On today’s BradCast, we peer into the rancid dark heart of the Republican Party meltdown and the trauma all Americans are being forced through to get there. [Audio link posted below.]
As detailed today, the ongoing meltdown began long before the campaign of Donald Trump, whose angry, dangerous, paranoid speech in West Palm Beach, FL on Thursday offered only a glimpse into the party’s decades-long lurch towards the fact-free ‘reality’ they’ve worked to create for all of us. No longer tethered to facts or truth, but to a nominee who embodies and reflects the very xenophobic, nativist, racist, and misogynistic tactics employed for political gain over at least the last two Presidential Administrations, the beginning of a reckoning may finally be in sight.
Yet, even those GOPers who finally understand some of this — and many in the corporate media who’ve enabled it for so long — still fail to grasp the gravity of the moment, their own culpability, and the traumatic stress the nation faces in the bargain.
Nonetheless, our message today: We’re going to be okay, there is a way out.
All of that and what you can do to help us get there — as illustrated with the news of the day, a bit of listener mail and even some South Park(!) — on today’s BradCast…
I was having related thoughts today about how in many ways he represents the worst of us and how we’re all sort of culturally responsible by having enabled him to such a great extent. He’s always been an asshole. And rewarded for it. And then, of course, all the stuff you’re saying, too, about the longstanding alternative reality promoted by conservatives and of which Karl Rove is so proud.
We’re keeping our cools by getting off our Hillary duffs and working to get Berniecrats elected. For example, even though we don’t live in California’s CD 44, we’re pushing hard for Nanette Barragà¡n to beat her fossil fuel-funded and DCCC-backed rival and fellow Democrat Isadore Hall. We’re canvassing, phone banking, and tabling through our Brand New Congress and Our Revolution groups. it’s the same as when we campaigned for Bernie, except working within individual districts with populations of just over 700,000 people is a lot less daunting than battling ignorance, apathy, a hostile corporate media, and the Democratic party over dozens of states and primaries.
Meanwhile in Kansas:
What’s the Matter with Dumbshits
Tired of being ridiculed for living in a town called Liberal, the 3 Stooges of domestic terrorism are arrested for conspiring to blow up an apartment building inhabited by Somali immigrants and refugees. The corporate media takes story and runs with it. Then they misplace it somewhere where people can’t find it.
Don’t be an Obama apologist, Brad. The ACA was passed with a Democratic majority when he didn’t even propose a single payer option. Obama is the perfect Bait and Switch candidate, doing every Republican proposal drawing criticism from the right and having the left defend him and his policies. Obama is the war hawk, environmental catastrophe and the deporter in chief. His legacy is that he is the first black president.
The atmosphere of hate we live in today, that has made Trump a thing, is in no small part due to Newt Gingrich, who was instrumental in getting Fox “news” started and is probably most vividly seen in the word list he put out for his underlings to use in the media. Negative words thrown in for democrats and positive words thrown in for republicans instead of actual policy discussions.
Of course Gringrich had a lot of help from many other highly placed political hacks, but he is somebody to look at when placing the blame for Americas toxic scene today.
People are wondering what’s happened to Karl Rove. Just after Bernie Sanders had his stunning success in the Utah primaries, Rove came to Salt Lake and proclaimed he was going to make Utah a model in the elections.
It’s possible he’s here, fooling around to insure Utah’s future republicanism. I let you know if I see him.
Ah, to visit the source of information one doesn’t want to read, it’s easy to search for news on what one wants to hear as the opinion, also when you have a flock of clucking birds to to help amplify the voice, but when one needs to get a little more of the stuff that makes you squirm, your Pinocchio biased website get’s the award.
Ah, the presence of trolls tells me this site is doing exactly what it’s supposed to.
Ah.
Jim Spriggs @#2, yes! Thank you! A reality-based comment. No pie-in-the-sky dreaming about Jill Stein or Gary Johnson, no whining about how third parties that run some know-nothing kook for president every four years aren’t getting enough respect or attention. Mr. Spriggs lives in reality where working at the grass roots level to elect candidates that fit one’s viewpoints is the way to effect change in America. He’s doing exactly what Bernie asked his followers to do; continue the revolution, continue working for change not by tearing down the system and not by hoping that by magic a Stein or a Johnson will somehow get enough influence to make change happen from the top down, but by supporting progressive-minded candidates at the local, county, and state level with an eye on the future and effecting change from the bottom up, as it should be in America. Much respect, Mr. Spriggs.
Like it or not, that’s what the rightwing started doing as far back as 1964 when Goldwater flamed out. They worked at the local level, even school boards and alderman and such, to build a huge and (unfortunately for progressives) highly effective political machine that got them to the very top levels of power in America. And not just politically but philosophically; the rightwing funded so-called “think tanks” to push their idiot ideas and lies at all levels of the nation. And damn if it didn’t work. I hate the rightwing message, but their process of the decades-long game worked and could work for “our” side if only we have the strength and discipline to stick with it for generations as the rightwing has done.
But alas, we get folks who really think that voting for Jill Stein this November is really gonna show ’em! Yeah right, that’ll teach them a lesson, a vote for Jill Stein or Gary Johnson. Yeah, that will really lead to massive change and everything will be just fine and blah-buh-blah-buh-blabbity-blah-blah.
Such fools are too lazy and too unaware of history to know how foolish are their little voting tantrums. But people like Mr. Spriggs, and yes like myself (I just pulled a muscle patting myself on the back) understand how to really effect change in America. It takes years and even decades of hard grass-roots level work, but that’s the REALITY of it. Deal with it. Stop whining. And then roll up your sleeves and get to WORK!
We have a transgender woman running against senator Mike Lee here in Utah. I believe she decided to run as a result of Bernie Sanders’s inspiring movement.
She did really well debating Mike Lee on television. It was exciting to see somebody who works in a grocery store standing right there, and making the senator look pretty bad at times with his government shutdown fame and bad religious freedom bill. It was very civil and neither candidate fudged their time.
She sure has my vote. Go Misty Snow!
Thanks, Steve, and well said. I often think about how effective the AstroTurf right wing lie machine has been in turning our country into the “thing” it is today, and how much work we’ve got ahead of us to change it back and make it work for us. We can beat them down in the long run with simple facts and plain old organizing.
And that’s great to hear about your candidate in Utah, Larry. Go Misty!