lies.

[Xyzse]

11. I completely agree.

That's why I can not over estimate how much damage it can do.
Must also consider how it can sway things to the worst possible outcome.

[Agnosticsherbet]

4. Republicans play to an audience that consists of their voters.

They don't give a fuck about other voters because they know that we have a government elected by a majority of those who vote.

They got their voters out in 2010 by nationalizing the election and working to undermine voters who do not agree with them. 2010 allowed them to gerrymander districts to make them safe for Republicans. In2014, when only 36% of eligible voters went to the polls, the majority were Republican in gerrymandered districts.

Their leadership knew exactly what they were doing.

[Fumesucker]

14. If the leadership is smart enough it doesn't much matter whether the followers are smart or not

Consider that Germany before the Third Reich was one of the most advanced nations on the planet at the time and they fell for comforting lies very easily.

[AverageJoe90]

39. I'm sorry, but.....

Germany, prior to today, was *not* quite one of the most advanced nations in the world, not socially, nor even economically(not even during the Weimar era speaking of the former, or the years immediately before the war in terms of the latter, though the former takes precedence over the latter).

Honestly, why else do you think that Germany fell to fascism and America didn't, despite many similar circumstances?

[Fumesucker]

43. In terms of education and scientific progress Germany was advanced..

I think that made fascism a bit easier sell in Germany than the US was that Germany was considerably more homogenous culturally than America at that time.

[AverageJoe90]

45. There is truth to that, at least, but.....

One thing to remember is that this was an age when eugenics was still fairly widely promoted by many in the scientific community, including *racial* eugenics, not to mention anti-Semitism was still somewhat common in much of Europe(and present to some extent in America, too), etc., whereas today's America, despite a fair number of idiots on the right-wing, we don't quite have as many of those problems. So we have *that* going for us, at least.

[Agnosticsherbet]

41. Their leadership manipulates their voters by appealing to certain ideologies.

Many of their voters are smart, but when the appeal speaks to deep held beliefs, they do not question. If you know what people believe in you can pitch to that belief, and the rational mind will not get involved.

[Cosmic Kitten]

25. That's true, parties play to their "audience"

What I don't get is the absence or ineptitude
of the Democratic leadership???

What is our party doing to push back?
Why are the repubs more effective than Dems?

It's not just how "stupid" right-winger seem to be,
it's how ineffectual our leaders have proven to be.

[Agnosticsherbet]

42. Conservatives and liberals think differently.

and so we react differently. This is the most recent study that shows that liberal and conservative are fundamentally different ways of viewing the world.

Study: American Liberals and Conservatives Think as if From Different Cultures

[Cosmic Kitten]

49. YES! Absolutely, so why isn't our team using that info?

The research is in, we understand how people
process information, and yet our party either
ignores or misuses that knowledge.

The party needs to sell ideas to NEW voters.
Doesn't the party have any competent strategists?

[Agnosticsherbet]

54. I don't need the party to sell me on a policy as if it were a used car.

I am capable of analyzing what is going on and making up my own mind.

The vast majority of Republican/Conservative voters will never agree on policy with me. I could give them all the factual information in the world, but if it violates their ideological point of view, they will find a reason deny it.

[Cosmic Kitten]

58. I agree, "we" don't need to be "sold" any policy.

But there are tens of millions of voters who do.

If advertising and campaigns didn't work there wouldn't
be hundreds of millions of dollars spent to "sell" campaigns.

As that is the reality of elections, the Democrats
are very bad at their job of "selling" the party to the public.

Giver the science and research available there is NO reason
our party hasn't put together a winning 50 state strategy.
It's simply incredulous that democrats can't appeal to
and win over a majority of working class voters?!?

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

5. Although I don't think every Republican out there won on their own intelligence.

A lot of them are merely running in blood-red gerrymandered districts. So they only had to be smart enough to beat others in Republican primaries.

[Igel]

8. Darkly humorous.

Elevates metaphor to reality.

Meanwhile, it's apparently a trait to be praised when there's actual war and artillery fire going on. Then there's no underestimation too great to be proposed. The smaller the step, the grander the thinking. It's homeopathic warfare.


I find it seriously unlikely that the (R) will take the presidency in 2016. Apart from HCR, there are no really viable candidates with any sort of decent name recognition outside of small, little pockets of partisans either either side. I'm not sure that the public will go for HCR out of a populated field of candidates that are known, but nobody else has any serious name recognition.

And if by some freak of statistical variation the (R) do take the presidency in 2016, in 2018 the (D) will have firm control over at least one house of Congress. A large majority of Americans always want change. But the devil's in the details and the nebulous, generic labels that we give to kinds of change hide much more than they elucidate. There are few single changes that a majority want. So it was with the health care bill: A large majority wanted one, but when you looked at polls that said what, exactly, they wanted the majorities all went away. As soon as there's a large movement in one direction--again, largely because of a kind of statistical fluke--the three portions of the government involved in making legislation are immediately divided (House, Senate, and Presidency).

[Man from Pickens]

9. right up there with "land war in Asia"

we never seem to learn that one either

[DemocratSinceBirth]

10. They benefit from an electorate that votes all of the time.

Our electorate only votes some of the time.

Also, a gerrymandered House and a Senate that favors small states inures to their benefit.

[Fumesucker]

12. And their electorate are the stupid ones?

It seems to me they know how to get what they think they want.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

13. I don't believe they are necessarily dumb.

It's unwise to "misunderestimate" your adversaries

[Cosmic Kitten]

26. +1 EXACTLY!

Where is the Democratic leadership?

[mopinko]

18. stupid and evil look so much alike on the surface. at least to the sane.

it never ceases to amaze me how much evil is disguised as stupid. george bush was stupid. or was he evil?
the little mba's sent to iraq to oversee contracts were stupid. the people who sent them were evil.

i could go on all day. this is on point. they know EXACTLY what they are doing, and to do it in a way that makes you shake your head instead of your fist.

[Fumesucker]

19. Stupid loses a lot more often than evil does..

If you see stupid winning and winning and winning it's almost certainly evil.

[mopinko]

20. yup yup.

stupid and having all the things? not happening.

[AverageJoe90]

36. Unfortunately, stupid often wins out where outright evil can't.

This is especially true for our own country's history.....speaking, btw, as someone who studies history as a full-time hobby.

[markpkessinger]

85. I think many Americans are very adept at donning selective ignorance . . .

. . . as a means of diverting their own and others' eyes from the nature of their truer motivations.

[N_E_1 for Tennis]

21. Well stated, Fumesucker....

We seem to get too comfortable in our arrogance.

[world wide wally]

22. As Karl Rove always preaches; All they need is 50% plus one vote

[tularetom]

23. The party leaders who are crafty know how to manipulate the rank and file who are stupid

The people who run the republican party must sit and laugh their asses off thinking about how easy it is to get the hicks to vote for people and policies that will screw them economically.

[Fumesucker]

27. There other issues important to people than economics, sometimes more important than economics

You see it quite a bit on DU in some ways, economics is clearly a lower ranked priority with quite a few DUers, myself included on some things. Voting for a proven warmonger for instance would be a deal breaker even if it meant I would personally benefit which I quite possibly would.

[tularetom]

35. "I don't care if I'm poor, sick and unemployed

As long as black people are poorer, sicker and unemployed, and the govment don't try to take my guns away, or let two homos get married, or let a bunch of Meskins into the country, or let unmarried women have orgasms. As long as the republicans put a stop to all that socialist commie Muslim crap, I can sit here in my single wide and be happy as a pig in shit".

No matter how bad off they are, they're satisfied if they are better off than somebody else. Amazing that a political party in the 21st century could win elections by employing that strategy but there you have it.

[Cosmic Kitten]

28. If true, that's also a comment on our parties lackluster performance

All of the right-wing agendas and playbooks are in plain view.
Yet Democrats can't mount an effective counter program?

[old man 76]

24. Who are the stupid ones?

Republicans are far from stupid. They have found that if you convince someone that what ever they dislike you dislike also is the way to get their vote. Convince a red neck the you will protect his gun and you have him. Don't like immigrants the right is in total agreement. You think all welfare recipients are lazy so dose a Republican. These are one item voters and never consider what else the right wing has in store for them. These are the stupid people and it seems there are more every day.

[Cosmic Kitten]

31. This kinda illustrates the fail or success of "triangulation"

Depending on which horse you bet on,
sometimes when you win, you lose...

Convince a red neck the you will
protect his gun and you have him.

And yet, Democrats continue to pursue
wedge/triangulation issues...and lose elections

[jwirr]

29. It is a matter of being smart in different ways. They have not idea what is needed to govern an

entire nation that exists in the real world. What they do know is how to con the voters into being so afraid that they will vote against themselves.

[Cosmic Kitten]

37. That is an "underestimation"

They have not idea what is needed to govern
an entire nation that exists in the real world.

It depends on what perspective you are assuming.
They are governing exactly as they intend, in the real world.
It's those of us who imagine that we all have the same goals
and agenda who are unable to "govern" in the real world.

In the "real world" if you don't win elections, you DON'T get to govern!
Thanks, DWS

[Liberalynn]

30. I don't think the leadership of the Republican party is stupid.

They are canny and conniving manipulators who con actual stupid people into voting for them though. I also think some of the candidates they deliberately select are either stupid or insane so they are more easily malleable.

[byronius]

32. George W. Bush = Scott Walker

Never again will I laugh off these evil goons.

[Half-Century Man]

33. It is also the truth to say

Do not treat one who sees you as a enemy, as your slightly stupid brother.
They view President Obama and everyone who disagree with them as enemies. We view them as misguided. Within that dissidence lays their effective motivation and our disaffected one.

[AverageJoe90]

34. Underestimation is, yes, but overestimation isn't far behind.

The Republicans, for their sheer luck in 2014(too many Democrats making the wrong moves), still have a lot going against them, and it's not just demographics. However, though, I can say this: there is always a chance that we end up running a particularly poor candidate-that, combined with these shitty, and definitely unconstitutional voter ID laws, not to mention any attempts at election fraud(such as the failed attempt that was thwarted in 2012), actually very well could put a Republican over the top.

Other than that, being realistic, it's not the likeliest scenario-if we run an even halfway decent candidate(and President Obama was definitely decent, and he won by a fair margin in '08), then our chances for a loss, as it stands, are pretty low even with attempted election fraud.....at least if the GOP decides to run Rand Paul, Scott Walker, Ted Cruz, or Jeb Bush. And even more so if rumors of the Tea Party breaking off and forming a third party end up coming true(as plausible as it is, I guess we'll just have to wait and see).

The one complication I can see happening, is if the delegates at next year's Republican convention end up picking a guy like Rob Portman or Jon Huntsman-the Teabaggers wouldn't like either of these guys, but they might be able to convince enough moderates to give the GOP one last chance, especially if we aren't running a particularly god candidate ourselves

[Orsino]

38. Yes. They aren't breeding for smarts over there, but for obedience. Just don't mistake...

...their repetition of nonsense for actual stupidity. Occasional nutbags motwithstanding, recall that they are paid very handomely to say mean, stupid things. When that stops paying so well, maybe then we can gauge their actual brainpower.

All that said, calling them idiots isn't exactly wrong. It's a recognition that they can be relied upon to act stupidly, as long as it enriches their paymasters.

[sulphurdunn]

40. Never confuse low cunning

with high intelligence.

[samsingh]

46. i believe repugs are ruthless, maniacal, will break any law or covenant to get what

they want regardless of the harm to the country or the world.

I don't underestimate them. I think people who continue to say 'we are better than them, we should forgive them' are the ones who are delusional and putting our country at risk

[BlancheSplanchnik]

47. K, R, Bookmarking. n/t

[Gman]

48. Couldn't say it better.

What sounds stupid here in the real world is actually meant for the conservative alternate reality they have created and maintain very well. Gotta be pretty smart to pull that off.

Good post

[Zorra]

50. Republicans are sociopathic, and stupid, and they know that they are sociopathic and stupid.

So they use money to hire the best talent to do research for them so they can find the most efficient ways possible to control and fuck the rest of us over.

They're working on controlling our water supply right now.

We need to cut off their money supply and end their ownership of the factors and means of production, starting with engaging in a worldwide general strike as a first volley in the war.

There's no reason to stop calling them stupid. They are stupid. We are kind, and naive, and it just doesn't compute to us that while we just want to be kind and nice to everyone and live our lives, they have a primitive parasitical drive that compels them to compulsively kill and eat everything in their path without regard to the consequences.

We let them control us by acquiescing to their innate sociopathic parasite ruthlessness. We are not going to stop them from killing off the planet, and us, through the political process.

If we want to stop them, we have to prevent them from feeding on us.

[Cosmic Kitten]

62. Democrats need a more robust image.

Democrats are viewed as weak, nerdy, librul
in the minds of the blue collar, working class...
think Alan Colmes, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry

That image needs to change.

[zeemike]

51. I totally agree.

As long as we think they are just stupid we are at a disadvantage.

[leveymg]

56. The GOP know how to play defense - the Dems can't even follow a playbook, and often switch sides

running the ball over their own goal post. A lot of those fumbles and touchbacks aren't forced errors. Witness Iran letter signatory Mark Kirk, and the resounding silence of his colleagues on this side of the Senate bench about the 47 letter.

[guillaumeb]

57. you are absolutely on fire in this post and your responses

It really does not matter how the GOP really gained control of Congress. Gerrymandering, political dirty tricks, a hue advantage in money, and slanted media coverage, the GOP uses and benefits from all of these. The GOP also benefits from the tendency of the young and minorities to not vote regularly.

I agree that many Democrats offer little alternatives to the GOP on many issues, but until "natural Democratic voters", in other words the non-rich, get more interested in the electoral process, the GOP base will continue to have an outsized influence. Even though older white people are not the majority they vote at high rates.

I also agree that "stupid" is simply an insult that alienates. I prefer the word ignorance because that explains how people can hate Obamacare but like the Affordable Care Act. They truly do not know that they are the same thing. Education is the key. Good candidates help too.

[Fumesucker]

61. Arguably the Republicans understand their base bettern than Democrats do theirs..

The Democrats either don't know how to motivate their base to reliably vote or don't care to say and do what it takes to so motivate that base.

[guillaumeb]

63. good points again

Possibly the fact that the US election process is so money oriented ensures/requires that nearly all candidates be money whores. Given the massive cost of running even a Senatorial campaign candidates are constantly begging for money. And given that the 1% have most of the money the system tilts heavily to the right.

The only thing progressives have to counterbalance the huge influence of right wing money is our votes.

[lpbk2713]

59. They have the complicity of the MSM.

The GOP was all but dead toward the end of the wicked and evil BFEE Regime but
the MSM resurrected them back to a position of power and relative credibility.

[BlueCaliDem]

66. ^^^This x 1000^^^ The GOP puppet masters are FAR from stupid, but their base is incredible so.

Moneyed puppet masters know how to pull the strings (push the buttons) and the dimwitted who consistently vote to protect their rights of Whiteness, racism, hatred for the other, hatred for "the gays", hatred for women, etc., dance like the fools they are while they continue to enjoy the fruits of those Democratic policies that the people they vote for are constantly trying to take away from them.

Yep. They're a special kind of stupid, all right.

[Fumesucker]

72. Poor whites vote Republican considerably less frequently than wealthier whites do

It's really middle class whites who vote en masse against their own economic interests, not so much poor ones.

http://themonkeycage.org/blog/2012/03/23/voting-patterns-of-americas-whites-from-the-masses-to-the-elites/

Within any education category, richer people vote more Republican. In contrast, the pattern of education and voting is nonlinear. High school graduates are more Republican than non-HS grads, but after that, the groups with more education tend to vote more Democratic. At the very highest education level tabulated in the survey, voters with post-graduate degrees lean toward the Democrats. Except for the rich post-graduates; they are split 50-50 between the parties.

What does this say about America’s elites? If you define elites as high-income non-Hispanic whites, the elites vote strongly Republican. If you define elites as college-educated high-income whites, they vote moderately Republican.

There is no plausible way based on these data in which elites can be considered a Democratic voting bloc. To create a group of strongly Democratic-leaning elite whites using these graphs, you would need to consider only postgraduates (no simple college grads included, even if they have achieved social and financial success), and you have to go down to the below-$75,000 level of family income, which hardly seems like the American elites to me.

The patterns are consistent for all three of the past presidential elections. (The differences in the higher-income low-education category should not be taken seriously, as the estimates are based on small samples, as can be seen from the large standard errors for those subgroups.)

[BlueCaliDem]

75. Every poor White I know votes Republican because they believe it's "the White people's Party". Most

elderly Whites (senior citizens) vote Republican, too, and for that same reason. I don't know what their socioeconomic status or education level is, but what's becoming patently clear to me now, is that it all comes down to skin color.

Most White Americans vote Republican because they believe it's "their Party". President Obama lost the White vote to Mittney in 2012, which tells me that my theory is pretty spot-on.

This is a country infested with racism and White privilege rather than infused with common sense - on all sides - down to the nucleus. I don't see that changing...ever. I'm saddened by that hopelessness, but it is what it is, and no matter what is done, racism will always play a major role in everything we do in the United States. I have lost all hope that Americans, of all colors, can ever rise above the prejudices against certain skin colors and, instead, allow common sense and reason to guide their decisions.

I've got to hand it to those moneyed Elites in this country, though...they've successfully divided the people of this nation and they continue to do so, so that we'll always be easily conquered to do their bidding.

[Fumesucker]

77. The plural of anecdote is not data..

And you only provided a single anecdote.

[BlueCaliDem]

90. Likewise...

...there are lies, damned lies, and then there are statistics.

Statistics can be skewed any which way by tweaking variables to suit one's preferred outcome. You can't deny that in the poorest States in this country, working poor Whites continue to vote Republican. Just look at the gerrymandered districts and the idiots they elect to the U.S. House.

Anyway, I guess in this we'll have to agree to disagree, Fumesucker - as we do on almost everything.

[Dirty Socialist]

60. Republican Leaders Are Brilliant

They have a vast propaganda apparatus to lure in the feeble minded, the racists, and the sociopaths. The followers, not so much.

[BlueCaliDem]

67. It doesn't take brilliance to memorize the e-mailed talking points by the fascist brains behind them

All they have to do is be pretty good at talking. That's all. Never notice how, when they're questioned, they just repeat their talking point over and over again, and are given a pass for doing so by our so-called news media?

They do as they're told and pick up their paycheck. Doesn't take brilliance to do that - cue George W. Bush as an example.

[Dirty Socialist]

69. I agree to a certain extent

However, I consider Dubya to be a stooge and a figurehead. Rove, Cheney, and others were the real leaders.

[BlueCaliDem]

73. I don't see where we disagree here because that's exactly what I'm saying. Both Cheney and Rove

were Bush's brain - a lesson we Americans must all remember when John Ellis Bush runs for the White House and beats Scott Walker-Koch - and he will.

The brains behind Republican salesmen such as Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, John Ellis Bush, Scott Walker-Koch, etc., know they couldn't get elected dog catcher, so they put this "moderate" candidate forward, propagating the "compassionate conservative" (don't it sound nice?) while, in secret, they plan their hard-right, RW-fascist agenda of perpetual war and the destruction of the United States.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice...well...you can't get fooled again. Yeah right. George was clearly not referring to the American voter when he fumbled up that saying.

[pscot]

64. Democratic strategy is based almost entirely

on urban identity politics, which immediately alienates a third of the electorate and offers very little to another third. So we win the cities and lose the rest of the country. Former Democratic strongholds like Wisconsin and Michigan elect Republicans locally and we can't figure out why.

[Cali_Democrat]

68. "I constantly see statements on DU about how stupid Republicans are"

Actually it's the Republican voters that are dumber than a sack of hammers.

If anything, GOP politicians are actually very smart because they're able to trick these idiots into voting GOP again and again, especially in red states.

[Fumesucker]

71. I know a lot of Republican voters, have several in my own extended family..

I'm not buying it, a lot of the Republican voters are much smarter than you give them credit for, like many Democratic voters there are things more important than economics to a lot of Republican voters.

[Cali_Democrat]

74. How would you explain the fact that 52% of Republican voters in Mississippi think Obama is Muslim?

http://www.politico.com/politico44/2012/03/doubts-about-obamas-faith-persist-among-gop-faithful-117169.html

Only a dumbshit would believe it and GOPers are a bunch of easily convinced dumbshits

GOP politicians know this...and so they use the ignorance of those voters to their advantage.

Dumber than a sack of hammers.

It's funny....the several times I've been to Europe I was questioned about Republican voters, especially ones in the South.

They're positively puzzled at how people can be so stupid.

There are other polls I can find that really show the stupidity of GOPer voters.

The world laughs at these people.

[Fumesucker]

76. I try to avoid talking politics with my Republican relatives, not always an easy task

It wouldn't surprise me if some of them thought that although I don't know for sure. One of the most likely candidates is a flight surgeon who teaches advanced techniques for trauma treatments to other doctors and one of the funniest people I know. She has far more formal education than I and makes many times my income but believes some things that make me want to

Ben Carson is clearly not a stupid person, no truly stupid person can be a top neurosurgeon but it I suspect if asked he would say he believes Obama to be a Muslim.

[TheKentuckian]

83. Education and credentials are not the same thing as intelligence and one area of intelligence

doesn't necessarily transfer to another.

[Fumesucker]

87. Indeed, from reading and long observation I think it's more a question of how values are prioritized

Conservatives and liberals don't prioritize values the same way.

Fairness doesn't get a lot of concern from conservatives for instance "life isn't fair" will be their retort while liberals prioritize it more highly.

[Hekate]

70. TY Fumes.Some GOPers are possessed of rat-like cunning, & some are brilliant.They take the long view

[AverageJoe90]

86. But those not in denial plainly realize......

That their party *is* genuinely in trouble for the long run, and will have to continue relying more and more on dirty tricks in order to keep winning any federal elections, unless they make a radical change-so they'll keep going for that until they have no choice but to step aside for the moderates-because very few of today's Republicans have any chance of winning an election honestly without an absolutely mediocre candidate on the other(see: Dukakis in '88), except maybe Rob Portman, Susan Collins, and a few others.

[JonLP24]

78. I believe there is an overlap with sociopaths & republicans

You'd have to be without a conscience to keep supporting & doing things, I mean the Bush administration did a lot of awful shit. Waterboard someone 83 times but say he was water boarded 1 time for "35 seconds".

A sociopath is a brilliant trickster. That global warming denialism? Sociopath trick.

[Fumesucker]

79. You'd have to be without a conscience to keep supporting aborting babies..

The problem is that different people make different value judgments.

I don't disagree with you in some ways but things aren't completely black and white. Right here on DU there are some demanding loyalty oaths to Hillary Clinton despite her IWR vote and speech urging other Democrats to vote for it.

[JonLP24]

81. I studied it very well

Abortion couldn't fit into that, I just don't see it. Sociopaths ruin the lives, play ticks on living people I mean out of the womb people.

Having this campaign where you're putting through people through unimaginable brutality, locking people up forever, tax cuts while simultaneously slashing safety nets? I don't see it as black & white, there is a lot of apathy & people aren't willing to risk their careers to expose their behavior, etc.

In the context of underestimating the enemy, far from it -- I don't whatsoever. I imagine they have some tricks up their sleeve. I believe there is an overlap in the Democratic party as well. I don't know if she is or not but if one was, they wouldn't be in the progressive caucus or Bernie Sanders -- definitely no. Elizabeth Warren seems legitimately outraged when she sees financial institution (a lot of overlap here too) getting away with shit. Oil & gas industry -- a hell lot of overlap.

On edit -- I should be clear if someone is fighting for progressive issues it doesn't necessarily mean they aren't sociopaths because they're excellent & playing the phony. Someone could be fighting this but abusing victims at home, for instance.

[Cryptoad]

80. Never underestimate the...

dumbing down of America........ There is a reason the first order of biz in the GOP take over of 1982 was to begin the destruction of our education system.

[Fumesucker]

82. Now many Democrats seem to have enthusiastically joined in destroying public education..

See Duncan, Arne.

[Cryptoad]

84. Dino's

[GetTheRightVote]

89. It is both parties, not only one...

We are losing our form of governance due to run away Presidents like Bush and now Obama. One is no better then the other, both tried to rule over an whole nation of people with little regards to the common welfare of all citizens not only those belonging to one party over the other. People our nation is in some serious trouble here...President Obama has done far worst then President Bush who set all this up to begin with.

We should not hope for one person to tell a whole nation what he is going to order us all to do, governance of our nation should be done thru all 3 branches of our government frame. We are losing America behind these parties and their crowned rulers they keep putting in place to take her from us all. Wake up and think Country before party or we are doom to keep losing her behind a party system which could care less about any of us, Wake Up people!