Live from the Republican Dystopia: Post-WWII Republican ideology has always walked a fine line--that America was under grave threat, but that everything was or would be sunny if only people would elect Republicans. Goldwater sought to undo Roosevelt's New Deal as a historic mistake--but all would then be well. Nixon sought to divide the country in two, with the bigger half on his side and the liberal communist Black hippie professors on the other side--but all would be well if they just stayed in their place. Reagan made it the country vs. the bureaucrats: his part of the government would help you by keeping the rest of the government from trying to help you--and was, of course, much sunnier.
Now, however, we have what seem to be Fox News Republicans: Fox News's business model is to terrify its watchers so that they keep their eyes glued to the screen and so their eyeballs can be sold to advertisers. Good business model from a money making perspective. Really lousy public service. And it is not at all clear for any candidate it's scaring your people will keep them watching you, let alone pull voting-booth levers for you:
: In Republican Civil War, Dark Forces Reign: "The Republican presidential debate last night revealed a party markedly different...
...from the one that coalesced... around Mitt Romney.... Rand Paul wasn't isolated in calling the U.S. invasion of Iraq a mistake.... Trump also repeated his intention to defy the party's most solemn fiscal pledge, calling for a soon-to-be-detailed tax increase.... The party has acquired a Janus complex.... Jeb Bush... 'Are we going to take the Reagan approach, the hopeful optimistic approach".... He was joined in Reagan land, emphatically, by Ohio Governor John Kasich, who politely refused an explicit invitation to attack Hillary Clinton, touted his success 'including people in the other party' and expressed his desire that 'our people feel fulfilled in living in Western civilization.'
Few of the other candidates seemed even to recognize the sunny side of the street.... They live instead in a world in which alien terrors compete with domestic horrors for daily domination, where the top Democratic candidate for president 'believes in the systematic murder of children in the womb to preserve their body parts,' as New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said.... Cruz called the White House 'the world's leading financier of radical Islamic terrorism.' Trump portrayed a swarm of illegal aliens and their criminal 'gangs all over the place.'... Fiorina said that three quarters of Americans believe their government is 'corrupt,' a percentage that will doubtless rise if Fiorina has any say.... Huckabee raged against the 'criminalization' of Christianity in the U.S. and the 'exaltation of the faith of everyone else out there who might be a Fort Hood shooter or a detainee at Gitmo.'...
It only gets worse abroad. No one likes us.... Putin pushes us around. The... agreement with Iran is 'catastrophic' (Cruz) and threatens 'the survival of Western civilization' (Huckabee). 'These are extraordinarily dangerous times that we live in,' said... Rubio.... The dystopia portrayed by Cruz, Fiorina, Huckabee, Rubio and others is a world apart from the land where Bush and Kasich dwell. The question is which universe contains more Republican primary voters....
