Thus Spake the Rube
For the hundredth time the foreign-born Muslim commie Nazi extends an olive branch across the aisle, and for the hundredth time it’s dashed to the floor, stomped on and set ablaze – along with the latest spokes-liars trousers. It became a conflagration that the infamous water-stop could not staunch.
Early in Marco Rubio’s alleged rebuttal to B. Hoover Obama’s latest exercise in political theater it became painfully obvious that his pants were on fire. This was even before it became obvious that his diatribe was utterly incoherent. Steve Benen explains.
By any sensible measure, Rubio’s entire pitch was incoherent gibberish. He thinks President Obama is hostile to free enterprise and wants to increase the deficit, neither of which makes any sense. Rubio thinks the housing crisis was caused by big government, which is simply idiotic. Rubio celebrates his family’s history of dependence on government social programs like student loans and Medicare, while articulating a policy agenda that guts government social programs like student loans and Medicare.Forget ideology, subjectivity, and areas of opinion — the fact is Marco Rubio’s speech was filled with a series of claims with no meaningful connection to reality. The senator even thinks combating the climate crisis means asking government to “control the weather,” which is just genuinely dumb.
Part way through I started taking notes, and discovered an unappetizing platter of rewarmed left-overs [or more accurately: right-overs] of Romney’s failed presidential campaign, where lying and incoherence were the norm. It was deja vu all over again. Viz:
Obama’s obsession with raising taxes
Solyndra [God help us – I am not making this up]
We should open Federal lands to energy exploration
Grow Energy industry [but not renewables]
Lower Corp tax rate [Highest in the world, don’t cha know]
Incentivise school districts
Schools of choice
Solve the debt problem [As if BHO ignored it – or, more importantly – as if it were a real problem]
Obama created the debt with excessive spending [my personal favorite]
Need a balanced budget amendment [the ignorance – it burns, too]
Obama’s in favor of leaving Medicare just the way it is [though he clearly stated otherwise]
He also wants to unconstitutionally undermine 2nd amendment rights
The President’s devastating cuts to our military [Seriously — WTH?!?]
Moral breakdown in society – need more faith
Economic liberty
That’s what I was able to capture as Rubio’s litany of [mostly] decades old Republican clap-trap spewed forth almost faster than I could record it.
One of the MSNBC commentators pointed out that this nonsense wasn’t directed to the American public, who I hope are beginning to see through the smoke screen, but to the hard-core right-wing base. As such, it’s Rubio’s first gambit in his run for the 2016 presidential nomination.
I don’t know if I should laugh, cry, or drink myself into a stupor.
What’s incredible to me is just how easily a truly moderate conservative would do well in today’s political climate, especially when given the pulpit Rubio has. Besides its not like the Republican Party has many alternatives when trying to make headwind into a viable political future. Yet this speech shows complete ignorance of lessons that would be obvious to glean not just from last election but public sentiment and its trends over the past few years. Republicans shouldn’t be debating the constitutional validity of healthcare as Obama has laid out but rather accept the public demands these sort of improvements and exhert their influence in a much more productive fashion, by making this public healthcare efficient and effective, not undermining its existence, same with climate change, instead of ignore the scientifically obvious come up with real solutions such as a pigovian tax that reaches goals society demands but with good alternatives.
There is a real void left for the return of a Conservative party that will actively contribute to the health of the current political apparatus. We only have one more political party then North Korea, for that reason we need a Conservative party in this country, such a shame even the young members of that party are refusing to learn the lessons they are currently paying for
I guess it is too much to expect a response; the time is too short from hearing it to delivering it. I kept wondering what this was a response to. Not an extemporaneous speaker by any shot. Not even original, just warmed over platitudes.
RPeers @11:28
I completely disagree. We have that conservative party. It’s called the Democrats.
The real political vacuum is on the left. When a centrist conservative Reaganite like BHO can be called “liberal” by anyone with a straight face, the Overton window overlooks a bizarro world of right-wing fantasy.
JzB
And i completely agree with that sentiment, Obama is also partly to blame for this new dynamic along with the political backwater that is the Republican Party. There has been a huge paradigm shift in policy to the right but this is precipitated by both parties. Even if democrats become the dominant political force for the next decade or so a mor centrist and modern Conservative party will need to replace what we have now if any real progress is to be made.
What I’m saying is a monopoly on sanity sadly won’t guarantee the democrats a political monopoly. Conservatives can reinvent themselves as a useful part of our governing body. When democrats attempt to pass legislation reducing carbon emissions instead of doubting the scientifically obvious conservatives should look for alternatives. If they don’t want regulation give me a market friendly pigovian tax. Etc etc etc
Chis Christie must be the happiest person in America today.
Rpeers
probably not.
if the people really wanted that kind of conservative the would vote for me. [no. no. thanks folks, but i’m not running. really.]
no. if the R’s appealed to “true conservatives” who would the 47% who voted for Romney vote for?
and why would “conservatives” have any reason not to vote for Obama… since he talks so nice even to them… if there was no disloyal opposition telling them that Obama was a traitor and a communist, besides being, you know, a… a … a Kenyan. (These are people who can’t tell Kenyan from Keynesian..which, of course, Obama is not.)
Conservatives had every reason to break toward the center last election yet they didn’t, why is this? I would say such simple analysis is your best proof that the party has been hijacked by a small elite.
“These are people who can’t tell Kenyan from Keynesian”
THAT is pure gold!
JzB
I’m with Jazz.
The real political vacuum is on the left. When a centrist conservative Reaganite like BHO can be called “liberal” by anyone with a straight face, the Overton window overlooks a bizarro world of right-wing fantasy
The whole thing was unwatchable if you had any type of logical connection to the real world.
S
Yes to Jazz and Sue. I mean as Rpeers thought about the repubs not breaking to the center…how can they, the dems are now what the repubs would call the center. This only leaves the left which is where the people are (at least left of where the dem’s are).
I don’t think even Rove can create a magic inwhich the repubs jump over the dems to be on their left while being viewed on the right of the dems. He needs a special mirror to produce that image with halographics.
I cannot conceive of any coherent image containing both “Rove” and “halo.”
JzB
jazz
i read a science fiction story many years ago that turned on the idea that the typesetter in heaven had made a typo and produced “angelworms” instead of “angleworms.”
i think they had halos.