The Republican Cult Of Personality

[filkertom]

Glenn Greenwald has pretty much the ultimate dissertation on how "conservative" now means "cultish supporter of George W. Bush". It was posted over the weekend, and there's a follow-up which continues the conversation.

Really, and I'm not meaning to be snarky at all when I say this: No matter what your politics, and perhaps especially those of you on my FList who identify yourselves as "Republican" or "conservative"... give 'em a serious look.

Comments

[ororo.livejournal.com]

Well worth the read. Thanks for posting.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the links Tom.

I continue to wonder what would happen if Theodore Roosevelt were to rise from the grave and discover what's going on.

Vell...

[stdharma.livejournal.com]

Probably try to eat their brains only to find they have none..but then they would be the Zombie Cabinet and...whoops. Too much George Romero.

Saint Dharma, who preferred Shaun of The Dead

[realtegan.livejournal.com]

I can't say I agree with Glenn's politics, since I'm much more liberal than he'll ever be, even in his critics wildest dementia... but good LORD he hit the nail on the head with those articles. I welcome a true conservative party, and I value true conservative viewpoints. But what we've had for the last few years is definitely a cult of personality that has nothing in common with conservatives.

Thank goodness there are real conservatives waking up to the sick reality that is the current political discourse in this country. I just hope more of them are willing to risk the "liberal" label to tell the truth about the neocons.

[palenoue.livejournal.com]

I just love it when neocons take exception to being called hateful, slanderous, ranting psychos, and they respond with comments, posts and op-ed pieces that are hateful, slanderous, ranting and psychotic, as a few of those posts following are. Like when "intelligent design" proponents swear they're not religious, then use God, Jesus Christ, and Holy as if they were punctuation marks. Or when gun nuts prove you need guns for protection by threatening to shoot you. The list goes on and on.

[cleverthylacine]

I've had similar experiences with people trying to tell me that I am a liberal because I don't support GWB. (And because, like Andrew Sullivan, I support extending marriage rights to gays, rather than creating a whole new category of relationship called 'civil union' that basically is legalised-concubinage for hets and second-class-marriage for gays.) I probably AM more liberal than I used to be post-Katrina (and I've always had a social-libertarian bent), but I've never considered GWB conservative, and I do not understand why anyone else does. He isn't lowering government spending, he's just switching around where the money goes. He isn't getting government out of people's daily lives, he just wants to interfere in different places. WTF? I so don't get it and I never have. The words "liberal" and "conservative" don't mean anything any more. They haven't for a while.

[mathmuffin.livejournal.com]

This has an interesting contrast to a November blog posting by science fiction author David Brin: The Political Battle over Modernity: Part II (http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2005/11/political-battle-over-modernity-partii.html). In that posting, Mr. Brin argues that Republicans are using a "Big Tent" style of expanding their political party. In Part III (http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2005/11/political-battle-over-modernity-iii.html) he gives a list of ten litmus tests the Democrats require to be considered a real Democrat. He sums up the Republican position as:

Despite the fact that many on the right are ideological in the extreme, they have schooled themselves to live and work by one iron rule:
Power comes first.
Make alliances with anybody you have to. Make promises and deals. Give lip service to every contradictory dogma.
But take power.

Apparently, the right-wing ideologues have introduced a litmus test of their own: loyalty to President George W. Bush. I deliberately added his title, because I doubt that they have any loyalty to George Bush as a person. They are loyal to the power he represents.

Yet by adding that one litmus test, they are destroying the coalition politics that gave the Republican party strength. The conservatives created unity for their side by compromise. But a weakness of power is that the powerful begin to believe themselves above judgement. Arrogance shuns compromises. Moderates--and their votes--will flee the Republican party.

Let's see whether the conservatives pull themselves back together in time for the 2008 election. Let's see whether the liberal side can take advantage of the conservative crumble. Let's see what American moderates decide.

Erin Schram

[stdharma.livejournal.com]

Well said.