Who is crazier the politician or the people they represent...

[Lobo27]

Last edited Tue Dec 10, 2013, 04:28 PM - Edit history (1)

This week I have been reading a lot of the rights reaction to the death of Nelson Mandela. In some cases politicians talked highly of the man through social media and other means. But it seems that every RW politician that spoke in kind words was blasted by the people they represent. To some extent saying they would no longer vote for them, or calling communist supporters etc... From Ted Cruz to Boehner to Gingrich and others.

My question: who is crazier the politician or the people they represent on the right. Are some of these people just crazy and don't care or is there more to it. Is the inundation of constant vile rhetoric finally breaking people to the point that they can't tell reality from fiction. Some of the reactions were mind boggling...

[NightWatcher]

1. the House is so gerrymandered that the nuts run the party

Most GOP'ers are not going to lose their seat to a Dem, instead they have to appeal to a nuttier and nuttier base. If they don't act crazy enough and, dare say, do something sensible, they will be primaried by some local nutjob back home who will guarantee that he'll never do anything reasonable and will only vote for Obama's impeachment and ACA's repeal but nothing else.

These assholes deserve each other. The nuts who run and the evil, racists in their districts back home

[YoungDemCA]

6. Additionally, those Republican districts tend to be dominated by right-wing social "bubbles"

Where fundamentalist churches, local business elites, and right-wing corporate media courtesy of Limbaugh, Beck, et al are the trusted public authority figures.

[riversedge]

2. Most political folks

know at the time of death of a great leader they need to say something positive (whether they believe the things they say is another matter. Maybe some do maybe some don't--that is another matter.


I assume most of the vile comments were anonymous--that is part of the problem. Yet, leaders from the tea party seem to bred cultists. There is a hatred out there that is for sure.

[notadmblnd]

3. Well since most of our politicians only represent the 1%. I would say the people are crazier

The rest of us aren't considered people by either the politicians or the 1%.

[Jamaal510]

4. That's easy--the people

are crazier and more extreme than the politicians on the Right. How else could they get away with wasting tons of tax dollars on meaningless wars and votes to repeal a health care law? Even Rand Paul said himself that "misinformation works", which could mean that some of them know better, but are purposefully misleading people. Nowadays, people such as Christie and Joe Scarborough are widely seen within the GOP as "RINOs" if they don't march lock-step with the ultra-right.

[YoungDemCA]

5. IMO, only some of the Republican politicians are "true believers"....

..in the Tea Party insanity.

Most of the others are just yes-men (and women) who fear being "primaried" by a "true believer" (read: far-right lunatic). You can thank gerrymandering and low voter turnout in the midterm elections for that.

[nyquil_man]

7. A million people can have almost every kind of insanity one can imagine.

It's hard to for a single nut - even a frighteningly ambitious one like Cruz - to contain all of them at once.

[YoungDemCA]

8. How about 35-40 million people?

That is, if we use a conservative estimate of 15% of the American adult population who sympathizes with the Tea Party types....

[nyquil_man]

10. Multiply the madness by 35-40.

If a Tea Party politician tries to play to the median of that population, chances are there are going to be a few million people in the group who think he's too liberal.

Those are the nuttiest of the nutty.

[YoungDemCA]

11. Enough people, btw, in that TEA-supporting population...

...to equal the population of California.

Damn, that's scary to think about.

[nyquil_man]

13. Consider this:

Suppose a person holds a really unpopular belief. Only 1% of 1% of the population holds the same belief. If that person lives in a town of about 100,000 people, that means only 9 other people in the town hold the same belief. The odds of finding those people are pretty low.

But suppose that person comes onto the internet, where there might be 2.5 billion users. He can now find 250,000 people who hold the same belief. 250% of his city's population. What's more, the nature of the internet makes it easier for him to find those people.

Suddenly, he doesn't think his belief is quite so unpopular.

[YoungDemCA]

14. Exactly.

However, I would add that these crazies tend to congregate in like-minded social circles "IRL" as well. They literally can completely avoid anyone who is Not Like Them (TM).

[nyquil_man]

15. Well, the internet facilitates that.

It's a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it enables us to explore other cultures and beliefs in ways we couldn't before, which is a liberalizing influence. On the other hand, it makes it much easier to find people whose thinking runs entirely parallel to our own, which can often be a conservatizing influence.

[fadedrose]

9. The people who vote for them are the crazy ones

because they think everyone is as crazy as they are, and when they hear someone speak of ideals, they think it's just polite talk (BS) for the public. They wrongly believe their candidate is as prejudiced as they are (some are, not all)...

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

12. DEMAGOGUE: one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be IDIOTS.

H. L. Mencken