We can open ourselves to collaboration to improve our ideas, and be open and curious towards the solutions of others........We must speak and act with respect, every day.
And if we are talking about Hilary supporters working with Bernie supporters, great, let's collaborate and learn from each other. I'm all for it. But if you are talking about trying to work with Republicans, having an honest conversation about issues with Republicans, count me out. If you are going to have a rational conversation with someone, you have to believe that that person can be reasonable and rational and can base an argument on actual evidence. I do not believe that Republicans meet that standard.
Let's look at an example:
Obamacare. I believe that virtually everything that Republican leaders ever said about how bad Obamacare is was a lie -- not just them repeating misinformation that they themselves believed, but things that they knew and still know were not true. They did this for political reasons only, to oppose Obama and turn public opinion against him. This, by the way, means that Republican leaders were very deliberately and knowingly working against the best interests of the United States of America in order to enhance their own power and discredit Democrats. It also means that the millions of Republican voters who went along with the ruse were duped. I believe those things happened.
Evidence, you ask?
For starters, it never made any sense to me that not one Republican, not one, could support a federal program based on Romneycare. Not even Mitt Romney. You have a plan that provides health insurance to millions of people, will save tens of thousands of lives, will potentially keep hundreds of thousands of Americans out of bankruptcy, does not increase the deficit, and continues to work through private insurance and has so many features that should appeal to conservatives that in the end even Joe Freakin' Lieberman will sign off on it, and not one Republican votes for it. Not only that, but they vote to repeal it fifty times. It doesn't pass the smell test. It stinks. It feels exactly like they are voting no just to make sure President Obama does not have any bipartisan support. Consider also:
- Republican politicians, including Mitch McConnell, admit that they employed a strategy of opposing President Obama's major initiatives, unanimously if at all possible, so that Democrats could not say they had bipartisan support, and the public would blame Obama for the lack of bipartisanship. Say, that explanation does actually pass the smell test! It sounds exactly like what actually happened!
- One year, the Politifact Lie of the Year was "Death Panels."
- Another year, the Politifact Lie of the Year was "Government Takeover of Healthcare."
- Republican states lined up to refuse to expand Medicaid, cruelly choosing to harm and sometimes kill their own citizens, by all appearances based on no principles at all other than opposing Democrats.
- Given seven years to think about an alternative, Republicans are scrambling to come up with something better. If Obamacare is bad enough to repeal 50 times, it should be really easy to come up with something better. But if they were lying in order to fool the people who support them, if Obamacare was never really so bad, you could understand that it might be hard to come up with something better, which looks to be exactly the case.
- Given seven years to come up with something better, you would think that Republicans could come up with an excellent plan that they could show to the public, expose to public hearings, and take some time to explain. Something they could be proud of. Instead, they are hiding it from us, afraid that if voters know what is in it, their members will face strong opposition from the public. They know their alternatives suck.
But Dennis, you ask, how can you believe that a major political party could perpetrate such a devious and despicable ruse just for political gain? Well, global warming anyone? The simple answer is, if there is money behind it, they can and they will and they have. And when it comes to the Republican rank and file believing a lie, there are the tens of millions who have questioned whether Barack Obama was born in the US, or who believe he is a Muslim, or who think that the economy got worse during Obama's term, or any number of other dumb things they believe.
And that is the real problem. I do not trust Republicans to have an honest and rational point of view about anything. If you do, I think you do not understand what is going on in this country. Look, healthcare is a real, complex issue, with plenty of room for discussion, but I do not want to discuss it with someone that I cannot trust to be rational. And that rules out Republicans. If we are going to sit down and discuss issues in a reasonable,rational, fact-based manner, Republicans do not deserve a seat at the table. Not at a table with me.
We all deal with the problem of confirmation bias. We believe something, and then we trust evidence that supports our belief and reject evidence that suggests we might be wrong. I do not know if anyone is immune. But Republicans don't just suffer from confirmation bias; they have embraced it as their preferred way of dealing with the world. According to polls, they do not trust any network news except Fox News (Google it; it's shocking.) Yes, the whole world is lying to them except the special network created just for them. Democrats by contrast, trust everything except Fox, but they trust Fox more than conservatives trust ABC, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, or CBS. Someone here is being very stupid. I wonder who?
In fact, Republicans have spent decades building a list of experts who cannot be trusted, so that they can brush away any new information without having it impact their thinking. Economists, historians, judges, entire Circuit Courts, the Congressional Budget Office, pollsters - even those with a long history of not favoring either party - anyone can be dismissed as fake news, liberal bias, paid by George Soros, blah blah blah. Republicans have now even convinced themselves that they, who know next to nothing, understand complex questions of science better than actual scientists who actually do know something.
There is room in the world for a conservative point of view. It is the voice that says that government may not be the answer to everything, or that not every social experiment is worth trying, or worth paying for. The problem is, the current version of the Republican Party does not represent that voice. The Republican Party represents nonsense, a very deliberate and carefully constructed retreat from reality, evidence, reason, and rational thought.
My solution? They need to be voted out of office, outnumbered, treated as social pariahs, and eventually sent the way of the Dixiecrats. I do not believe that the party as it is can be rehabilitated to the point that they discuss issues honestly and consider the facts. I believe, very strongly, that we need a United States that does not include the Republican Party, or in which they are completely marginalized. Pursuing some alternate reality in which Republicans come to the table and try to reach compromise and the best result for all Americans is a nice dream, but it's a pipe dream.
No comments:
Post a Comment