The Alternate (Red State) Reality

For the past year, there has been a steady stream of insanity coming from the Fox News enthusiasts, asserting that Barack Obama doesn't really belong in the White House because ACORN stole the 2008 presidential election, that poor people are responsible for the current economic recession, that liberals are conspiring to murder the elderly and small children, that a series of undisclosed prison camps are being assembled, and that Democrats are responsible for the debt of the past eight years. In the month of August 2009, America was treated to hysterical, screaming, conservative white people bitter about losing the last election, at town hall events, defending what they believed to be the Constitution with slogans like "Keep the government out of Medicare." The protesters were probably unaware that Medicare is a government-run program. Yeah...who would've thought? A factually-handicapped Fox News viewer seems like an oxymoron. The same element (angry, hysterical, screaming, conservative white people bitter about losing the last election) has hurled endless accusations about healthcare reform being a path to unmanageable debt. The alternate reality, more accurately, the unreality of conservatives might be hilarious to watch, but the consequences for governance (endless gridlock, refusal to accept results of democratic elections) have been and will continue to be detrimental for American society.

In one striking example of conservative unreality passing for a logical explanation (at least in the world of college dropout conservative commentators like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity), red state voters will tell you a fairy tale about the financial crisis. Paul Krugman has a decent synopsis.

"Talk to conservatives about the financial crisis and you enter an alternative, bizarro universe in which government bureaucrats, not greedy bankers, caused the meltdown. It’s a universe in which government-sponsored lending agencies triggered the crisis, even though private lenders actually made the vast majority of subprime loans. It’s a universe in which regulators coerced bankers into making loans to unqualified borrowers, even though only one of the top 25 subprime lenders was subject to the regulations in question.

Oh, and conservatives simply ignore the catastrophe in commercial real estate: in their universe the only bad loans were those made to poor people and members of minority groups, because bad loans to developers of shopping malls and office towers don’t fit the narrative.

In part, the prevalence of this narrative reflects the principle enunciated by Upton Sinclair: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” As Democrats have pointed out, three days before the House vote on banking reform Republican leaders met with more than 100 financial-industry lobbyists to coordinate strategies. But it also reflects the extent to which the modern Republican Party is committed to a bankrupt ideology, one that won’t let it face up to the reality of what happened to the U.S. economy."

So, conservatives believe (in the face of overwhelming contrary evidence, because facts, evidence, and reality have never unduly influence conservative thinking) that impoverished people, government bureaucrats, and the Community Reinvestment Act are responsible for the current economic crisis, not unregulated financial transactions, irresponsible mortgage lenders, or dishonest investment bankers. SIGH...sometimes the truth is exhausting. That probably has something to do with liberals suffering from constant fatigue.

The conservative mythology regarding the financial crisis is just one example of unapologetic alternate reality. The current healthcare reform discourse has been colored by conservative hyperbole and outright dishonesty. Prominent conservatives (Sarah Palin, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Laura Ingraham, Bill Kristol, Betsy McCaughey, Senator Tom Coburn, Senator Chuck Grassley, Representative Virginia Foxx, and Representative Michele Bachmann) have asserted that healthcare reform is conspiracy designed to murder elderly people and children, describing such diabolical mechanisms as "death panels." These assertions were repeatedly debunked by creditable news organizations (the Associated Press, Reuters, the New York Times, factcheck.org to name just a handful). The absence of truth didn't stop conservatives from repeating such lies without pause. The whole shameful death panel episode clearly demonstrates that conservatives have been divorced from reality during the healthcare debate, which is all the more reason not to take their corporate-friendly, anti-majority suggestions seriously in crafting a final legislative product I might add.

Then there's the overall state of electoral denial on the part of conservatives during and after the 2008 election, up to and including this very moment. Conservatives seem to believe that it's still 2002. Fox News talks about the silent majority as if John McCain and Sarah Palin won the election. Republican senators act as if they are entitled to control of legislative business. Explain to a conservative that medical bills are responsible for sixty-three percent of all personal bankruptcies (New York Times, Tara Parker Pope, June 4th, 2009) as an obvious reason for passing healthcare reform based on widespread public dissatisfaction with for-profit, corporate healthcare and there's a good chance that the conservative will tell you that the general public wants tax cuts for the rich and financial de-regulation before any other legislative action. The conservative will give this response despite the fact that there is no reality-based evidence for such a statement.

Republicans in Congress have been asserting for the entire first year of Barack Obama's presidency that he has no reason to believe that the agenda he campaigned on should be enacted. Again, it's as if the red state silent majority won the election, even though facts and reality contradict such an obvious fantasy. The truth is that Republicans don't have public majorities to speak of. Barack Obama won the presidential election by 9.5 million votes. Democrats control the House of Representatives and the Senate because there were elections. Democrats won the overwhelming majority of those elections. The truth hurts, almost as much as losing an election hurts, but that's how representative democracy works. Try explaining that to the average Glenn Beck acolyte and you will receive a blank stare. Conservatives only prefer democracy and its subsequent results when the candidate that they prefer is installed by the Supreme Court after losing the election. This hysterical conservative anger about Barack Obama's agenda stems from severe bitterness and a complete disregard for factual reality. Like I said, the truth hurts. This brings us to another unhealthy red state voter obsession-unvarnished bigotry and its constant public visibility whenever conservatives voice their unhinged, fact-free opinions.

During the 2008 election, Sarah Palin made a habit of accusing Barack Obama of aiding and abetting terrorism. Like so many other popular conservative assertions, Sarah Palin's accusation had no basis in reality. Barack Obama was a child when Bill Ayers was planting bombs. Fox News and its hate-spewing commentators have pursued a fanatical vendetta against ACORN, accusing the organization of stealing the 2008 election and operating as a criminal enterprise. It’s only a minor coincidence that ACORN is staffed overwhelmingly by less-than-wealthy liberal brown people that don't often vote for Republicans. Glenn Beck has asserted that Democrats in Congress and Barack Obama are attempting to pursue reparations. I'm unaware of any such legislation with that goal currently being considered by Congress, but the people at Fox News seem absolutely certain. To hear conservatives complain about Barack Obama's agenda is to hear a laundry list of racial grievances. Conservatives fear that illegal immigrants (code for brown people) will receive healthcare. Conservatives fear that redistribution of wealth will occur and that welfare queens (code for brown people) will unfairly benefit. Conservatives fear that ACORN (extremely obvious code for brown people) will use the census to dismantle democracy. All of these fears are above and beyond nonsensical, but they are enunciated by prominent conservatives for the purpose of stoking irrational white racial fear.

I don't remember conservatives being quite so outraged about deficits that amounted to 5.1 trillion dollars under George W. Bush. I also don't remember conservatives being so deeply opposed to government action when it came to waging two wildly unpopular wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Are deficits acceptable as long as they go towards tax cuts for the rich and wars that result in the killing of impoverished brown people? I certainly don't remember conservatives voicing their outrage about corruption as KBR collected twelve billion dollars at taxpayer expense for their less-than-quality services (war-profiteering) in Iraq. It should be noted that the Department of Defense refused to approve approximately 1 billion dollars worth expenses for KBR in 2008. Translation-KBR attempted to steal a billion dollars from taxpayers (The Spoils of War, Vanity Fair, Michael Shnayerson, August 7th, 2008). By comparison, ACORN has received approximately 53 million dollars in federal funds since 1994 (CBS News, September 12, 2009. Maybe in the conservative alternate reality, a billion is less than 53 million. Or more likely, the average Fox News viewer believes that corporations owned by wealthy, conservative, white southerners are entitled to steal taxpayer money while organizations staffed largely by poor brown people should be denounced and investigated.

Bill Maher wasn't on the right track. He was right. "Not all Republicans are bigots, but the chances are good that if you're a bigot in America today, you're a Republican."

Conservatives/Republicans can project their hatred with great intensity, but it won't wash away their dishonesty. Screaming that the brown president and his scary brown allies are out to destroy America without any factual evidence to support such outlandish claims constitutes bigotry. I don't think that the Tea Parties are a manifestation of intolerance and hatred. They are manifestations of hatred and intolerance, featuring signs that equate healthcare reform and Barack Obama to fascism and (as is so often the case for any conservative event), screaming, hysterical, poorly-educated white people. The conservative movement is overwhelmingly comprised of angry white people for a reason. Just glance at an average Barack Obama voter and an average John McCain voter and the truth becomes abundantly clear.

All of this conservative fantasy-based fury has created one very visible product in American governance-gridlock. Gridlock is the by-product of unreality. Conservatives have been bent on stopping any and all progress in the Barack Obama presidency. They are not interested in governance. They are obsessed with bitterness, hatred, and anger. The fact that their actions may result in immense human suffering by large segments of the American public hasn't bothered them in the least. Conservatives are not only in active denial about reality. They are seeking to undermine reality for years to come, much in the same way that the previous hillbilly administration attempted to undermine reality. In every public policy debate, conservatives seek to demagogue without hesitation. With no agreed-upon set of facts, the Ann Coulters and Glenn Becks of the world can invent their own facts for every situation. Conservatives don't believe in facts, just irreconcilable assertions, and this allows them to live in a comfortable fantasy world where tax cuts create balanced budgets, endless wars qualify as peace, and poverty is cured with prayer. Such beliefs might be comforting to the average red state voter, but they definitely don't produce comfortable policy for a majority of Americans.