Plea to the Republican party: This country needs you to get serious.

     Last week I suggested that the core reasoning for some seriously silly ideas originated at the far right extreme of what was once the Grand Old Party.  And I ended with the question, how did this happen?

     Let’s start with the continuing take-over of the Republican party by extremists.  From NY Times, Frank Rich, “you can draw a straight line from the Liberty League’s crusade against the New Deal “socialism” of Social Security, the Securities and Exchange Commission and child labor laws to the John Birch Society-Barry Goldwater assault on J.F.K. and Medicare to the Koch-Murdoch-backed juggernaut against our “socialist” president.”

     The latest manifestation, the Tea Party, is  being marketed as a grass roots movement.  In fact, they are more astro-turf than grass roots and funded by billionaires like the Koch brothers and Rupert Murdoch.   

     Koch industries is a major contributor to the damage of our planet. They contribute millions to libertarian, and free-market minded organizations. Libertarians want a society with reduced or no government at all. A free market is a market structure in which businesses are unhindered by external regulation or control by government. In addition, the Koch’s lead the fight against the common people’s right to collective bargaining.  Notice the trend here?  No interference of any kind on their ability to make even more money, regardless of what it does to the climate, customers or employees.  And by the way, they have spent millions attempting to destroy Social Security while they make millions of dollars per day. 

     Which brings us to Rupert Murdoch, the news industry magnate, also a funding source and even more so, the architect of the most effective propaganda machine the world has ever known – Fox News.  One can find just about every ridiculous issue I listed in last week’s column being promoted on Fox News nearly every day of the year.  You know what I mean, their regular complaints about taxes, corporate regulation, organized labor, and government “handouts” to the poor, unemployed, ill and elderly.  Of course, these are all the tools being used by a sinister federal government to take the country away from the real patriots – the Tea Party.

As I wrote last week, the right has created a reality bubble that resists any input from other sources.  In this bubble, they have invented a scary monster named President Barrack Obama who hates America and is going to destroy his own country. 

     Most recently two of the thought leaders within this bubble, Bill O’Reilly and Charles Krauthammer declared that Mr. Obama’s has another nefarious goal; to destroy the Republican party.  Now keep in mind that the Republican party’s openly stated goal for the last four years has been to destroy his presidency.  This is consistent with good propaganda best practices, one of which is to accuse your enemy of doing exactly what you’re doing to undermine him.

     Somehow they failed and he was elected for another four years.  Not knowing how this happened, they blamed it on all the “liberal takers” waiting for handouts. Apparently their bubble insulates them from the demographic changes happening in America, along with the related shift in the typical voter profile.

     I’ve written many times about cognitive dissonance. As a reminder, when revered models are disturbed after many years of unperturbed existence, all kinds of irrational behavior results. A case in point is the outcry for impeachment of this president because he has the audacity to do his constitutionally appointed job in an attempt to reduce the gun violence in this country. A majority of Americans want more control on guns. Once again, the extreme right of the Republican party disagrees with the rest of America. 

     Nothing in this article should be construed as a blanket endorsement of the Obama administration.  It is not.  It is a heart-felt plea to the Republican party: This country needs you to get serious.

Robert DeFilippis