FOCUS | My Week As a Republican

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Just the Tip of the Iceberg

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FOCUS | NSA Admits to Listening to US Phone Calls Without Warrants

FOCUS | Al Gore: "Obama Must Veto 'Atrocity' of Keystone XL Pipeline"

Rich writes: "A week steeped in right-wing media reveals a Republican Party far more despairing than the lamestream knows."

Frank Rich. (photo: Oprah Winfrey Show)

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+77 # Cactusman 2012-09-18 15:31

A fascinating glimpse into the minds of today's anti-everything conservatives. I might not be able to do what Frank Rich just did, and I can't help but feel some schadenfreude over this.

Today's Republicans need to air out their toxic, anaerobic politics and join the rest of America in the sun and fresh air. Today's Republican Party deserves to die because it's so moribund, and afraid of and angry at everything. I hope that a better, saner, healthier, less odoriferous party resprouts from the crown buds of this decrepit one that badly needs to be burned to the ground so that it can renew itself with some fresh thinking.

-166 # edge 2012-09-18 16:02

In my week as a liberal I stopped working and relaxed at the beach. No work for me as I sipped cheap wine from my unemployment check and realized that work is for suckers!

Thanks for the great idea Frank Rich.

+16 # lyman 2012-09-18 16:33

Quoting edge:

In my week as a liberal I stopped working and relaxed at the beach. No work for me as I sipped cheap wine from my unemployment check and realized that work is for suckers!

Thanks for the great idea Frank Rich.

Quoting edge:

In my week as a liberal I stopped working and relaxed at the beach. No work for me as I sipped cheap wine from my unemployment check and realized that work is for suckers!

Thanks for the great idea Frank Rich.

Ah, edge. What a life "you" lead.

+26 # humanmancalvin 2012-09-18 17:05

"n my week as a liberal I stopped working and relaxed at the beach. No work for me as I sipped cheap wine from my unemployment check and realized that work is for suckers!"
Haha edge, how I wish that I as a dedicated Far-Left Liberal of the highest order (pun intended)could find a way to live my life in the wonderful carefree far Right stereotype you posted. Do you guys really truly believe the tripe you write or do you write it with your tongue firmly implanted in your cheek? If you are not at least a millionaire edge, then I have nothing but sympathy for you as you rally against your own better interests.
See you at the beach edge, it will be my treat of all the screw cap buck a jug wine we can hammer in the afternoon sun as soon as I get my welfare check & have paid the $35. government subsidized monthly rent & exchanged my Food Stamps for yet more El Cheapo Stinko.
Peace & Love Brutha Mandingo!

+64 # Billy Bob 2012-09-18 17:32

I wondered how you had so much time to make these comments.

By the way, when you were at the beach, did you notice the actual liberals cleaning your hotel room, and serving your wine?

I didn't think so.

+51 # pernsey 2012-09-18 17:43

Quoting edge:

In my week as a liberal I stopped working and relaxed at the beach. No work for me as I sipped cheap wine from my unemployment check and realized that work is for suckers!

Thanks for the great idea Frank Rich.

edge, your remarks are juvenile...that means childish, and about as ignorant and idiotic as Mitt and the GOP itself.

I watched 10 minutes of Fox news and threw up a little bit in my mouth, the amount of lies spewed in such a short period of time was astounding. Frank kudos to you, for being able to stomach a full week, my hats off to you.

+40 # WestWinds 2012-09-18 18:06

You come here and keep making this point of liberals are lazy and don't work. There is no way to tell you how wrong you are. You seem to think that all liberals are blue collar workers. It goes to show your deep and abiding information deficit. Ignorance Be Not Proud.

+36 # WestWinds 2012-09-18 18:15

Even though I've had moments when I feared the rotten right might succeed, I have always believed that it would sooner or later crash and burn. What does it have to offer 99% of the population? Answer: Nothing. Nothing unless you count economic slavery as something. I'm just surprised that it has begun to unravel so soon. I still say that Obama will go in (and do more of the same; nothing useful,) but by 2016, America will be done with corporate everything (thank merciful heaven,) and We the People can get back to that old, boring peace and prosperity once again; hopefully, with no more war.

+6 # leedeegirl 2012-09-18 19:49

Quoting WestWinds:

Even though I've had moments when I feared the rotten right might succeed, I have always believed that it would sooner or later crash and burn. What does it have to offer 99% of the population? Answer: Nothing. Nothing unless you count economic slavery as something. I'm just surprised that it has begun to unravel so soon. I still say that Obama will go in (and do more of the same; nothing useful,) but by 2016, America will be done with corporate everything (thank merciful heaven,) and We the People can get back to that old, boring peace and prosperity once again; hopefully, with no more war.

from your "mouth" to the "higher poer's ears"

+25 # leedeegirl 2012-09-18 19:47

Quoting edge:

In my week as a liberal I stopped working and relaxed at the beach. No work for me as I sipped cheap wine from my unemployment check and realized that work is for suckers!

Thanks for the great idea Frank Rich.

you know, very few comments on these boards get a response from me, but yours is just truly pathetic and idiotic ...

+23 # 666 2012-09-19 03:54

recognize this was edge's job as a gop troll: to hijack blog discussion away from the substance of the article and to keep repeating his frame

+13 # bmiluski 2012-09-19 08:51

Hmmm...since romney's father was, at one time, on welfare, what would that make mitt? A son of a lazy right-wing government freeloader?

+7 # carpepax 2012-09-19 09:21

It is clear you have learned nothing and probably never will. If you read this whole article, it appears you have wasted your own time and now ours with your uninformed remark.

+8 # David Starr 2012-09-19 09:53

@edge: How about some thought-provoki ng discussion, if you're capable. Otherwise, you're being used for "target practice." "Thanks" to you for being the "bulls eye." It helps. I noticed you may have broken the record for the most thumbs down. You're quite the masochist. Sucker for the 1%!

+5 # tabonsell 2012-09-19 09:55

I suspect his life is in a place where the weather is always perfect, the scenery is gorgeous, beer is free, all the women are beautiful and never wear bras and Lingerie League football is on TV 24/7. Because it's all fantasy, just as is his observation.

As often pointed out to these things on the right jobs are created faster and more plentiful under the left, poverty skyrockets under the right. So it's clear who has the time to relax on the beach while drawing unemployment checks and welfare; it is the victims of right-wing governance.

+82 # Stormy 2012-09-18 16:28

In my week as a liberal I fed homeless, volunteered with an environmental group removing non native plants in the desert, volunteered helping at an elementary school room with 30 children in one classroom because of such a tight budget at the public school, hired an illegal alien (who works a full time job paying taxes and has lived here for 20 years) to help me lay cement in the back yard, and volunteer writing letters for Planned Parenthood. (And this was my day off when I'm not working myself paying taxes.) I would never wish to be a rich republican hiding all my money overseas to avoid taxes helping no one but myself. A lighter spirit an a bigger heart doesn't mean a lazy heart. The real test will be to find time and make a commitment to go vote and make sure five of my friends do the same.

+12 # Billy Bob 2012-09-19 08:35

GREAT COMMENT.

+38 # Billy Bob 2012-09-18 17:42

As much as the right attacks Mittens, they WILL be voting for him. THEY ALWAYS complain about their candidate not being right-wing enough for them, then THEY ALWAYS vote for him anyway.

Another thing I was thinking about is the fact that repugs had a chance to nominate a frothing-at-the -mouth pointy-tailed conservative like newt. They couldn't find one that wasn't too stupid to open his mouth in front of a microphone and spoil the whole thing.

They settled on Mittens (who's just like the others, but smart enough not to actually talk about it in any detail). That's it. Now, it's as if they think one of the much MORE unpopular choices they had would have generated more votes.

What's going on is that they don't realize their attitudes and "values" are LOSING. The demographic trend is continuing to accelerate and they just don't see it coming.

Ten years from now one of three things will happen:

1. The repug party will be replaced;
2. The repug party will change so much it's unrecognizable;
3. The repug party will be so unsuccessful that it's just on the outside looking in.

No matter what, these exact same commentators will continue making millions as the only game in town on AM radio and they'll continue milking repug revenge fantasies, while the rest of the country continues to move on without them.

+9 # bmiluski 2012-09-19 08:56

Ten years from now one of three things will happen:

1. The repug party will be replaced;
2. The repug party will change so much it's unrecognizable;
3. The repug party will be so unsuccessful that it's just on the outside looking in.

And you can thank Newt for that. He started this whole hate filled, "us against them", mentality.

+5 # Billy Bob 2012-09-19 13:36

You might be right. Personally, I think it goes back even further. Newt is definitely the one we can credit for turning American politics more nasty than it's been since the Civil War. However, I think the demographic tsunami repugs are drowning in is nothing more than chickens coming home to roost after Nixon's "southern strategy".

+2 # Texan 4 Peace 2012-09-19 22:15

They'll be replaced by the Democrats, who are on their way to becoming the new Republicans.

+28 # vicnada 2012-09-18 18:43

"If you ever want to hear the truth, ask your worst enemy." Republicans are well served by Frank Rich in his penetrating thought experiment. Were they as half as compassionate as he, they could learn from their perpetually doomed effort to be "right" at all costs. But compassion, like nuance, seems lost to them. It started as strategy--a term wed to "Conservative" to make their poisonous social medicine palatable. Could they read this article and learn? That would require a sense for nuance, the sense to recognize when being too right goes way, way wrong. Most of all, it would require a sense of humor...and no, smirking isn't halfway there.

+27 # ganymede 2012-09-18 20:15

And Rich's as usual brilliant comments were written before the release of Romney's disastrous comments caught by a hidden camera! Dissing the majority of Americans who vote for Obama as not worthy of his attention and fobbing off the Palestinians as low life Muslim fanatics are the last nails in the coffin of his failed presidential run. Amen.

+14 # MindDoc 2012-09-18 21:35

Food for thought. And reason for some pause, if you've done your time in the world according to Beck, Fox, and anything else except MSNBC of course. What a great snapshot, with detail and perspective. A fly-on-the-wall view of the lemming creators.

Thanks so much for this experience in a safe dosage. Surely it can mind-bending (like torture without the pain), and for those of us who might never go looking for Beck/Rush/Fox the point is taken - I'm sure it can be both instructive & entertaining - in limited doses though, At the same time, I'm sure some tap into the spew and see modeling in how to spew (or resist) hate & disinformation ... one can get great ratings without facts, especially with a blackboard and chalk - or an empty chair. (or suit)

You're brave to have watched so much of this over a whole week, sir! I mean, voluntarily and with an open mind, to soak up the mindset and occasional cosmic humor among all the doublespeak and coded hate talk. Plus disinformation and lies.

IMHO, this really shines a light on some widely held sets of beliefs, in both facts, and messengers.

Ah the good old days. Candidates submitted tax forms, presented campaign agendas to address "the state of the union" and then went to We the People to talk about what they would do, not why the other is 'disgraceful'. Then the debates. Some discussion (not 24/7 140 character framed streams) - then the vote. Now: Earplugs, nose plug, but VOTE!

+22 # SenorN 2012-09-18 22:33

The right is demographically doomed. Their base is aging and the anti-gay, anti-immigrant, anti-choice, anti-Arab, pro-Wall Street, and bellicose foreign policies they promote are unpopular with younger people, and increasingly so the younger those people are. Republicans will either change dramatically in the next decade or will become irrelevant.

As much as I despise them, I don't think it would be good for our country to have a one-party system so---now that the Democrats have moved so far to the center---let's hope a truly progressive party can replace the Republicans in a decade or two.

+3 # Texan 4 Peace 2012-09-19 22:17

More likely that a truly progressive party will replace the DEMOCRATS, as they move into the place the right used to occupy.

+24 # angelfish 2012-09-18 23:47

The "twit" is outraged, OUTRAGED, I tell you, because "47% of the American Public pays NO Income Taxes at ALL"! Will someone PLEASE explain to Willard, in very EASY to understand terms that, in order to PAY Income Taxes, you have to make enough INCOME to do it! If he HAD half a Brain Cell he MIGHT think that, Gee, these people don't make enough money, maybe THAT'S why they're upset that I want to RAISE their Taxes and Lower Taxes for the Mega-Rich who Don't NEED Tax Relief! Thinking that Russia is our gravest enemy further illustrates his Crass Ignorance, not only of Current Affairs but of LIFE in general! Never, EVER vote ReTHUGlican, especially THIS reTHUGlican!

+10 # ilenewells 2012-09-19 06:02

The rapid small-governmen t crowd is not looking at spending dollars more wisely - just cutting spending -which is not wise. Case in point: The ACA has a provision to increase Medicaid funds for people who are chronically ill and need permanent supports to live in the community. By spending this money, they will actually save money in the long run, because the chronically ill eat up Medicaid dollars in a vastly disproportionat e amount. By providing the permanent supports they need, less money will be spend on trips to the ER, hospitalization s, etc. For people disabled from serious mental illness, this means fewer incidents with police, arrests, and less chance for becoming homeless and overall better health. For some, it could mean leading productive lives again and actually getting off supports, but without the supports, more government dollars are actually spend on the most acute needs.

The ACA also has a partial repeal of the archaic and very discrminatory Medicaid Institutes for Mental Diseases (IMD) Exclusion, which discriminates against people with serious mental illness and drug addiction from covering in-patient stays in specialized facilities. I wrote about it last year at the start of the Occupy Movement...it is still relevant today. The partial repeal is a good start, but it does not go far enough. Please read I WAS A PERSON, published on RNS last year. Thanks!

www.tinyurl.com/RNSPERSON

+6 # USA2012??? 2012-09-19 06:46

I've been ranting ever since "W's" first presidential appointment, and his second questionably elected term--if you want to call it that--that there is opposition within the GOP that don't have a voice. As a consequence they are denied media access, and/or suppressed from expressing their views.

+7 # bmiluski 2012-09-19 09:12

In typical right-wing short-sightedne ss, Newt Gingrich decided to use hate, fear and a "us against them" mentality to harness the dissatisfied. And at first, it worked. But, it soon turned into a blind monster of hate. Now Newt and his minions are reaping what they sowed.

+8 # David Starr 2012-09-19 09:50

Frank Rich does present an interesting look at Repubs, showing some shades of gray. But his sympathy for the "base" and a few pundits falls short for me. In reading Rich's details of the Grossly Obese Party, the opposition against Romney is for the wrong reasons. They appear to be more extremist, politically disabled, and thus just as dangerous, if not more, than Romney/Ryan themselves. (Not that I'm letting the tweedle dee and tweedle dum of the GOP ticket off the hook.) It's very difficult for me to have sympathy for a base, especially among the working class, to be willing to "cut" their own throats, getting fooled again, and "unintentionall y" loving it. But if there are those who can actually learn from the experience of being "whipping boys" for the 1%, and understanding and opposing the U.S. as an empire of capital, then I have some encouragement. Hopefully, the current illusions are a temporary symptom rather than a terminal, political disability.

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