If you nurture irrational hatred in a group of disgruntled people by lying to them, isn’t it inevitable that they will eventually turn on you?
Reagan held it at bay with his 11th Commandment “Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican“, but Trump is not reading from that script.
Of course, Saint Ronny famously abandoned it himself when he ran for president against Gerald Ford. But that just started the next GOP commandment, which in plain English might be “Believe in me because of what I say, not because of what I do.” And that just brings us back to this comic.
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NPR aired some excerpts from Bernie Sanders’ speech at Liberty U yesterday — sounds like he understands this phenomenon better than most.
“Our (American) idiots are manufactured by right-wing think tanks and right-wing media, who have discovered that hard-core religious types are a good audience. Targeting a group that touts blind religious faith is perfect. Their audience has been pre-screened from among those who have best learned NOT to think critically for themselves.”
— NC-Tom, paraphrased
Quoting John Fugelsang, “(the) Club for Growth, which tries to get non-millionaires angry about the capital gains tax, says Trump is ‘playing us for chumps.'”
Westomoon and RedJon, can you supply links? I’ll add them to your comments.
I can’t remember his name, but GWB ‘used’ a Christian Conservative gentleman to beef up his own “Christian” credentials when he first ran for POTUS. After he was safely ensconced in the WH, he ignored the man completely. The guy made the rounds speaking up about how he felt discarded but it never really became a big thing in the media.
The current flagrant ‘usage’ of religious fanatics reminds me of that.
Anyone remember his name? Or was it all a dream/premonition? lol
The only issue I have with this comic is that the original tea party people were angry about the lack of representative government, mismanagement in spending, excessive growth in government and undue influence of money in politics – not social issues. Other groups disillusioned with the Republican party came in later and took over the agenda, or at least the liberal voices would have you believe that. There is an ironically intolerant religious faction there, for sure, but the original intent of the tea party might be served well by someone like Trump. The popularity of Trump, Sanders, and Carson is easily explained by this cartoon however. People just fed up with the Washington machine. But not because they want to be bigots and racists and such.
“…the original tea party people were angry about the lack of representative government, mismanagement in spending, excessive growth in government and undue influence of money in politics…” Which is why they kicked and screamed for 8 years that included suspension of habeas corpus, extraordinary rendition, unprecedented federal micromanagement of school districts, a gigantic boondoggle of health care benefits to seniors (with no attempt to actually provide a revenue basis), etc., etc., right? Oh yeah, funny how it turns out that they only were angry about the lack of [their ~40% minority not having complete control] in representative government, mismanagement of spending [that mostly but imperfectly saved the economy from completely off a cliff], excessive growth in government [services that benefit people they don’t approve of, like the poor and underrepresented minorities], and undue influence of money in politics [which is why they set up Super PACs to hide the donations of billionaires to sway elections].
The fact of the matter is that almost every single government intervention (the ACA being the big exception) that the TEA Party claimed to oppose on the basis of preventing the creation of indefinite expansion…were designed to be temporary and have been phased out as they were originally designed. These programs also, when all figures are considered, have mostly been either revenue neutral or have made money to reduce the deficit. But rather than actually finding out about the facts of these programs, TEA Partiers went to town halls to shout at the Democrats who were supporting these policies instead.
The TEA Party has never been about the ideals they espoused. From the very beginning, they’ve simply been about opposition to anything and everything vaguely resembling progressive governance. Rather than debating issues and working to find mutually acceptable compromises, they’ve done nothing but take a scorched earth policy and elected politicians like Ted Cruz and Tom Cotton to prevent any sort of rational functioning of the federal government.
From USA today on Trump playing us for chumps: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/2015/09/15/donald-trump-club-for-growth-ads-iowa-presidential-campaign/72306172/
Or google “club for growth trump playing us”