Republicans' Attitudes About Things They're Completely Wrong About

Why don't they trust Hillary? Any sober investigation of the facts shows that she's actually unusually frank and forthcoming -- or at least, unusually frank and forthcoming for a politician. Likewise, it's easily demonstrated that Trump, whom some refer to as a "straight talker," is unusually dishonest even for a politician.

And why do they think that the economy isn't recovering, and that the climate isn't warming?

Someone may have actually answered all of those questions.

Someone -- I think it was Lawrence O'Donnell -- pointed out that many Republican positions are emotion-based, by their own admission. They (probably Lawrence) gave many examples with video clips from the Republican Convention. Seeing the entire montage all together was very striking, and suddenly some previously baffling behavior and rhetoric made sense to me: "The numbers may say otherwise, but it just FEELS to me like the economy is stagnant." "I may have no evidence, but I'm convinced that Obama is a Muslim. That's how it FEELS to me." "Yes, those scientists have all of those numbers, but it doesn't FEEL to me like the climate is warming." "I don't know... I just don't trust her!" "Okay, so actual cases of voter fraud in the US have been extremely rare for decades... but that's not the way it FEELS to me!" Etc.

This may be surprising to some people who "FELT" that conservatives were hard-headed and fact-driven, and liberals were wussies who were controlled by their emotions and refused to face unpleasant realities. File that one alongside the one about conservatives spending responsibly and liberal running up huge budget deficits.

I wish I could say that a quick and effective solution had occurred to me, now that someone, probably Lawrence, pointed out the nature of the problem to me. But no, knowing the nature of the problem just points out how extremely difficult it will be to solve it. Tripling the budget on education might put a dent in it after a few decades. That won't be easy, because there a lot of pinheads out there who vote and who FEEL like money is being wasted on education as it is, and that there is a huge liberal conspiracy to hand control of the world over to lesbians (and by the way, they can't prove anything, but for a long time they've had this FEELING about Hillary...), and that academics are an integral part of this liberal-lesbian world-conspiracy.

Still, understanding more about the nature of stupidity can't hurt. The problem, the enemy, is stupidity: the deliberate cultivation of ignorance.

The 2014 Mid-Terms And The Can't-Do Attitude Of Some Leftists

First of all, let's try to shake off this reluctance to call ourselves Leftists if we're left of center. Let's get a grip and speak plainly: yes, there are some Communists in the Democratic Party. And there are some Nazis in the Republican Party. And that's one of the long list of reasons why the Democratic Party is much better than the GOP.

It irks me so to hear people say that they "usually" vote Democratic, but they hate doing it, because Democrats and Republicans "are all pretty much the same," all "bought and paid for by corporations," and "things will never really change" because "those in power" don't want them to.

Things change all the time, so there's one of those premises I don't buy. You can read about some dramatic changes about to occur as a result of the mid-terms in this brief, accurate and depressing portrait of Jim Inhofe, who will probably be the next chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. The stupidity of the readers' comments on the article are even more depressing, matching the stupidity of the US public's behavior this past Tuesday. There may be changes in Social Security and Disability checks received by the elderly and disabled. There will be changes in policy on women's rights, minority rights, affirmative action, voting rights, LGBT rights -- if you feel that Americans have entirely too many rights and that poor people have it too good and that it's time for billionaires to finally catch a break, the election returns should gladden your heart.

No, I don't buy the premise that Democrats and Republicans are the same. It astounds me that anybody could think they are.

Corporations aren't all the same either. Yes, they contribute heavily to the campaigns of both Democrats and Republicans, but they don't all contribute the same to both sides of the aisle. It'd be pretty stupid for oil companies to give as much to the party trying to take away their tax exemptions -- that'd be the Democratic Party, including that notorious wimpy centrist corporate stooge Barack Hussein Obama -- as they give to the party stamping at the bit to open up Keystone XL and remove restrictions on fracking -- yes, Sparky, that'd be the Republicans.

Also, one of the two big parties is trying to reverse the cynically-named Citizens United and VASTLY REDUCE the amount of money given to political campaigns, and no, Sparky, it ain't the GOP.

I don't buy that "those in power" all want the same things. I put the phrase in quotes because power constantly shifts, there isn't one clearly-defined Them running everything, that's a paranoid fantasy. In reality, individual human beings wield power, people who by no means always agree about everything, even when they're in one and the same of the 2 major parties. party. To those who feel powerless -- if you occasionally try to DO something to change the things which dissatisfy you, your chances of actually having more power yourself are better than if you just sit there and bitch and vote 3rd-party and stupidly, smugly believe yourselves to be morally superior to all of us who are actually trying to do something.

I'm talking to you, Greens. Yes, I blame you for Inhofe, and yes, I still blame you for W beating Gore, and no, I don't want to try to explain to you how the one individual most responsible for bringing global warming to the attention of the general public is different from the Republican POTUS whose administration shored up the near-unanimous Republican position that global warming isn't happening, if you really are too stupid to see the difference.

Oh well. About all we can do now is hold on for 2 years, dig in and try to keep the GOP from killing us all, and hope that the stupidest among us re-learn what they learned between 2010 and 2012 and then forgot again.

Yeah, I'm a little bit steamed. Just a tad.

There's No Difference Between Democrats and Republicans Except --

-- on women's health and freedom to choose, green energy, tax breaks for Big Oil, labor unions, whether one fears that the government has too much control over corporations or that corporations have too much control over the government, whether the best way to help all of us is to help the poorest and weakest or the richest and most powerful, whether or not everyone should have access to affordable health care, whether too many tax breaks are available to corporate CEO's making 8 figures a year or more or to teachers and firemen making $50,000 a year or less, whether GLBT's don't have enough rights or whether they have too many, whether or not it's time to revoke the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965, whether or not drilling for oil and gas in national parks would be a good idea, whether it should be easier or more difficult for people in the US to obtain guns and ammo, whether or not Obama is a secret Kenyan Muslim Communist...

That's just off the top of my head. But yeah, if none of the above matters to you, you might as well vote Green. Or Libertarian. Or not at all, depending on what kind of stupid you are.