Republicans And Democrats Are Not Equally To Blame For Washington

"Let's Just Say It. The Republicans Are The Problem"

Conservative Norm Ornstein and Liberal Thomas Mann

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/05/lets-just-say-it-republicans-are.html

Republicans and Democrats are not equally to blame for Washington

Only one party has grown more extreme since the 1980s. 

Percentage of non-centrists in Congress over time. 

Devin Nunes, a Republican Congressman from California, spoke about how difficult it’s become dealing with his base in an interview with the New Yorker. 

I used to spend ninety per cent of my constituent response time on people who call, e-mail, or send a letter, such as, ‘I really like this bill, H.R. 123,’ and they really believe in it because they heard about it through one of the groups that they belong to, but their view was based on actual legislation," Nunes said. "Ten per cent were about ‘Chemtrails from airplanes are poisoning me’ to every other conspiracy theory that’s out there. And that has essentially flipped on its head." The overwhelming majority of his constituent mail is now about the far-out ideas, and only a small portion is "based on something that is mostly true." He added, "It’s dramatically changed politics and politicians, and what they’re doing."

If you don’t think the Republican base is extreme, talk to them. This is what the base is listening to:

Everything is a government false flag operation.

I’ve talked to people who believe that we would have free energy if the government weren’t covering up a secret invention of Nikola Tesla’s.

I’ve had people swear up and down that Fox News is “liberal.” The GOP base reads people like Frank Gaffney at Breitbart. And Daneen Peterson. Their prophets are dead cult leaders like Ayn Rand. 

They believe in things like:

1. Obama concentration camps
2. Concentration camps run by gay people
3. Doctors will report your guns
4. Jade Helm or the military is going to impose martial law
5. Agenda 21 – Because the New World Order is too tame these days
6. Sharia Law
7. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
8. Gays are taking over the world
9. NASA faked the moon landings
10. A Benghazi conspiracy
11. The North American Union and the Amero
12. Obama’s a Muslim and wasn’t born in the U.S. 
13. U.N. Black Helicopters
14. Global warming is a hoax
15. Chemtrails
16. Fluoridation of the water supply controls your mind

Now if you ever bring this up, I guarantee you people will say, “But the left believes 9/11 was an inside job.” 

The difference is that this is not a common belief on the left. A couple people believe 9/11 was an inside job. I’ve only ever met one personally who was on “the left.”

Alex Jones, on the other hand, has over 2 million listeners. His website gets over 4 million hits a month.

The other difference is that no politician on the left believes 9/11 was an inside job. They all think it’s a conspiracy theory because it is a conspiracy theory. 

Politicians on the right are a different story. Ted Cruz and Donald Trump both admire Frank Gaffney. Rand Paul believes in the Bilderberg group and believed in the North American Union until it started making him look whacky.

Here’s Donald Trump on Alex Jones saying: “Your reputation’s amazing. I will not let you down.”

I get the anger people are feeling about losing their jobs and having to do more and more to earn less and less, but I’m pretty sure NASA didn’t fake the moon landings, Obama’s not sending anyone to concentration camps, and gay people aren’t trying to take over the world.

This is the modern-day GOP though. Its base is extraordinarily reactive, anti-government, anti-democratic, anti-reason, and anti-science. When we elect people who believe in these kind of conspiracies, why should we be surprised that government is a giant clusterf*ck?

If we want better government, a good first step would be to stop electing people who think everything is a government conspiracy.