The Republican Myth

One of the myths of the Republican Phenomenon is that the conservative policy goals are popular. That because people continued to vote Republican, they therefore must also support Republican and conservative goals. Yet that was always an absurdity that even our pundit class knew better of.

Because the real answer was much more obvious: Republicans were just running better campaigns. They were better funded, better organized, had better infrastructure (particularly for propaganda propagation), had a simple and vague feel-good message for certain constituencies, and because they were often so divorced from reality, they could say any damn thing they wanted. Plus, when they aren’t playing dirty, they cheat like hell.

And the Washington elite not only knew all that, but this is a likely reason they liked them. They all thought it was just so classy and cool; as if stealing elections and lying to people was just another fun-loving Animal House prank. I suspect that the real culprit is that most journalists have made the same mental calculus as the Republicans and have concluded that politics and policy are the same thing. So that if you run the better campaign, you’re somehow better for the job. As if the job of a politician is to win office, rather than to actually know what to do. And while that attitude is much better suited for winning office, it’s quite lousy at getting the right people for the job.

But where in this does a policy mandate come in? I mean, why even work at choosing popular policies when sham will get you twice as far? And the answer is simple: That people aren’t nearly as stupid as Republicans think they are. The idea that you can’t fool all of the people all the time is so obvious that it’s cliché; yet the Republicans tried to build a dynasty on the idea. And it looks like this election is set-up to be payback time.

Minority Rules

And I was just thinking about this while reading this article on Abstinence-Only education, and how a huge majority of Americans are against it; with a 82% supporting a comprehensive sex-ed that discusses various methods of birth control, and 50% outright opposing Abstinence-Only programs. Frankly, I’m a bit confused as to how people can support a comprehensive sex-ed plan without being against Abstinence-Only plan, but I’m guessing it’s based on how the question was worded. But to me, Abstinence-Only precludes any other kind of sex-ed; hence the word “only”. But whatever.

And even a firm majority of conservatives support comprehensive sex-ed, at 70%; while 40% totally opposed Abstinence-Only. So where in the hell did anyone get the idea that we should do it? I don’t know about you, but I don’t remember anyone running on that as a platform. Yet they went ahead and did it anyway, even though people didn’t want it and it doesn’t work. So we’re spending $170 million on the program; simply to appease a very small minority of people who don’t know what the hell they’re talking about.

Yet what else should we expect from these bozos? They have no policy mandates. They aren’t supporting a popular agenda. And the few items that they openly push are almost always done through deception. And even then, it’s only done with the idea of helping a particular group for political purposes. When all you’re doing is running on negative campaigns and are still stuck to stealing elections, you really don’t have any choice in the matter. For Republicans, government is little more than a cash-cow used to buy more votes. That’s what they always accused liberals of, and now they’ve made it clear why they always said that.

And eventually, all that deception will come back to bite them in the ass. And we all know that. If only the media establishment would finally own up to that truth and stop pretending as if Republicans have ever had a popular mandate. They win elections, but they certainly aren’t giving the people what they want. And no, winning an election on personality, deception, and dirty tricks is not a mandate for the Free-For-All.