"In the wake of the election, there's no doubt the Republican Party is capable of making some adjustments to rebrand itself. If nothing else, the party has demonstrated its proclivity for sloganeering and marketing and there are plenty of ways it can adjust its messaging. But it's obvious to anyone paying attention that the base simply won't allow the party to change in any meaningful way. The base is deeply encased within the twisted, alternate-reality looking glass that the GOP has been constructing throughout the last three decades: a realm of anger, racial resentment, distrust of government, hatred of immigrants and violently anti-choice misogynists and demagogues. The party has deliberately incited these tendencies via the conservative entertainment complex, as David Frum called it on Morning Joe -- AM talk radio, Fox News Channel and the like -- and augmented it with the generous contributions of wealthy financiers who bankroll everything from astroturf campaigns to the bulk-purchasing of every book-length screed by Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Michelle Malkin and Glenn Beck. The problem this creates, of course, is that the Republican Party has been consumed by misinformed idiots with no substantial connection to the real world, and the first post-election PPP poll only serves to amplify this conclusion."-- Columnist Bob Cesca, December 6, 2012.
Comment: Cesca is indulging in name-calling, against Republicans, demonizing them and saying that they are stupid, and that they are racists and bigots. Are there no moral considerations animating Republicans, only racism, misogyny, xenophobia, etc.? Cesca also indulges in "demagogue" rhetoric.
***
"Republicans stepped up with good-faith reforms and solutions equal to the problems. How did the president respond? By doing nothing -- nothing except to dodge and demagogue the issue."-- GOP vice presidential candidate Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), August 29, 2012, during his acceptance speech at the GOP National Convention.
***
"Others are saying, "Well, that's it for Florida. You know, putting Ryan on the ticket, that's it for Florida. Bye-bye Florida because of Ryan's Medicare proposal." We have a chance to get the truth about all this stuff out now, someone who knows how to tell the truth. And the whole discussion about Florida being in trouble is of course the demagoguery over Ryan's Medicare proposal in his budget. Ryan saves Medicare. Medicare is on the way to being destroyed. Ryan's budget, Ryan's Medicare proposal, saves it, and it has all kinds of options in it for people, if they're over 55, to not even have to play ball in it. They can keep what they've got and forget it. So we know that the Democrats are gonna lie and demagogue and smear, and we've got a guy who can bear up under it all and respond to it substantively, accurately, and correctly."-- Radio pundit Rush Limbaugh, August 13, 2012.
***
"You know, his wife is 40; Ryan is 42. His wife is college educated. They have a lot in common. His wife's every bit the political thinker that he is. She chose motherhood, in her own words, she wanted to be a mother, and she is. They've got three kids. Well, that's the kind of thing the Democrats have to demagogue. Oh, yeah, they're so old fashioned, she chose motherhood? That's not modern feminism."-- Radio pundit Rush Limbaugh, August 13, 2012.
***
"When not holding forth from his favorite table at L’Auberge Chez François, nestled among the manor houses of lobbyist-thick Great Falls, Va., Dr. Newton L. Gingrich likes to lecture people about food stamps and how out-of-touch the elites are with real America. Gingrich, as he showed in a gasping effort in Thursday night’s debate in Florida, is a demagogue distilled, like a French sauce, to the purest essence of the word’s meaning. He has no shame. ... This kind of noise -- from Republican debate crowds who have booed an American soldier serving overseas, cheered for the death of the uninsured and hissed at the Golden Rule -- is a demagogue’s soundtrack."-- Columnist Timothy Egan, January 26, 2012, from his column, "Deconstructing a Demagogue".
No comments:
Post a Comment