Conservative Chickens Come Home to Roost By Matt Taibbi for Rolling Stone

[Douglas Carpenter]

an excellent article that should be read in full:

http://m.rollingstone.com/entry/view/id/22704/pn/all/p/0/?KSID=6110c2bb2103755583b8b3fdf04e6d5d

Throughout this entire process, the spectacle of these clowns thrashing each other and continually seizing and then fumbling frontrunner status has left me with an oddly reassuring feeling, one that I haven't quite been able to put my finger on. In my younger days I would have just assumed it was regular old Schadenfreude at the sight of people like Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich suffering, but this isn't like that – it's something different than the pleasure of watching A-Rod strike out in the playoffs.

No, it was while watching the debates last night that it finally hit me: This is justice. What we have here are chickens coming home to roost. It's as if all of the American public's bad habits and perverse obsessions are all coming back to haunt Republican voters in this race: The lack of attention span, the constant demand for instant gratification, the abject hunger for negativity, the utter lack of backbone or constancy (we change our loyalties at the drop of a hat, all it takes is a clever TV ad): these things are all major factors in the spiraling Republican disaster.

snip:

This is where the Republican Party is now. They've run out of foreign enemies to point fingers at. They've already maxed out the rhetoric against us orgiastic, anarchy-loving pansexual liberal terrorists. The only possible remaining explanation for their troubles is that their own leaders have failed them. There is a stranger in the house!

This current race for the presidential nomination has therefore devolved into a kind of Freudian Agatha Christie story, in which the disturbed and highly paranoid voter base by turns tests the orthodoxy of each candidate, trying to figure out which one is the spy, which one is really Barack Obama bin Laden-Marx under the candidate mask!

These people have run out of others to blame, run out of bystanders to suspect, run out of decent family people to dismiss as Godless, sex-crazed perverts. They're turning the gun on themselves now. It might be justice, or it might just be sad. Whatever it is, it's remarkable to watch.

http://m.rollingstone.com/entry/view/id/22704/pn/all/p/0/?KSID=6110c2bb2103755583b8b3fdf04e6d5d


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[tapermaker]

1. This article is

one of the best i have read on the subject of why republicans cant be allowed to govern EVER AGAIN. They are a festering boil that needs to be lanced and removed .Democrats should be the centrist party with a new very liberal party taking the place of the people and party that time forgot.

[existentialist]

7. It's as much an article on why they can't take power again

(never mind the power they still maintain) as why they can't be allowed to take power.

Yes, the mindset of the Republicans as described by the article is enough to convince any sane person that they shouldn't be supported in any way.

However as I read the article was at least equally focused on how their appeal is less and less to a smaller and smaller group that is turning against itself.

The second point, if correct, outweighs the first, and makes the first inconsequential.

[emsimon33]

2. This is a MUST read!

[Kaleko]

3. K & R

[MattSh]

4. For those who want to read it on a computer...

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/arizona-debate-conservative-chickens-come-home-to-roost-20120223

[pretzel4gore]

5. the gopigs are our best chance

ironically, the reactionarkies are the best thing we have going, versus the corrupt, mass murdering society we've degenerated into. The grinning stooges of fascism are so durn stoopid and vile they repel even the local goose-steppers! Thus, we MUST SUPPORT the cranks! Pres. Obama wants to rescue the good ship from the rocks, and, well aren't we all agreement that the murderous mess needs sinking?
They LOSE by winning, we WIN by losing!
And losing is so easy, even the democrats can do it!
ergo, Romney in '12!
(i admit this is convoluted politics, but the grinning stooges of fascism are literally unstoppable, so let's enjoy their success!)

[existentialist]

6. I agree

I read the article in full before I visited DU today.

It's a great article.

Meanwhile, I also noticed the story on Romney's economic policy speech in Michigan. The "crowd" was estimated at 1,200. It didn't look like even that from the pictures I saw--maybe 500.

This was in Detroit.

I remember going to hear Obama in Rapid City in 2008 when he and Clinton where still fighting it out in the primary.

Obama pulled easily 20 times as many people in Rapid City in 2008 as Romney pulled in Detroit in 2012.

That says something--I'm not sure what.

[Iceberg Louie]

8. But will the circle be unbroken?

The points in this article are pretty self-evident and difficult to refute. Herein lies the problem; there is a huge chuck of our population who would be lost at "chickens coming home to roost" (ironically, a lot of them are rural folk). See, this is a portion of America who ain't too big on thinkin's. They live in infinite denial that any social, political, or economical issue might have too many nuances to be effectively boiled down to black and white. They demand that every facet of life be right or wrong, yes or no, or "American" or not. This is one of the biggest criticisms of the U.S. zeitgeist from pretty much the rest of the world, (alongside our inflated attitude of self-importance, obsession with petroleum and junk food, and complete disinterest in the goings-on of other nations). This is also the key to CON-servative's victories over the last 65 years; their ability to pander to this category of Americans. They prey upon the weak-minded by peppering their quasi-patriotic "us-vs.-them" rhetoric with crucifixes and Norman Rockwell fantasy imagery, and demonize thinkers as "East Coast intellectual elitists".

The challenge for the left is that, given a choice between thinking through issues, making an effort to remember our history, and working towards the best interest of the whole nation OR jumping behind Glenn Beck on a human centipede and letting a group of doughy, loudmouthed, privileged white men do one's thinking for them through hate-speech which entertains at the level of the lowest common denominator, this demographic tends to gravitate towards the latter. The RepubliCAN'Ts have done a great job of convincing these people that narrow-mindedness is a virtue. How, then, can the rest of us sell them on the concept that thinking for oneself is not necessarily a vice? There is no doubt that the CON-servatives are imploding right now, and the results are wildly entertaining. But what happens when they regroup like Voltron around Chris Christie and launch an even more vicious and polarizing crusade to restore America to what it never was to begin with?

Will this cycle ever be broken?

"Never underestimate the other man's greed!"
Robert Loggia, Scarface

[existentialist]

9. I read Matt Taibbi's article in full, and posted yesterday.

I have had some more thoughts about it.

It was published by Rolling Stone.

40 years ago Hunter S. Thompson was political affairs editor for Rolling Stone, and was publishing, chapter by chapter what was later to be compiled and published as Fear and Loathing on theCampaign Trail '72

Soon after I became a Hunter Thompson fan, and to some extent I still am.

However, I have come to realize, that although Hunter Thompson had a kind of genious, and ability to explain things to a receptive audience, that his "Gonzo journalism" had to seem, to all not already largely accepting of his counterculture views, to be "obscene, horrid, repellent" and not at a persuasive or even responsible work from the standpoint of trying to persuade a scepticle or hostile audience. His works was and remains a disaster from the standpoint of political rhetoric.

I am very grateful that the present Taibbi article maintains the tradition of Hunter Thompson's strengths, and has gotten past his counterproductive weaknesses. One can present Matt Taibbi's article to those of contrary persuasion, and while it may not convert, it is unlikely to alienate in counterproductive ways.

Thank you Matt Taibbi for your article.