On today’s BradCast, it’s our Republican National Convention wrap up following Donald Trump’s dark and dishonest acceptance speech at the end of a chaotic week for the GOP in Cleveland.
Salon’s Heather Digby Parton — who was with us on Day 1 of Trump’s candidacy last year, when we largely predicted what has now happened (while most everyone else saw it as a joke) — joins us to try and make sense of where things are now for the nation, for the nominee and for the future of the Republican Party’s ‘conservative movement’, which she sees in its final death throes.
“This has been a sick and unhealthy party for a very long time,” Parton (better known as just “Digby” of the Hullabaloo Blog ) tells me. “It finally succumbed to the illness. And the reason is not not because of bad leadership or they had terrible choices for President. It’s really their ideology that they adopted — starting back with Goldwater, reaching its zenith with Reagan — [on which] this conservative movement was built. They called it ‘the 3-legged stool’. There was social conservatism/family values, small government/free markets, and a strong national defense. All three of those collapsed within the last 15 years. They failed in spectacular fashion.”
As I argue in turn today, as we dissect Trump’s fear-mongering speech, his movement, the media coverage and everything else from the week in Cleveland, I am not quite as confident about the collapse of the Republican Party, whose imminent death, to paraphrase Twain, may still be greatly exaggerated. That, particularly given the continuing disservice to the electorate and the nation performed by our dreadful “both sides do it” corporate media, which, after decades, are still misleading and misinforming the country about the candidates, the parties, the facts and the dysfunctional state of American politics.
“The Republican Party isn’t dead,” she counters. “There will always be opposition. But the form that we’re familiar with isn’t operative any longer. I don’t think it’s ideological anymore at all. What’s left is Trumpism. That’s nationalism, xenophobia, nativism, and authoritarianism.”
Okay. But mightn’t that be enough to win another Presidential election given a dynamic, if sociopathic, TV-friendly GOP candidate, a not-terribly popular Democratic candidate, a misinformed electorate, and a divided nation? All of those questions asked, answered and debated on today’s BradCast, including some listener e-mail and a few other odds, ends and thoughts on what Digby describes as this past week’s “dystopian hellscape convention”…
I completely agree with Digby. The GOP has long been dead -held together by misinformation.
I wish Digby’s words would reach more rightwingers, since now is the time to flip them on our side.
Brad,
You write of “a misinformed electorate”. I disagree. The electorate is ignorant and couldn’t recognize the truth to save their lives. These are the same people who elected Dubya to two terms in office!!
Somebody reminded me of the late Molly Ivins, who’s funny quote from the past fits Trump perfectly:
“it probably sounded better in the original German.”
Genel @2 argued:
First, let me say, you make my point! Ignorant is defined as “lacking knowledge, information, or awareness about something in particular.” That means that, yes, they are a misinformed electorate.
I think you were trying to call the electorate “stupid” rather than “ignorant”. And, if so, I don’t agree. I think they are ignorant of the facts and terribly misinformed about them by our corporate media (and political interests on the Internet who have an interest in keep those folks misinformed and/or ignorant.)
As to the “same people who elected Dubya to two terms in office,” I’m not sure those people elected him even once to office, so far be it from me to blame THEM!
Drama grabs attention. But there are crucial things that, as the saying goes, “do not show up in the box score.” Yet the one doing the peacock polka gathers an audience.
By getting rid of the fairness doctrine, the Reagan Administration made it possible for his side to dominate the stage. And if one accepts a premise, it becomes difficult to reject the conclusion. But if the self-styled “mainstream” press–print and broadcast–was actually mainstream, that is, looked at whether something is truthful, the public would be served.”‹
“Without debate, without criticism, no Administration and no country can succeed–and no republic can survive,” said President Kennedy. “That is why the Athenian lawmaker Solon decreed it a crime for any citizen to shrink from controversy. And that is why our press was protected by the First Amendment–the only business in America specifically protected by the Constitution–not primarily to amuse and entertain, not to emphasize the trivial and the sentimental, not to simply ‘give the public what it wants’–but to inform, to arouse, to reflect, to state our dangers and our opportunities, to indicate our crises and our choices, to lead, mold, educate and sometimes even anger public opinion.” (Emphasis added.)
Restoration of the fairness doctrine is a beginning that would take us toward a better end.
Without a conscious.
Since it is awareness which consciousness is made of, that one may tell what the hell is going on around oneself is refereed to as awareness but actually it is awareness which Consciousness consists of, therefore if you can’t tell what’s going on then you are without a Conscious and you definitely should not be running the country.
A president for me needs to be Conscious in order to uphold the oath of office and the rule of law.
Without the rule of law, it’s the rule of the GUN.
Pretty much what we have with federalized cops instead of having a CONSTITUTIONAL SHERIFF.
Everything else you dribble on about in light of this is stupid. But go on be a unknown gender Special Snowflake without conscious instead of a Resistor with a plan to kick this commie marksist crap out. Even MILO knows the Democrats are fascist profiteers who just USED them like they USED me and You too.
Hillary belongs in Fort Leavenworth.
CONSTITUTIONAL SHERIFF’s are overrated.
I bemoan the day we find out, just how overrated they are. But then how can you argue with somebody named Awareness. 🙂