It's always darkest just before it goes pitch black

[Cyrano]

So the good news is that Michele Bachmann has dropped a bit in the polls.

And the bad news is that Rick Perry has taken her place as the front-runner nut.

Every time you think the Republican base can't get any crazier, they do. You've got to wonder how many Republicans would vote for Jack the Ripper if he were around today.

So here are my questions: Are we really living in a suicidal country in which many millions have jumped off a cliff onto the rocks below? Or is it just the media playing up the insanity of a minority of know-nothing psychopaths?

It's hard to tell. It's difficult to grasp that untold millions have lost all sense of reason, along with their basic humanity. But the seeming reality that so many people seem to take Bachmann and Perry seriously is incomprehensible and terrifying.

What do you think?

[villager]

1. I think this is a country that voted for Nixon, Reagan, and two Bushes

And even though Republicans cook elections, commit treason to fix events, and feloniously tamper with vote counting, people still vote for them in large numbers.

[The_Casual_Observer]

2. What is really scary is that things are so fouled up those maniacs

actually have credibility.

[gateley]

3. I think they're blinded by their racism, hatred and fear, and

they view these guys as saviors. It's easy to hide behind the "issues" they use and hide their racism from themselves. That's my honest-to-God assessment. I think the level and depth of their fanaticism is fueled by racism.

Even if Obama was White, they'd be on board and almost as whack - just not as much. They're afraid of what's going to happen to them, and fear/savior is powerful. Ask Hitler.

[Submariner]

4. Snowbank Snooki announced that she would announce just after Labor Day

so don't count out the Quitta from Wasilla yet from stabbing her fellow teabaggers in the back.

[onehandle]

6. --->

[onehandle]

5. Many, just don't like people who are different. A few, just want to accelerate us to the rapture.

The cross section of these two descriptors = The Tea Party.

If the media would just admit that the real teabaggers are a minority of Republican activists, we could come back into the light sooner rather than later... or never.

[man4allcats]

7. I think this has all happened before - in Nazi Germany.

The difference is that the Nazi hierarchy was, for the most part, as smart as it was evil. The Republicans, at least their front runners, are almost uniformly idiots. One would think that would work against them in an election, but then again look at the crowd they're playing to.

[Shandris]

8. We make a grave error in assuming the frontrunners are idiots.

That's playing directly into their hands, because then we go and say to others, "Cant you SEE how much of an IDIOT they are!?!?" and that, in turn, makes us look like idiots when -those- idiots win 50% of the popular vote.

There's a whole collection of old cliches, old wives tales, and other forms of 'common sense' all wrapped up in how the frontrunners are projecting themselves, but it's not a true, honest position. It's calculated, coldly and ruthlessly, to appeal to the truly frustrated, those frustrated enough that their frustration trumps their ability to reason. To those to whom reason is a foreign word. To those whose ability to reason is easily molded by the pressures and talk of their peers, and to those who have no desire to reason.

That doesn't make the frontrunners 'idiots', that makes them incredibly manipulative. Now, they may well hold SOME of these idiotic ideals they espouse to, but in the end they know how to frame it enough that they look reasonable to the Eternally Frustrated of the right. Clever and manipulative, with a genuine touch of idiocy and funding from the largest sources of money that the world has ever seen. Not even the vaunted Nazi's had all that.

[Cyrano]

9. So to get to the core of what you're saying, Shandris, the

American people are among the dumbest population of human beings that has ever existed. Assuming I'm reading you right, I find it difficult to disagree.

[man4allcats]

10. They're idiots.

They might know how to take advantage of it; i.e., they're dumb and proud of it as my old algebra teacher used to say about certain types of students, but they're still idiots.