On Sun, Aug 12, 2012 at 9:24 AM, raghu <[email protected]> wrote: > On Sun, Aug 12, 2012 at 2:46 AM, Gar Lipow <[email protected]> wrote: > > The hardcore zealots love Ryan. > > > Do they? > > There are two types of Tea partiers that we should be careful not to mix > up. > > First there are the Ayn Rand worshiping hedge-fund types. These types > really do love Ryan. > > Second and far more numerous are the old, white, Fox-news watching, > birther Southerners who want "the government's hands off my Medicare" > and think "your mortgage is not my problem" and gets their news from > Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh. > > Do these second, electorally far more important species of Tea > Partiers really like Ryan? I suspect not. > > Yeah they do. Ryan is an anti-abortion, global warming denying , "voter fraud" vote suppressing in love with the confederate flag guy who just puts this stuff forward in a mild manner. He is right on the issues of "guns and gays" and "rights come from God not from Government" He has long term history of blowing every dog whistle that tells Beck and Limbaugh worshippers he is one of them. His actual policy on medicare won't bother most of the zealots because he gets all the signals right. Because they will assume he means to take Medicare away from "those people" who don't deserve it and not from deserving white folks. The role of racism in blinding Tea Baggers to certain aspects of what they are supporting for can't be over-estimated. And again, remember that Ryan appeals to the activists. The mass of right wing voters will never hear about what he stands for except from Beck and Limbaugh and their local church and Fox News.
And while all this is going on, the villagers like Brooks will assure everyone he is a moderate, because his style sends them a signal of "moderation". Which shows how meaningless the idea of moderation is. You know, maybe this conversation is productive after all, Because it does seem that not everyone understands just how far right our electoral system and environment leans - something we can thank the Democratic Party for at least as much as we can thank the Republicans. > -raghu. > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > -- Facebook: Gar Lipow Twitter: GarLipow Solving the Climate Crisis web page: SolvingTheClimateCrisis.com Grist Blog: http://grist.org/author/gar-lipow/ Online technical reference: http://www.nohairshirts.com
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