In the GOP, No One Can Hear You Scream

Last week, the Republican National Committee released an irreverent video satirizing the president. It ridiculed him for reading his speeches. And once knowing Professor William Ayers. Shaking hands with political leaders. Ending torture. Breathtaking knee-slappers like that.

After receiving much derision, the RNC insisted that this version wasn't supposed to have been made public. "The concept you saw lacked substantiation," their spokesman told Sam Stein of the Huffington Post. As if verifying substance has been a big concern of Republicans in the past.

("Is that a terrorist fist bump?")

They are going to try again, though, with "better editing and citations." This is the equivalent of a comic getting booed off the stage, but rushing back to tell the same joke, only adding, "No, really, this is a true story."

It is difficult to fathom the depth of tone deafness by the Republican Party.

For starters, while trying to frighten the country about its president, you get the sense that the GOP has blocked out that America lived through eight years of George Bush. A nation that was attacked by terrorists, went to war on a lie, had the economy crash, tortured prisoners, wiretapped its citizens without warrants, and had a city wiped off the map - that nation isn't going to be terribly bothered if its new president greets a democratically-elected foreign leader politely. They might even find it a refreshing alternative.

Further, tone deafness makes the GOP appear as if it doesn't recall the results of the last election and wants to keep running the same campaign it lost. William Ayers, meeting enemy leaders, Commander-in-Chief experience. Americans didn't care about any of this then, and Barack Obama won the election.

Yet the RNC is trying it again. All of it. Again. The same losing campaign. At best, it only serves to remind the public why they voted for the president.

Republicans even tried the same "He's a Socialist" gambit 75 years ago with Franklin Roosevelt. And it didn't work then either. And so, America got out of another Depression caused by a Republican president. Worse, they called Roosevelt a dictator, comparing him to Hitler and Stalin. And that didn't work, too - the country elected FDR president four times.

Four times.

And yet, here, once again, Republicans are raising the same horrified alarms of "one party rule." What the GOP misses in its tone deafness is that every time they decry Democratic "one party rule," not only does this not horrify Americans - it's what they voted for in free elections. As a refreshing alternative.

How tone deaf is the Republican Party? House Republicans just released their own video, showing the Pentagon in flames on September 11th. The only thing missing is a narrator saying, "See what happened when we were in charge?!"

The tone deafness is unimaginable in its scope. The GOP promoted Tea Bag Parties in hopes of convincing the public to protest higher taxes for the very wealthiest 5-percent of Americans. Worse, though: if anything symbolized Republicans as a party of the past, it was the sight of its members wearing 18th century garb and fondly invoking history of 230 years ago when black people weren't even counted as full citizens.

And that only touches the surface of a tone deaf party. Within the past week alone -Republicans in Congress gave zero votes for the federal budget, RNC chairman Michael Steele repeated the slur that Barack Obama is a "magic Negro," and Republicans actually blasted the president for wanting the next Supreme Court judge to have "empathy."

(Forget for a moment the matter of qualifications or imagined code words. Just consider the tone deafness of this as a message - "We're the Republican Party. We don't want our courts to empathize with your problems.")

And worse, still only last week - Arlen Specter left the Republican Party. And became a Democrat.

Arlen Freaking Specter. This isn't Jim Jeffords leaving the GOP, or Lincoln Chafee. This is Arlen Specter. The man who, for years, fought Alan Simpson and Orrin Hatch for the title of Senate Republican Hatchet Man of the Year. Only in a party this tone deaf could Arlen Specter have no future in it and be seen as "liberal." Or even moderate.

In trying to block everything during a national crisis, it's said that the Republican Party has now become the "Party of No." But that's not true. It has been the "Party of No" for the past 100 years.

Stop briefly to consider the achievements of the Democratic Party, flaws and all.

In the past century, Democrats have authored Social Security, Medicare, the Civil Rights Act, women's suffrage, federal deposit insurance, unemployment compensation, rural electrification, child labor laws, minimum wages and the 40-hour work week. Americans of both parties would rise in arms together if any of these were removed from their lives.

I challenge Republicans to present their list of Congressional accomplishments over the past 100 years. And no, supporting Joseph McCarthy's efforts to blacklist Americans doesn't count.

But it's not just that Republicans don't have legislative programs to compare to all these of Democrats, it's that they fought each of these advances that Americans everywhere now take as their birthright.

As Republicans are reduced to sniping at President Barack Obama over meaningless trivialities like using a teleprompter and shaking hands (forgetting that even Richard Nixon shook hands with Mao Tse Tong), perhaps the greatest tone deafness of the party is that it didn't even learn its own lesson that brought it dominant success:

Americans want to love their president.

It takes a lot for Americans to turn on their president. Even after no WMDs were found - even after warrantless wiretapping of citizens was exposed - even after the Iraq War turned into a disaster, Americans still re-elected George Bush. It took the continued spiral of Iraq, Katrina, the public intrusion into Teri Schiavo's privacy, and the collapse of the U.S. economy, and more, before Americans finally gave up on George Bush.

But it took all of that - because Americans want to love their president.

And despite riding on that flying carpet for seven years, tone deaf Republicans forgot this lesson.

With Barack Obama having won the presidential election only three months ago - with his approval ratings soaring - with First Lady Michelle Obama reaching even higher approval - with having two, adorable, young daughters - with having a new puppy...

...tone deaf Republicans continue to forget their own lesson and attack the President of the United States as their sole platform issue in a time of national crisis. Forgetting Americans want to love their president.

In the end, it's clear how Republicans got so tone deaf: they believe they need to play to their base. Yet, blocking out other notes ignores that it was this very strategy that lost them the presidency and last two elections of the Senate and House.

Today, only 21-percent of Americans consider themselves Republicans. Playing to that base is what drove everyone else away. And so "the base" has become the Republican Party. A religious sect. You cannot be a viable party in America with just 21-percent.

The Republican Party will eventually find a new ear. It happened after the 1964 Johnson-Goldwater landslide when the GOP was declared dead. Yet it revitalized itself. But how long that will take this time? And how very different will the Republican Party have to be for that to occur?

Because until then, all that remains is a tone deaf party whose members think it would be rapturous to live in 1775, wear tri-corner hats, throw tea bags in the river, exist in a cocoon, and not have any magic Negroes around, making their lives happy amid economic collapse, war and torture that their party brought about.

Comments

[DonRoberto]

I'm a Democrat, but playing devil's advocate for a minute, how about the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act? Granted, Eisenhower wasn't a real Republican, but he did run on the Republican ticket, so we should give credit where credit is due.

Nixon should get credit for creating the EPA and supporting and passing Title IX; they haven't solved all the problems they were designed to address, but on the whole their contributions have been positive. The ABM treaty was also very important, but has since been "abrogated" (i.e., legalese for *broken*) by the most G.W. Bush Administration.

Having said that, it's hard to come up with any other legislation championed by, or originating with, the Republicans over the last 100 years that has had any lasting positive effect. Teddy Roosevelt's Panama Canal legislation was enacted over a century ago, and thus is beyond the scope of the question.

[TheMellowFellow]

And also TR was very much a progressive.

[queotic]

Mr. Elisberg, I would have enjoyed this article more if you hadn't used "tone deaf" so many times. We get the point.

[Rolf618]

I for one am thrilled that the Republicans keep trying to run the same losing campaign.
Its hilarious to watch now that I know people arent buying that junk anymore.
I'll be a lot more worried when they catch on and come up with some new strategies and ideas. Hopefully that wont happen for 20 or 30 years and by then the Democrats will have cemented into place more essentials (like health care?) that no American will want taken away.

[ProsperosMagic]

Ditto.

[Mintcondition]

Be prepared to laugh folks

http://vodpod.com/watch/1031417-lampoon-of-charlie-gibsons-palin-interview

[martinfrosa]

Elisberg, a little history lesson for you and all Democrats about Nixon's civil rights accomplishments from Atlantic Magazine -

"Few Americans know it, but in fact Richard Nixon, even more than John Kennedy or Lyndon Johnson, shaped the civil-rights landscape we inhabit today. Nixon broke the will of the South, making school desegregation, long on the books but largely unimplemented, a reality for millions of children black and white. He presided over the nationalization of the Voting Rights Act, extending it beyond the South to cover all Americans—including Latinos. He oversaw the birth of bilingual education and averted the death of historically black colleges. Most important, for better or worse, he and his aides created affirmative action as we know it, turning a vague idea about a leg up at the starting gate into a vast national web of "goals and timetables" at colleges, corporations, and government contracting agencies."

Don't be so smug my friend.

[Robert J. Elisberg - Huffpost Blogger]

What you are quoting makes it sound as if it was a research article in the Atlantic Monthly. In fact, it was from a book review, written by Tamar Jacoby, a senior fellow at the neoconservative Manhattan Institute.

That aside, after 100 years, and that long list of Democratic accomplishments, the most you can come up with is one book review whose neocon author (not even the book itself) suggests Richard Nixon did more for civil rights than Kennedy or Johnson? And from that, you’re telling me not to be smug?

First of all, as a writer, I can tell you it is FAR easier to re-write something that already exists than stare at that blank page. Whatever Richard Nixon did or may have done unprompted, it was on the heels of the heavy lifting done by Civil Rights Acts that came before him. Further, nothing in what you wrote says anything critical about Democrats, just that Nixon may have done a lot, too. And hats off, if he did.

There was nothing “smug” in what I wrote. If anything, it was filled with profound sadness and anger. If and when the Republican Party comes up with a long list of legislation that all Americans cherish and fight to keep as their birthright, I will be overjoyed for that.

Finally, addressing anyone – friend or foe – by only their last name tends to be considered aggressively rude. But that was your choice, and I understand.

[nolocontendre]

That was better than the blog...and the blog was GOOD.

[TekVahana]

Good catch! Great article, too. Thanks!

[Poolorie]

Awesome article. It really cements why the Rethuglicans are where they are today.

[Mintcondition]

Be prepared to laugh.

http://vodpod.com/watch/1031417-lampoon-of-charlie-gibsons-palin-interview

[Mintcondition]

Couldn't help it folks, something from the primaries.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrzXLYA_e6E&NR=1

[Mintcondition]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8__aXxXPVc&feature=channel

No wonder they're screaming!!1(lol)

[wm1066]

Well. when LBJ got his Great Society program going it was the Republicans that got the provision put in the welfare bill that said if you were a woman on welfare your husband couldn't live in the same house. That did more to split up poor households than anything. Congrats Republicans!

[Bakersman]

Everyone seems so concerned with the Republican Party learning something and thus reinventing itself. None of what Mr. Elisberg has posted is a secret. They already know it. And over and over, all the while saying, "We're the party of the big tent!" they continue, literally daily, to marginalize themselves. It's stunning to watch, like an addict screaming "I gotta quit!" while simultaneously jamming the needle into their arm.

The Republican Party has become one big circle jerk. Each one excitely getting him/herself off while looking at other members of the circle for some sort of congratulations. And the circle just keeps getting smaller and smaller.

This party won't grow until it decides to embrace change. And growth. And acceptance. And the reality that conservative values don't mean bigotted social morals and let them eat cake economic policy. Sadly, like a well-known right wing talk radio host, that's all it means. And he disinvites everyone he doesn't agree with to the party...until guess what, it's only him.

Well, 21% and falling... it's sad to see how the mighty have fallen and that the blowhards are now deafened by their own voices and choked by the veins bulging in their necks.

[PepperzMom]

FACT CHECK NEEDED:
"With Barack Obama having won the presidential election only three months ago - with his approval ratings soaring - with First Lady Michelle Obama reaching even higher approval - with having two, adorable, young daughters - with having a new puppy..."

Actually, Obama WON the election 6 months ago, and was INAUGURATED 3.5 months ago....

[ThinkCreeps]

Another big-picture conservative: I guess your basic numeracy does require praise, since many of your fellow travellers lack it so conspicuously.

[Querent]

Facts are facts. Citing facts doesn't make her a conservative. Conservatives don't do facts.

[PepperzMom]

Thanks to Querent for his/her response.

Conservative? As in Rethug type? Sorry Creeps...you don't now peeps!

[bdaved]

Why do some people assume that any challenge, however innocuous, comes from an opposing viewpoint?

[SunnyT]

Outstanding observations, Mr. Elisberg. I hope you don't mind if I print every word you wrote and send it to my Republican so-called representatives.

[DavidClaiborne]

Great article, thank you...

[rjmiller]

To be fair, they did have Eisenhower. He expanded Social Security (creating the Dep. of HHS), championed the interstate system, supported desegregation of schools and warned of empowering the military-industrial complex.

That's pretty much it though, and I don't know if those really qualify as "legislative achievements."

[Querent]

But Eisenhower wasn't a conservative.

[chaya]

This was a vastly entertaining article, and I enjoyed it very much. Are you sure, though, that giving the GOP advice is a good plan? I would much rather they continued on their present path to self-destruction.

[Gudrun]

It's okay, because the GOP is not listening.

[WindySailor]

Not quite true. They are listening. To Limbaugh. To Hannity. To Beck. To Maikin. To all the right kind of people to seal their doom.