Folly, the late Barbara Tuchman has told us, is “knowing better but doing worse.” The power of wishful thinking is so great that even demonstrably highly intelligent people can fall into this zone. I say this with a certain authority.
Today, we have an example from a generally smart commentator:
The GOP works for us, and it would solve a bunch of the morale problems that its ineptitude has created by understanding the nature of that relationship.
No, Kurt. That’s not the way it is. That’s the way you want it. As regards the major political parties, Pournelle’s Iron Law kicked in quite some time ago. They’re in business for themselves, and themselves alone. By now, someone as smart as you should have realized that.
The indispensable Sundance at The Last Refuge addressed this quite recently:
If you peel the core of any issue involving conflict with the Republican Party, you will find money at the center of it. Current Democrat politicians focus on advancing an ideological agenda; they swing for the fences in an effort to maximize control and power. Current Republican politicians are focused, to the detriment of all other facets, on their personal wealth.
When you introduce a newly elected ‘conservative‘ to the DC world of republicanism, it is like sending a new guy/gal into the room to talk policy, only to be met with every face around the table staring back quizzically and dismissively while replying, “We don’t do that here – we are talking about money.”
Once you reset the Schoolhouse Rocks mindset and accept this is the truth of the thing, then everything else that puzzled you about Republican politics reconciles.
Ballot harvesting doesn’t generate money, so why do it? We can make just as much money in the minority railing against ‘them’, so why be focused on a majority? Donald Trump is threatening the financial position of our benefactors, so we hate him. These are the simple truths of modern Republicans.
If you want the comparable demonstration for Democrats, just look at what their policies have done to their critical voting blocs. Who do you suppose has benefited from all that carnage, squalor, and despair? Not Negroes. Not recent immigrants, legal or otherwise. And most certainly not American women.
Once more, with feeling: Politics is not the answer. Politics is the problem. Get off the Mishnory road before it’s too late!
1 comment
My current philosophy is that if your full time livelihood depends on your Internet reporting via social media or main stream, media, you are a grifter no matter what your background. They all think they have to stay relevant, which they do lest they go broke.