GOP Debate Audiences Becoming a Nightmare for the Party

[marmar]

GOP Debate Audiences Becoming a Nightmare for the Party


Vampire movies and television programmes may be all the rage right now, but not one of them has anything on a good old-fashioned audience of Republican debate watchers.

In a rather shocking - yet sadly, not surprising - display of the bloodlust and viciousness usually reserved for members of law enforcement pulling over a driving-while-soused Mel Gibson, the so-called "party of life" has seen its most ardent adherents at the past few GOP debates belching out blood-curdling cheers in favour of untimely death and boos for soldiers serving-while-gay. All of which tells you a little something about who these theoretical human beings are, and what they stand for - and it has does not have much to do with traditional small government conservatism.

In a recent debate on MSNBC, as it was being pointed out that Rick Perry rivals Kublai Khan in his propensity for stopping people's ability to breathe, Perry was roundly cheered by the crowd for his record-breaking string of executions in Texas. Debate attendees yelped like it was a home run in the World Series or a successful moon mission, a sickening display whether one supports the death penalty or not (which I do in limited circumstances).

Much like wolves hovering over a slab of meat or performance art directed by the Marquis de Sade, the activist Tea Party Republican base seemed to delight in the suffering of others. They were Teddy Roosevelt ... if he were buried in a pet cemetery for the past 90 years. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/672481/gop_debate_audiences_becoming_a_nightmare_for_the_party/

[Auggie]

1. "Today the politics of the right is the politics of frustration...

the sour impotence of those who find themselves unable to understand, let alone command, the complex mass society that is the polity today".

:applause:

[DonCoquixote]

2. Not at all

The "regular" GOP can pretend they hate the Tea Party, while using them to implement the agenda, and laughing behind the scenes. If the left were not as ego driven, they could use the "far left" in the exact same manner, playing the Good cop to the Bad cop, the MLK to the far left "Malcolm X."

[avaistheone1]

3. It does demonstrate what a mess the leadership of the Republican party is in this country.

They are a bunch of sick, twisted bastards.

That is the nice things I have to say about them.

[Turbineguy]

4. If it is a nightmare

it is of their own making.

[Quantess]

5. Love it. Well written.

[rustydog]

6. Maybe, way back in the darkest region of their tiny, hateful minds

the phrase:"You reap what you sow" makes sense.

[Raine]

7. GOOD, it should be a nightmare for them because it exposes

the truth on how ugly they are for real. :puke: They've been trying to hide their ugly hateful selves behind a mask of being "kinder and gentler" for too long. :puke:

[mindwalker_i]

8. The candidates didn't oppose it

So they FUCKING own it! By their lack of condemnation they are giving their tacit approval. Hell, one of them brags about how many he's killed so is the audience that far off?

[eppur_se_muova]

9. They shat in their own bed. Let them lie in it. nt

[gratuitous]

10. Jury's still out

We'll see whether folks decide if this has been a "sickening display" or not. The Republicans have a long history of getting a little ahead of themselves, but catching up to the most vile things. It's only when the idea gets pushed a little too far or is voiced a little too soon that it looks like a nightmare. At first. Soon enough, though, Republicans warm to whatever odious idea slipped its leash, and it becomes a fresh marker for the conservatives to totem around. Then it passes into the "moderate" camp (cf. "welfare reform" and the end of the Great Society programs that had been so successful in lifting people out of poverty).