THE GOP SEEMS TO HAVE ABANDONED DEMOCRACY

 

…Congressman Jim Jorden (R-OH) appears to be one of those in the GOP against democracy

 

The difference between the GOP and the Democrats is way beyond just their policies

 

It is true that President Biden and the Democratic Party are in the position that most ruling parties finds themselves when they are in the first midterm election of a presidency.  They will now have low approval ratings, difficulties in passing legislation and they seem to be headed for an up-coming electoral defeat.

Today, this kind of activity causes everyone to usually ask: “Have the Democrats gone too far to the left?”.  The reporters then seek out Democratic centrists who are eager to explain how all the party’s troubles are the fault of the party’s far-left activists.

While we’re at it, let’s now return to those Rust Belt conservatives for another round of articles about why the heartland folk regard these out-of-touch Democrats with total contempt.  Liberal columnists will write piece after piece on how the party has shifted too far to the left, and every Democrat will face demands to condemn the supposed extreme leftists in their party.

Meanwhile, the actual extremism is seen as much more prevalent in the Republican Party where its total extremism reaches its highest levels.

Yet the Republican elected officials are far less likely to be weighed down by their right-wing flank, than the Democrats are weighed down by their left-wing.

So, what accounts for the difference? Is it all a matter of psychology?

Most Democrats tend to be very timid and highly self-critical.  They always seem to be gripped by the fear that at any moment the public will reject them.

On the other hand, the Republicans will embraced a political style that values their total aggression and shamelessness.

At the center of their environment, we have the Republican universe that sits with the Fox News network.  This is a network devoted to stirring Republican outrage and resentment,  Grievance at Fox News is the hub of their propaganda wheel, where each day’s Fox programming is filled with stories of liberal excess and the supposed threat it poses to everything that is what Fox considers right and good.

All this while the left has no single outlet like having a Fox.  Not MSNBC, not the New York Times, not The Washington Post, is as central to the Democrats’ worldview, as Fox News is to that of the Republicans.  Meanwhile, the outlets Democrats rely on to regularly police the so called, “liberal excess”, it draws major attention to it which encourages the Democrats to be embarrassed by it.  This in turn, initiates cycles of shame and condemnation to everyone on the left.

So, as an example, a recent report that three members of the San Francisco school board were recalled, it gets enormous national coverage, especially at Fox.  And it’s framed by the idea that the wacky leftists went so far off the rails that even ordinary liberals could no longer tolerate them.

That’s how the article was actually written after the school board recall succeeded.  Had it failed and those members stayed on the board, it would then have been written up as proof that the left had again gone, way too far.

It is true that Democratic centrism is never blamed for the party’s failures; it’s always the fault of the left.  The centrists, such as Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), are the ones sabotaging the Democrats.  If you recall, it was the Leftists that got blamed for the defeat for governor in Virginia of Terry McAuliffe, who was as much of a corporate centrist as the Democrats could find.

That is not to say that liberals don’t call attention to conservative excesses, as they certainly do.  You can hear reports of the far-rights’ book-banning, their crazy conspiracy theories and their white nationalism that is on the many liberal websites or on MSNBC.  But the conservatives don’t feel they have any need to answer for it.  The most uncomfortable question the conservatives will get is to be asked whether they admit that Joe Biden is the legitimate president of the United States?  That’s about the most difficult question they will get.

Meanwhile, every Democrat has to face repeated questions about “defunding the police,” an idea advocated by virtually no Democratic elected official.  Do the Democrats believe in it?  Why haven’t they denounced it more often?  Aren’t they worried it will drag their party down, which the Republicans and Fox News will work hard to make sure that happens.

Here’s what this all adds up to: “Everything in the informational universe that the liberals inhabits, it encourages them to be critical of their own side, while the opposite is true of conservatives.” You then have an allegedly two-sided debate in which Republicans say “Look how crazy liberals are!”, to which Democrats respond by saying “Look how crazy liberals are! Let’s try not to be so crazy!”

The entire debate winds up revolving around the question of how extreme liberals are, at a time when the Republican Party has become so extreme that they have all but abandoned democracy itself.

Large portions of the public will inevitably conclude that: “Yes, liberals are crazy.”  The liberal are trying to make material improvements in people’s lives, while the Republicans are shoveling fabricated culture war nonsense at them.  But it’s the Democrats, who are said to be “out of touch” with what folks are going through…?

Republicans are engaged in an endless campaign of race-bating, but it’s the liberals who are supposedly “obsessed” with race.  Liberals continue to beat themselves up for not getting more votes in small towns and rural areas, but nobody asks Republicans why they do so terribly in the cities….?  Also, how their party is going to attempt to get more urban votes…?

The result of all this self-flagellation by the Democrats is to wind up not concentrating on their opponents.  By not putting the conservatives on the defensive, and not giving voters a reason to vote against them, the Democrats end up looking like fools. 

If the only question being asked is how bad the Democrats are, the poor outcome for the Democrats at the coming November elections is all but inevitable.

I’m sorry, but that appears to be the truth.

Copyright G. Ater 2022