Politics The Elephant in the room...The GOP today

Baraka_Guru · Sep 3, 2012

Joniemack said: ↑

A liberal media ploy. In truth, Chuck kicked all their fucking asses before the editing.
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Actually, it was a Hong Kong production....so Communist propaganda.

Charlatan · Sep 3, 2012

Hong Kong was under British rule at the time... it was an attempt to reassert colonial rule.

Baraka_Guru · Sep 3, 2012

Charlatan said: ↑

Hong Kong was under British rule at the time... it was an attempt to reassert colonial rule.
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Good point. We must never forget that America is little more than a rebel colony.

Baraka_Guru · Sep 5, 2012

I didn't know where else to put this, but I just had to share it. It could be argued that the GOP today is at least partially to blame for why this actually an election issue.

Also a warning: This totally looks like an SNL commercial parody, but there's no punchline. I don't want you to get your hopes up like I did.

It's not funny.

View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oye4rhUa2Fk

ASU2003 · Sep 6, 2012

I saw this comment on another board and thought it was fitting for all the Jobs & Economy speeches last week at the GOP, this is what they have pushed in the past two years. (Plus a few blocked budgets, debt ceiling votes, tax breaks to big oil, and increasing spending to programs in the Defense dept that don't need it)

Here is the Teapublicans “contribution” to the United States recovery… and this is just since the 2010 Midterms. (Source, Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress)

46 bills on Abortion
113 on Religion
77 on Family Relationships
39 on Marriage,
467 on “Govt. Investigations”
74 on firearm/Gun Control
269 Filibusters
Declared Pizza a “Vegetable”
Banned human fetus’s from food (whatever that means???), and…
Re-confirmed the UNCHALLENGED national Motto!

These people aren’t fit to run a daycare center.
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mixedmedia · Sep 13, 2012

redux said: ↑

Beware....1,000 years of Darkness if Obama wins

“If we look to history, our great country and freedom are under attack,” Norris warns, standing next to his wife. “We’re at a tipping point and, quite possibly, our country as we know it may be lost forever if we don’t change the course in which our country is headed.”

The pair go on to explain that Obama won in 2008 because more than 30 million evangelical Christians stayed home on Election Day. “We know you love your family and your freedom as much as Gena and I do, and it is because of that we can no longer sit quietly or stand on the sidelines and watch our country go the way of socialism or something much worse,” Norris explains.

Quoting President Ronald Reagan, Norris’s wife Gina adds that defeating Obama “will preserve for our children this last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into 1,000 years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children’s children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done.”

Praise the Lord and vote early and often.
--- merged: Sep 3, 2012 at 1:57 PM ---
An earlier pearl of wisdom from Norris:

Jesus would have been aborted if “Obamacare” and Planned Parenthood were available 2,000 years ago
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There's something worse than socialism.

That's nice that they took that quote from Ronald Reagan completely out of context and used it to support an agenda that even President Reagan would never have supported. But you know, little details like that don't matter to these people because of the, as Pres. Clinton said last night, alternative universe they are living in.

The Republican party today is batshit crazy and as far as I'm concerned, if you're voting that way this fall, I think you're batshit crazy, too. There is no way you can persuade me that voting for these reprehensibly inverted scumbags is a reasonable thing to do. Dark ages, indeed.

Gotta call it as I see it. I think it's important for people to acknowledge that this is not your average American presidential election year. The way I see it, we are approaching a politically critical juncture that has been looming in the distance (visibly) for the last 12 years or so. If the country goes Republican this year in spite of everything we stand to lose, I will be taking very seriously the option of leaving the US once I am done with school. I don't see why I should remain loyal when we have chosen to reject everything I grew up loving about this country.

Baraka_Guru · Sep 6, 2012

mixedmedia said: ↑

Gotta call it as I see it. I think it's important for people to acknowledge that this is not your average American presidential election year. The way I see it, we are approaching a politically critical juncture that has been looming in the distance (visibly) for the last 12 years or so. If the country goes Republican this year in spite of everything we stand to lose, I will be taking very seriously the option of leaving the US once I am done with school. I don't see why I should remain loyal when we have chosen to reject everything I grew up loving about this country.
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Yeah, this is a really bad time for a Republican government, considering that much of what has gone wrong happened because of Republican governments. And they're selling the same ideas!

Tax cuts
Deregulation
Anti-union
Military action "as an 'option'"

etc....

It's worked so well so far, hasn't it?

But Obama is ruining the country.

Sure.

rogue49 · Sep 10, 2012

This is an excellent summary of one of the issues of the current GOP,
how they have only focused on forcing their own agenda and manipulating for power.

While I'm not naive as to think that any party or group may do this,
it has been to such an extent that the Congress is now unproductive. (no compromise...)

Like tripping a person, then blaming the disruption on the person you tripped.

Now I saw as the idea and catalyst for this article develop during Krugman's time on the panel on ABC Sunday's This Week.
Where he was protesting Rand Paul's memory of the Congressional record.

The GOP just needs to remember that two can play at that game.
And if they do this, then the Dems will feel no shame in doing the same.
It's what the concept of M.A.D is all about. (Mutually Assured Destruction)

Obstruct and Exploit
By PAUL KRUGMAN - September 9, 2012

Does anyone remember the American Jobs Act? A year ago President Obama proposed boosting the economy with a combination of tax cuts and spending increases, aimed in particular at sustaining state and local government employment. Independent analysts reacted favorably. For example, the consulting firm Macroeconomic Advisers estimated that the act would add 1.3 million jobs by the end of 2012.

There were good reasons for these positive assessments. Although you’d never know it from political debate, worldwide experience since the financial crisis struck in 2008 has overwhelmingly confirmed the proposition that fiscal policy “works,” that temporary increases in spending boost employment in a depressed economy (and that spending cuts increase unemployment). The Jobs Act would have been just what the doctor ordered.

But the bill went nowhere, of course, blocked by Republicans in Congress. And now, having prevented Mr. Obama from implementing any of his policies, those same Republicans are pointing to disappointing job numbers and declaring that the president’s policies have failed.

Think of it as a two-part strategy. First, obstruct any and all efforts to strengthen the economy, then exploit the economy’s weakness for political gain. If this strategy sounds cynical, that’s because it is. Yet it’s the G.O.P.’s best chance for victory in November.

But are Republicans really playing that cynical a game?

You could argue that we’re having a genuine debate about economic policy, in which Republicans sincerely believe that the things Mr. Obama proposes would actually hurt, not help, job creation. However, even if that were true, the fact is that the economy we have right now doesn’t reflect the policies the president wanted.

Anyway, do Republicans really believe that government spending is bad for the economy? No.

Right now Mitt Romney has an advertising blitz under way in which he attacks Mr. Obama for possible cuts in defense spending — cuts, by the way, that were mandated by an agreement forced on the president by House Republicans last year. And why is Mr. Romney denouncing these cuts? Because, he says, they would cost jobs!

This is classic “weaponized Keynesianism” — the claim that government spending can’t create jobs unless the money goes to defense contractors, in which case it’s the lifeblood of the economy. And no, it doesn’t make any sense.

What about the argument, which I hear all the time, that Mr. Obama should have fixed the economy long ago? The claim goes like this: during his first two years in office Mr. Obama had a majority in Congress that would have let him do anything he wanted, so he’s had his chance.

The short answer is, you’ve got to be kidding.

As anyone who was paying attention knows, the period during which Democrats controlled both houses of Congress was marked by unprecedented obstructionism in the Senate. The filibuster, formerly a tactic reserved for rare occasions, became standard operating procedure; in practice, it became impossible to pass anything without 60 votes. And Democrats had those 60 votes for only a few months. Should they have tried to push through a major new economic program during that narrow window? In retrospect, yes — but that doesn’t change the reality that for most of Mr. Obama’s time in office U.S. fiscal policy has been defined not by the president’s plans but by Republican stonewalling.

The most important consequence of that stonewalling, I’d argue, has been the failure to extend much-needed aid to state and local governments. Lacking that aid, these governments have been forced to lay off hundreds of thousands of schoolteachers and other workers, and those layoffs are a major reason the job numbers have been disappointing. Since bottoming out a year after Mr. Obama took office, private-sector employment has risen by 4.6 million; but government employment, which normally rises more or less in line with population growth, has instead fallen by 571,000.

Put it this way: When Republicans took control of the House, they declared that their economic philosophy was “cut and grow” — cut government, and the economy will prosper. And thanks to their scorched-earth tactics, we’ve actually had the cuts they wanted. But the promised growth has failed to materialize — and they want to make that failure Mr. Obama’s fault.

Now, all of this puts the White House in a difficult bind. Making a big deal of Republican obstructionism could all too easily come across as whining. Yet this obstructionism is real, and arguably is the biggest single reason for our ongoing economic weakness.

And what happens if the strategy of obstruct-and-exploit succeeds? Is this the shape of politics to come? If so, America will have gone a long way toward becoming an ungovernable banana republic.
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Xerxes · Sep 10, 2012

rogue49 said: ↑

It's what the concept of M.A.D is all about. (Mutually Assured Destruction)
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Can someone tell me why this brand of politics is even viable? Does anyone even want that? And by anyone I mean even members of the GOP. We're the ones that will be victims of their shortcomings. Where two elephants fight on the grass gets hurt. We're the grass.

ASU2003 · Sep 10, 2012

Xerxes said: ↑

Can someone tell me why this brand of politics is even viable? Does anyone even want that? And by anyone I mean even members of the GOP. We're the ones that will be victims of their shortcomings. Where two elephants fight on the grass gets hurt. We're the grass.
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Why is it viable? Because to the Ayn Rand types who see government as the problem and they want to 'starve the beast', they win either way. They think they have enough money to protect themselves from a depression in America, yet be able to use their gold or whatever to buy lots of stuff cheap.

Except for those pesky angry mobs...

rogue49 · Sep 10, 2012

Greed, Pride, Arrogance, Narrow-Minded...
You want me to continue???

redux · Sep 14, 2012

Republican congressman Tim Huelskamp from Kansas speaking at the Values Voter Summit this morning on comparing women's reproductive rights to slavery:

And ladies and gentlemen, I am the adoptive father of four children, each of them either -- each of them either black, Hispanic, Native American, and I am incensed that this president pays money to an entity (Planned Parenthood) that was created for the sole purpose of killing children that look like mine -- a racist organization, and it continues specifically to target minorities for abortion destruction. Shame on this president and shame on that party.”
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Charlatan · Sep 14, 2012

How do people get away with saying such bald-faced lies.

That guy should be pilloried for this kind of irresponsible garbage.

Xerxes · Sep 14, 2012

Charlatan said: ↑

How do people get away with saying such bald-faced lies.

That guy should be pilloried for this kind of irresponsible garbage.
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You know, I'd be fired for spewing such bullshit at my workplace. If I was to say something that is opposite of what the facts indicate my ass would be handed to me so hard my boss would have a cigarette.

Why don't we hold politicians to similar standards? Oh, thats right, because they're politicians. I mean every time a politician is caught with his pants down it's always "Oh, he's human, humans make mistakes." But get an order wrong at McDonalds and see what happens.

So many things I don't understand. Why is this brand of politics being ewmployed by so many people. How can so many people be so wrong and willfully ignorant at the same time?

Why do we let them get away with it?

Really, besides whining in the comfort of my work chair, is there ANYTHING I can do to stop this?

ASU2003 · Sep 14, 2012

You can run for office as an independent or maybe a third party.

You can see how far you can get before they slander and lie about you. Then they will outspend you or prevent other companies from working with you by paying them off. Then you wake up with a horse head next to you in bed.

Charlatan · Sep 15, 2012

Here's the thing... people like to hear their own beliefs parroted back to them.

The only real solution to that kind of echo chamber is a free and diverse press and an education system that teaches strong critical thinking.

rogue49 · Sep 15, 2012

The reason politicians are very good at what they do
is they somehow have that ability to get a predominate volume of people satisfied with their words.

As long as they have the majority, they get voted in....and keeping that majority is job too.
Actions are almost irrelevant...people don't truly pay attention to actions.

Until people start literally paying attention to actions...and overall trends.
Then they'll keep getting those who are more interested in manipulation than doing the right thing.

The only time we get good representatives...is when that manipulator happens to also be a good listener and executer.
and votes in the best interests of the public and the state.

However, this is a rarity...mostly they just want to keep their job...and get lobbyists to pay their bill.

rogue49 · Sep 15, 2012

GOP foreign policy...is it just Neo-cons...or would they listen to serious balanced experts like Rice or Petraeus??
I doubt it...they're not "pure" enough.
IMHO

The GOP's foreign policy muddle
By: Alexander Burns and Maggie Haberman - September 14, 2012

This week’s political uproar over bloodshed in Libya and Egypt was a sharp reminder to Republicans: It’s tough to be the opposition party when it comes to matters of national defense.

And for Republicans, the challenge is actually deeper than being out of power. For more than a generation, stretching back to the age of Vietnam and the Cold War, the GOP has been the electorate’s default choice on national security. Not so this year, when the party and its presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, have struggled to confront both internal divisions and a landscape of global challenges that defy straightforward, doctrinal definition.

It’s not a unique predicament for either political party to struggle on national security issues when the other guys are running the Pentagon, State Department and National Security Council. Both parties are still grasping for overarching policies that make sense of a world beset by still-potent terrorist networks, the unpredictable aftermath of the Arab Spring and an economically ravaged Europe.

Still, Republicans aren’t accustomed to fighting an uphill battle when it comes to the country’s defense. For the entire span of the Bush administration, the party was united by its pride in the president’s response to Sept. 11 and its support for the White House’s “freedom agenda” — promoting democracy across the Muslim world, in some cases with the help of the armed force.

Now, up against a Democratic president who seldom passes up a chance to note that Osama bin Laden was eliminated on his watch, the GOP is finding that it’s a whole new political world out there on national security. The strengths and vulnerabilities of both parties have changed, as have the preferences of the electorate. Ideological divisions persist within the Democratic Party, but they’re simply less salient when a Democratic commander in chief is leading the ticket. Up-and-coming Republican stars are more passionate about economic and social policy than geopolitics. To some on the right, it’s starting to feel like the bad old days of the 1990s, when the end of the Cold War left Republicans casting about for a new foreign policy framework, torn between wanting to outflank Democrats on toughness and distrusting expensive military adventures overseas.

A Gallup poll released Thursday showed that for the first time since 2007, voters were just as likely to call Democrats the better party to fight terrorism as they were to name Republicans. Polls have consistently shown that about two-thirds of voters believe the Afghan war, once a symbol of necessary U.S. intervention, is no longer worth fighting.

Jamie Fly, who heads the conservative Foreign Policy Initiative, said it’s been a challenge for Republicans to convince a war-weary U.S. electorate that President Barack Obama’s more cautious, consensus-oriented approach to foreign policy has been a failure.

“The president and his administration have done a good job of trying to convince the American people that they are running a very effective foreign policy that gets results, that is low-cost,” Fly said. “I think that we’re going to start to see, unfortunately — and you’ve started to see this in the last 48 hours — is some of it’s a false sense of stability and a false sense of success.”

Fly, who traveled with Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan on the campaign trail earlier this week, acknowledged that economic hardship at home “has taken a toll on American support for certain activities in the world” — specifically, waging war in places like Afghanistan.

What that means for the GOP — an interventionist-leaning party that has swerved toward more parsimonious fiscal conservatism in the past few years — remains to be seen. So far, the 2012 campaign hasn’t done much to illuminate the question.

“I don’t think there’s been a lot of foreign policy in this campaign. There may have been something the last couple of days on specifics. I think the great concentration has been on domestic policy,” said former New Jersey Gov. Tom Kean, who chaired the 9/11 Commission. “I’m a little unclear myself where the party is these days on foreign policy.”

Nicholas Burns, the former undersecretary of state for political affairs under George W. Bush, said the “Republican Party has a wealth of experience and wisdom on foreign policy,” and called Condoleezza Rice “the leading voice at both [Democratic and Republican] conventions arguing for the United States to remain a world leader.”

But the clarity of Rice’s vision, Burns said, has not carried through to her party’s presidential nominee.

“Gov. Romney’s foreign policy pronouncements on the campaign trail have really amounted to a series of slogans. He hasn’t been able to develop some big, clear themes that would distinguish him from President Obama,” said Burns, who intends to vote for Obama. “This week was a real defeat for the Romney campaign — this injection, by Gov. Romney, of politics into a situation where our embassies and consulates are under siege.”

The embassy attacks of the past few days threw the GOP’s foreign policy dilemma into sharp relief. Faced with violence in two Arab Spring nations, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, the libertarian-leaning tea party hero, called for a withdrawal of U.S. foreign aid. Arizona Sen. John McCain described that position as “idiocy” and said the United States should not abandon the people of Libya as they strive for democracy. Romney lashed the Obama administration’s response to the unrest but had little to say about how he’d handle things differently going forward.

During the Republican presidential primaries, the events of the Arab Spring revealed a diversity of opinion in the GOP field that would have been unthinkable during the Bush years. Tim Pawlenty issued an early call for the ouster of Syrian President Bashar Assad, but other candidates took months to follow suit. Rick Santorum condemned Obama for pressing Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to step down while other Republicans cheered the removal of an autocrat. Rick Perry promised to zero out the foreign aid budget while Romney, Jon Huntsman and others said some spending abroad was essential to U.S. interests.

These days, the hazy Republican foreign policy message emanates from many corners of the party, but it starts at the top with the Republican presidential nominee.

Romney has campaigned in an aggressive tone on foreign policy, accusing Obama of wanting to “apologize for America” and pledging to take a hard-line approach to U.S. enemies. The former Massachusetts governor has vowed to label China a currency manipulator on his first day in office — a promise many of his key corporate donors hope and assume is just rhetoric — and support an Israeli attack on Iran if necessary. Romney has described Russia and its strong-man president, Vladimir Putin, as America’s primary geopolitical antagonist, prompting head-scratching by foreign policy veterans in both parties. He has criticized Obama for setting a firm timeline for withdrawing troops from Afghanistan and for not marching in rhetorical lock step with Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu.

Delving more specifically into the individual, down-ticket foreign policy issues of the day, it’s far from clear in many cases how Romney’s approach would differ from Obama’s, beyond placing greater emphasis on projecting the impression of U.S. strength.

Though Romney slammed Obama this week for his handling of turmoil in Libya and Egypt, the Republican has not spelled out how his approach to those countries would differ in substance. On both Libya and Afghanistan, Romney has urged Obama to explain in greater detail the purpose and status of the American mission in both countries. As far as the Afghan war goes, however, Romney has said he would have to consult with generals before making specific changes to the status quo policy.

On Syria, Romney has made a series of different recommendations for supporting pro-democracy rebels there, but he has not joined other Republicans — such as McCain — in calling for the use of American force. In a Friday appearance on “Good Morning America,” Romney described Obama as having pursued a feckless foreign policy on Iran; but asked if he and Obama had the same “red line” opposition to Iranian nuclear weapons going forward, the Republican answered in the affirmative.

“Yes, and recognize that when one says that it’s unacceptable to the United States of America, that that means what it says. You’ll take any action necessary to present that development, which is Iran becoming nuclear,” Romney said.

New York Rep. Peter King, who chairs the Committee on Homeland Security, called this week’s events an opportunity for Republicans, led by Romney, to reclaim its traditional high ground: “Foreign policy should be our strong point.”

“I think Gov. Romney is going to do very well because underlying the Obama policy is the apology tour, the defensiveness, tone, also the whole anti-Israel issue,” King said. “I’m not happy about the events [of the past few days] but I am pleased that there is going to be a discussion of foreign policy.”

If the turbulence across North Africa and the Middle East has challenged Romney’s policy vision, it’s not as if other Republicans — or Democrats, for that matter — have a stronger, simpler consensus view.

In the aftermath of the Bush administration, there’s no longer a reliable popular constituency for wielding American military might overseas, both due to the human cost and the financial cost of the operations involved.

What’s more, the conflicts both parties are grappling with — at the moment, the embassy riots chief among them — don’t lend themselves to straightforward policy recommendations that are easy to communicate on the campaign trail.

“I don’t think there’s consensus in the Republican [Party] or the Democratic Party. I think there’s a divide in the United States that is completely nonpartisan,” said Danielle Pletka, the American Enterprise Institute scholar and former GOP Senate aide. “There’s no consensus about whether it was wise to be in Libya or not and I think there’s very little consensus about intervention in Syria either.”

Still, Pletka argued that there’s a consistency across most criticism of the White House coming from the right — and if some Republicans have lost their appetite for a muscular foreign policy, they’re not the ones leading the party right now.

“There are fiscal conservatives who believe that in addition to ending spending on entitlements, we ought to end spending on national defense. I think they’re in the minority of the party but they’re definitely there,” she said. “There will absolutely be a lively battle for the soul of the GOP, but at the end of the day, the nominee is not one of those people.”

© 2012 POLITICO LLC
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rogue49 · Sep 19, 2012

Just a shame...I guess they'll just have to be part of the 47% or beg from the "job creators"
Where has the old guard GOP gone??

Has anyone ever volunteer at a veterans' hospital?? The stuff you see...

G.O.P. Blocks Veteran Jobs Bill
By LAWRENCE DOWNES - September 19, 2012

Veterans won't be getting a new, billion-dollar jobs program, not from this Senate. Republicans on Wednesday afternoon blocked a vote on the Veterans Job Corps Bill after Jeff Sessions of Alabama raised a point of order - he said the bill violated a cap on spending agreed to by Congress last year. The bill's sponsor, Patty Murray of Washington, said that shouldn't matter, since the bill's cost was fully offset by new revenues. She said Mr. Sessions and his party colleagues had been furiously generating excuses to oppose the bill, and were now exploiting a technicality to deny thousands of veterans a shot at getting hired as police officers, firefighters and parks workers, among other things.

The vote was 58-40; the bill needed 60 votes to proceed.

It would be easier to admire the Republicans' late-breaking fiscal scrupulosity if their motives - denying the Obama administration any kind of victory this year, whatever the cost to jobless vets - weren't so transparent. It's probably useful to remind Republicans like John McCain (a "nay" on the jobs bill) that wounded, jobless and homeless veterans aren't a fact of nature. They're a product of the wars that Congress members voted for, the war debt they piled on, and the economy they helped ruin.

"It's unbelievable that even after more than a decade of war, many Republicans still will not acknowledge that the treatment of our veterans is a cost of war," Ms. Murray said in a statement after the vote.
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rogue49 · Sep 21, 2012

The Pot calling the kettle Black?

It Takes One to Know One
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF - September 19, 2012

As I watched a video of Mitt Romney scolding moochers suffering from a culture of dependency, I thought of American soldiers I’ve met in Afghanistan and Iraq. They don’t pay federal income tax while they’re in combat zones, and they rely on government benefits when they come back.

Even if they return unscathed, most will never pay lofty sums in federal income taxes. No, all they offer our nation is their lives, while receiving government benefits — such as a $100,000 “death gratuity” to their wives or husbands when killed.

Maybe I’m being unfair, for I’m sure that when Romney complained in that video about freeloaders, he didn’t mean soldiers. But the 47 percent (more accurately, 46 percent) of American families whom he scorned because they don’t pay federal income taxes includes many other modestly paid workers or retirees who have contributed far more meaningfully to America than some who can shell out $50,000 to attend a fund-raiser like the one where Romney spoke in May.

What about the underpaid kindergarten teacher in an inner-city school? What about young police officers and firefighters? What about social workers struggling to help abused children?

One lesson is the narcissism of many in today’s affluent class. They manage to feel victimized by the tax code — even as they sometimes enjoy a lower rate than their secretaries and ride corporate jets acquired with the help of tax loopholes.

While self-pitying Republicans focus on federal income taxes (mostly paid by the rich), what’s more relevant is the overall tax bill — including state, local and federal taxes of all kinds. According to Citizens for Tax Justice, the majority of American families pay more than one-quarter of incomes in total taxes — and that may be more than Romney pays.

Romney is a smart man and, his friends say, a pragmatist rather than an ideologue, so what possessed him to say these things? There’s an underlying truth there — we do have a problem with entitlements and with freeloaders — and he inflated it beyond recognition. Perhaps he has passed so much time in a Republican primary bubble, hearing moans about the parasitic 47 percent, that he didn’t appreciate how obtuse and arrogant such comments appear.

The furor also reflects the central political reality today: the Republican Party has moved far, far to the right so that, on some issues, it veers into extremist territory.

Jeb Bush noted earlier this year that even conservative icons like President Ronald Reagan wouldn’t fit easily into today’s Republican Party. President Richard Nixon, who founded the Environmental Protection Agency, would be a lefty. This year, Republican primary voters have been further purging the party of centrist remnants, like Senator Richard Lugar, a foreign policy heavyweight who deserves America’s thanks for helping make us safer from loose nukes.

When I was growing up in Oregon, it was Democrats who were typically the crazies. Gov. George Wallace (“segregation forever”) tapped into populist resentments in his presidential campaigns. Lyndon Larouche was a cult leader seeking the Democratic nomination.

Oregon’s senators then were Mark Hatfield and Bob Packwood, both Republicans of a kind that barely exist today. Hatfield was a strong opponent of the Vietnam War, and Packwood supported abortion rights. Oregon’s governor at the time, Tom McCall, was a Republican and a leading environmentalist.

I called up Packwood and asked him if he and Hatfield would be Republicans if they were starting over. “We both wondered about that,” he said.

Packwood noted that the Republican Party once attracted union support, black support, urban and bicoastal support. “Historically, the Republicans have been geniuses at throwing away advantages,” he said.

The Republican shift shows up in polling. In the 1960s, more than two-thirds of Democrats and Republicans alike expressed trust in government. That has fallen to about one-third for Democrats — and to just 5 percent for Republicans.

For me, the saddest polls are those about facts. A Dartmouth poll this year found that Republicans believe, by a ratio of more than 3 to 1, that “Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when the United States invaded in 2003.”

The same poll found that Republicans believe, almost by a 3-to-1 ratio, that President Obama was born in another country. Democrats also suffer from self-deception (such as a reluctance to credit improvements under a Republican president), but today’s Republicans seem disproportionately untethered to reality.

Another illustration of radicalizing self-delusion comes when the son of a governor and corporate chief executive says that “everything that Ann and I have, we earned the old-fashioned way, and that’s by hard work.”

Romney has proved himself right: We manifestly do have a problem with people who see themselves as victims even as they benefit from loopholes in the tax code.

One is running for president.
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