Lindsey Finds A Nut

NYT:

Senator Lindsay Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said: “We are not losing blue states and shrinking as a party because we are not conservative enough. If we pursue a party that has no place for someone who agrees with me 70 percent of the time, that is based on an ideological purity test rather than a coalition test, then we are going to keep losing.”

Linds, pet. The problem is that people don't like Republicans anymore. The problem isn't that you don't have the right mix of pseudo-fascists and actual fascists who carry I AM A FASCIST cards and goose step to their beds at night. The problem isn't that people disagree 30 percent of the time. The problem is that for 40 years you people have been stoking racism, misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia, anti-intellectualism and a general sense that if you drank this kind of cola and wore this kind of clothing you could come to the sleepover.

You were doing it in order to win elections, and I get that, but the problem is people believed it and now you have this following of rabid marmosets who chew off their own legs when you forget to distract them with something shiny on a string. The teabagging set believed your bullshit and they show up at the polls now, so you either have to give them up or you have to stop acting like it's uncouth they like you. These are the choices you've given yourself.

In a way, it still seems like kind of a fluke, that America finally got fucked enough for this crap not to work anymore. I still shudder to think about Huckabee as the nominee because his folksy thing is just good enough that maybe the press would have fallen for him as the "regular guy," I mean, he's evil but he's not an idiot. I shudder to think if McCain's campaign had been smarter, because it still seems like we got away with something, having gotten most people to the point where they weren't having it anymore.

But they aren't having it anymore, and that's what this whole story about rebranding and expanding the tent doesn't get. Later in the story:

"Do you really believe that we lost 18-to-34-year-olds by 19 percent, or we lost Hispanic voters, because we are not conservative enough?” he said. “No. This is a ridiculous line of thought. The truth is we lost young people because our Republican brand is tainted.”

You lost young people because you suck. You lost young people not because of the branding or because you had too few pseudo-fascists but because young people figured out that you basically hated them and their biracial gay friends from France or whatever, with their iPhones, and they looked around at all your true-bue conservative leading lights, like fucking Box Turtle John and Huckaputz, and Jonah, and said, um, we'll be down the hall where they're not mocking poor people for being poor. That's not a problem you can fix by coming up with a new slogan.

Though the portion of the economy that does branding studies and marketing campaigns thanks you for your stimulus.

Schmucks.

A.

Comments

[pansypoo]

the republikans suck cause the pendulum has FINALLY swung back from insanity. be careful it doesn't lop your head off.

[dan mcenroe]

In a way, it still seems like kind of a fluke, that America finally got fucked enough for this crap not to work anymore.

That's what I never understood about Dubya's administration: they obviously did not give a shit. Reagan and Bush the elder were evil fuckers too but at least they paid lip service to the idea of actually governing, and tried to not let things get too horrible because they knew they'd get thrown out of office otherwise. Dubya? Couldn't even figure that out.

[darrelplant]

So Ferret Lady's looking down her nose at Marmoset Man, eh? Eh?