The Conservative Movement Virus

[babylonsister]

http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2014/5/27/101826/681

The Conservative Movement Virus

by BooMan
Tue May 27th, 2014 at 10:18:26 AM EST

snip//


The Conservative Movement has captured the Republican Party and they aren't going to change just because the party needs to change if it wants to win. This is an anti-intellectual movement based in an anti-intellectual form of religion, that has been coupled with a paranoid and xenophobic strain of embittered nihilism. It's greatest crime is that it has been able to take advantage of on-team solidarity to convince a lot of formerly moderate and reasonable people to abandon reality-based thinking. Climate science is a perfect example. Only six years ago, John McCain and Sarah Palin ran on a cap and trade proposal to cap carbon emissions. Today, the party refuses to concede that carbon emissions are causing climate change. People didn't suddenly get less intelligent. They just followed what their leaders were saying because they want to stay loyal to the team. They willingly chose to be more stupid.

This political weaponization of stupidity is at the core of the Conservative Movement. Until recently, the Republican Party was an uneasy marriage between the monied classes and the dumb, but now the dumb are leading the dumb, and the monied classes are the ones demonstrating on-team loyalty. They don't care about school prayer or abortion or gay marriage, but they dare not buck the Conservative Movement. To some degree, after ingesting so much right-wing media, even the monied classes may come to devalue science and take on more socially conservative views.

The overall effect is that people who identity with the Republican Party and want it to succeed are continuously getting dumber. All of a sudden, a Select Committee on Benghazi begins to make political sense to these folks. What doesn't make sense is spending on public schools, where people are taught biology and plate tectonics and meteorology. Public investment in infrastructure no longer makes sense. Foreign aid no longer makes sense. A sensible immigration and agricultural workers policy no longer makes sense. Paying your bills on time and protecting the states' and the country's credit ratings no longer makes sense. That the president was born in Hawai'i no longer makes sense. Pretty soon, people don't even flinch when someone suggests "she's having so much sex she can't afford the contraception," as if you take The Pill on a per-sexual encounter basis.

People are running around talking utter nonsense. "Keep the government out of my Medicare." "ObamaCare is worse than the Holocaust."

And the rest of us who have not been infected with the Conservative Movement Virus just stand around slack-jawed in a state of stupefaction that the moronification of the USA could be so effective.

We're not just the elitists; we're everyone who isn't infected. And we're a growing majority.

[gratuitous]

1. Booman's right as usual

The question I have is when does the popular media quit taking patent nonsense seriously? I know, ratings = money and controversy = ratings, but fer crissakes! Just because one political party has been co-opted by blithering idiots is no reason to accord their lunatic rantings any respect.

[Andy823]

2. How true

"We're not just the elitists; we're everyone who isn't infected. And we're a growing majority."

I think the more the hard core right wingers push things, the more people are going to open their eyes and see just how crazy this nuts have become, and as stated the number or uninfected will keep on growing.

[Tarheel_Dem]

3. Bookmarking. n/t

[Populist_Prole]

4. Excellent, thanks for posting

They'll never "get it". I'm afraid we're just going to have to wait for these people to die off. At least demographic trends are on our side.

[7wo7rees]

5. Bravo, so well said. Tks for sharing. NT

[malaise]

6. Great post

Rec

[ladjf]

7. Good piece. nt

[blkmusclmachine]

8. Today's GOP: the Party of Violent Women hating Know-Nothings

[Shrike47]

9. He describes their 'thinking' very well.

I just hope he's right about the growing majority part.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

10. "They willingly chose to be more stupid."

Some of them chose to go full bore conspiracy theory that Scientists are Liberals who are anti-Capitalist.

Some decided to buy the line that it was the height of arrogance to claim mere man can affect God's Creation.

Both really believe they are defenders of "The American Way of Life" which involves lawn care, a tire swing, a hammock and barbeque sauce.