In this morning’s New York Times, Paul Krugman clearly says what needs to be said — the GOP is “A party defined by its lies. At this point, good people can’t be good Republicans.”
The column is well worth the read, especially as it address some of the fallacies we’ve tossed back and forth here about proactively reaching out to GOP voters (which is different from welcoming penitent former Republicans who now acknowledge the depths of the GOP’s depravity). Some highlights (emphasis mine):
… at this point the G.O.P.’s campaign message consists of nothing but lies; it’s hard to think of a single true thing Republicans are running on.
And yes, it’s a Republican problem (and it’s not just Donald Trump). Democrats aren’t saints, but they campaign mostly on real issues, and generally do, in fact, stand for more or less what they claim to stand for. Republicans don’t. And the total dishonesty of Republican electioneering should itself be a decisive political issue, because at this point it defines the party’s character.
…
The lies have come nonstop since Trump’s inauguration address, which conveyed a false vision of “American carnage.” But they have gotten ever more extreme, culminating in the portrayal of a small caravan of refugees still 1,000 miles from the border as an imminent, menacing invasion — somehow full of diseased Middle Eastern terrorists.And now there’s the added insinuation that sinister Jewish financiers are the real culprits behind this invasion. Because that’s where people doing this kind of thing always end up.
The crucial thing to realize is that these aren’t just ugly, destructive lies. Beyond that, they shape the G.O.P.’s nature. It is now impossible to have intellectual integrity and a conscience while remaining a Republican in good standing. Some conservatives have these qualities; almost all of them have left the party, or are on the edge of excommunication.
…
That’s why a Republican campaign built entirely on lies should itself be a political issue — a reason to vote Democratic even if you want tax cuts. For we’re not just talking about a party selling bad ideas on false pretenses. The addiction to lies has also — let’s be blunt — turned it into a party of bad people.
…
This is not a political “blunder” — Mr. Krugman is not running for office. It is instead an accurate observation of reality by a Nobel prize winning economist.
Whatever happens next Tuesday, I suggest that it is imperative that we see the GOP as what it is. This gang of thugs and liars MUST be stripped of power. The despicable people who still support them MUST be explicitly named as the ugly minority that they are. It is time to make association with the GOP as socially unacceptable as open membership in the KKK or the American Nazi Party (both on the upswing among GOP voters).
America MUST reject the premise that vicious and ugly unmitigated greed, lies, bigotry, ignorance, and misogyny make America “great”. We must collectively pour salt on every slug that slithers out from under the rocks.
Truth and love trumps lies and hate.
GOP now stands for CRH. Chronic Rhetorical Flatulence.
“The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it.” George Orwell
I see a man and I am commanded to call him a woman, on the pain of public shame and expropriation. What would Orwell think of that?
“It was as though some huge force were pressing down upon you—something that penetrated inside your skull, battering against your brain, frightening you out of your beliefs, persuading you, almost, to deny the evidence of your senses…
The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
So seascraper, are you voting no on Question 3 — against transgender equality?
Heaven forbid someone should require you to having good manners! How cruel and dictatorial!
I’m a nice person. Government enforced indulgence of the mentally ill at the point of a gun? Not good.
Nice as you may be (though you’ve done a poor job demonstrating it here…) you still don’t get to say what is enforced nor what is ‘indulgence’ nor what is, or is not, ‘mentally ill.’
I don’t either, if that makes you feel better.
You think that transgender people are mentally ill, eh?
Well, I suppose I can try and be polite to you anyway despite your delusions. This’ll be my way of indulging you: I can pretend you’re offering reasonable arguments.
Since you think attributing mental illness to others is consistent with being a “nice person”, you can’t possibly be offended by my last comment.
Right?
I see another Trumpist troll.
George Orwell — Trumpist troll. Thank you Tom!
Oh yeah, I forgot that Orwell’s 1984 was about right-wingers being commanded to support transgender rights.
For the record, George Orwell–a democratic socialist–would have laughed at the conservative’s using his arguments to oppress others and vomited at the right’s embrace of Russia, which has changed its means, but not its ends.
“I’m melting, I’m melting,” said the Snowflake.
One of my closet friends whom I lived with in college and have known since the 7th grade came out as trans non-binary person shortly after the Trump presidency began. They made a very courageous decision and have gradually come out to family, friends, and their employer. They have lost some friends along the way. It was with great pride and a sense of duty that I voted to protect them, as I have protected them in person by accompanying them to bathrooms or putting myself in between them and people who have heckled them on the T or the street. At the end of the day, those that Vote No on 3 are voting to codify their personal prejudices with the law. Massachusetts has a golden opportunity to lead on this issue and we should take it.
Are you suggesting that saying so would be a blunder on Krugman’s part if he WERE running for office?
Heh.
I’m making a back-handed criticism of the multitude who so harshly attacked Ms. Clinton for saying the same thing during 2016 campaign. I emphatically reject those attacks — I rejected them then and I reject them now.
That highly contentious argument is moot in this case because Mr. Krugman is not a candidate. That was my intent in mentioning the “blunder”.
tl:dr: They really are deplorable…
I’m hoping we do not derail this thread into yet another rehash of all that.
It really IS moot, because Mr. Krugman really is NOT a candidate.
I think what we are seeing is the Obama-Trump voter coming back home to the Democrats in congressional and governors races throughout the Rust Belt. I think this is something we should all celebrate. Similarly, we are seeing many of the Romney Republicans that failed to show up for Hillary as predicted in 2016 show up and vote for Democrats for the first time in this midterm cycle. Lastly, those hard to please young voters and previously disenfranchised minority voters are also coming into the tent. I am becoming more and more optimistic that we might be in for a night closer to the Virginia 2017 election or the Alabama Senate Special than the polls seem to be indicating. Both/and seems to be working. More importantly, America wants to check this reckless presidency and repudiate the party that has enabled him at every turn.
FWIW: Krugman was appalled at the way Clinton, whom he supported, was treated.
His argument that the GOP is a party of lies is also based on the accumulation of evidence, not ideology. He’s an empiricist and one of the clearest thinkers we have today.