Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Republicans Are Stupid
Last year, Democrat Senator Mazie Hirono said, “…we Democrats have a really hard time is connecting to people’s hearts.… But we have a really hard time doing that and one of the reasons it was told to me at one of our retreats was that we Democrats know so much, that is true. And we have kind of have to tell everyone how smart we are and so we have a tendency to be very left-brain.… That is not how people make decisions.”
So while Republicans don’t believe in science, the Democrats are the party of pure logic and reason, and they struggle to understand how the common people use emotions to make irrational decisions. Democrats consider themselves to be the party of intellect.
When Democrats hired an elderly Robert Mueller to investigate the President, it became obvious that Mr. Mueller was confused about the entire proceeding, and he didn’t understand what was in the report that bore his name. Then, they use an autistic teenager to explain climate science to us, and a Florida schoolchild with a learning disability to explain the social impact of gun control legislation. Democrat Congressman Hank Johnson expressed concern that Guam might capsize if development made it too top-heavy. And then was re-elected by intellectual Democrats. You might ask the Democrat presidential nominee why they keep using people with limited mental faculties to promote their agenda, but he doesn’t seem to know where he is. He’ll just get confused by your question, and call you a dog-faced pony soldier.
And if he wins the election in November, he’ll be in charge of the largest nuclear arsenal in the world.
You would think this dichotomy of their claimed brilliance, compared with their apparent cluelessness, would bother some Democrat voters. And it may. But I don’t think so.
With Democrats, if your heart is in the right place, then the details really don’t matter that much. I think. But honestly, I really don’t know. I don’t get it. You would think that a party of highly intelligent scientific geniuses would prefer to be represented by someone with a more dazzling intellect. Or, at least, with an intellect. But I don’t think it matters to them. At least, it appears not to matter to them.
Perhaps CNN’s intellectual Don Lemon could do a segment on this, and host a discussion with a guest from each party. Say, Lori Lightfoot and Ted Cruz. I don’t watch much CNN, but I’d watch that, even if I weren’t in an airport.
And it’s not just Democrat leaders. It’s the movement itself.
Conservatives can read Thomas Sowell, Milton Friedman, William F. Buckley Jr., or any number of other brilliant thinkers to learn about conservative thought. Meanwhile, the left has, um, Ta-Nehisi Coates? John Cusack? The only real thinker the left has is Karl Marx, and none of them have read him anyway. Which is ok, because he doesn’t make any sense and he died 140 years ago.
But Democrats are the intellectuals, and Republicans are stupid.
Right.
Published in General
Well, both. The Dems are effective, and the Republicans are ineffective.
Perhaps, but that was so long ago.
Mitch McConnell was first elected in 1984. What advice do you think he received upon arriving in Washington? We’ve forgotten a lot about his tenure leading our Senate caucus because he’s done pretty well the last few years.
I will never forget those years of Failure Theater, a stain that will forever taint my opinion of
McClellan, er, I mean McConnellI saw on my Facebook feed that someone changed their profile to the Goodyear logo.
I often hear Republicans say pretty much the same thing. Some of the comments in this thread are worded better, but basically make a similar claim. It’s like when we on the Right say, “We think they are wrong; They think we are evil.” We can pretend that it’s only the other side that casts their opponents as evil, but the truth is the we routinely call them evil. Perceptions are funny things.
Except we don’t call them racists, homophobes, islamophobes, transphobes, misogynists, deplorables, and [expletive] [expletive] [expletive] [expletive], all in one sentence, and then violently attack them.
But we do say that they are against private property, are against defending one’s own life, actively promote infanticide and selling of baby parts, are against marriage, against the nuclear family, actively promoting sexual promiscuity, and vastly more often than not openly against God, the Christianity and Judaism. Maybe we are waking up to their overt embrace of evil.
While true, that’s not really relevant (nor an exception) to my point.
This is the point I was making. Though we often pretend otherwise, we do think we know more than they do, that our logic is better than theirs is, and that they are evil. I think all those conclusions are warranted. I just think it’s unremarkable that they think the same of us. We all believe our perceptions are right, else we would change our minds (or get to work on rationalizing them further).
I don’t think your point is relevant. One can paper over the worst behavior by saying “well, both sides have said some bad things, so I guess everybody is equally guilty”. It’s an abstraction that covers up what’s really going on.
The real issue is that Dems are power-hungry warriors and Republicans are fumbling freedom lovers. The Republicans might call the other side “evil” as a predictive consequence of way too much power, while the Dems call the other side “evil” as an effective tool to gain power. They’re not equal.
Yes, one can say that. I however, did not. If you think I did, then consider this clarification.
There’s leftists and then there’s leftists–or there’s leftists and then there’s people who are just Democrats.
I figure my friends and acquaintances [name withheld], [name withheld], and the [names withheld] are somewhat wrong or dreadfully wrong. They’ll all vote for Biden no doubt, and some of them enthusiastically.
But they’re not evil, or if they’re evil they’re evil like I’m evil. The worst I can say for sure about their politics is that they’re lacking some facts or some logic, probably both.
But then there’s the people who understand all that stuff and actually like it.
I agree. And I think what Biden, Harris, Pelosi, and Schumer are doing is evil, and I think that they know it. Alexandria O. Cortez probably doesn’t realize it, but it’s still evil. And the progressive agenda — at least in its current formulation — is devilishly evil. I actually (I probably shouldn’t feel this way, but do) I actually feel more than a twinge of sorrow for the venom spewing rioters and protesters. They look like really empty, wounded people who are venting their infantile rage who don’t realize how crazy they are. Or that they may get seriously hurt. What’s the term LARPing?
But those pulling the strings? For them I have no sympathy.
But, but, but, they are.
The classic technique is to take a simple message and hammer it relentlessly:
The message: Republicans are evil and stupid. Democrats care.
It has been so effectively integrated into society that some people won’t vote for a Republican even if the Democrat is clearly insane. They can’t bring themselves to vote for a Republican under any circumstances.
This is because Democrats have no hearts themselves, and thus, can’t relate to normal people . . .
I’ve pretty much quit going to Republican Party meetings (what’s the point) but some of the inane things I’ve heard passionately argued…
Republicans are at a disadvantage. Conservatism and adherance to founding principles long ago rendered immaterial, requiree that we offer less, which other than taxation (a difficult sell in an environment of endless deficits and a public debt of unimaginable proportion), is not very exciting. Worse yet, we actually want to eliminate government programs and largesse! Obamacare (measured not by actual impact but by undelivered intention) will go! Subsidies for less than marginal solar and wind power – gone! Republicans have little to brag about. Even federal programs doomed by economic reality, bankrupting the treasury, (Social Security and Medicare) are simply axes to grind on the backs of current and future conservatives. It is nearly impossible to run against the government itself. We can blame the Democrats for the Administrative Procedure Act of 1946, the Social Security Act of 1935, the Medicare and the HUD acts of 1965 and the SCOTUS Wickard vs Filburn decision in 1942. These things helped anchor the massive Federal bureaucracy. The Democrats may be stupid, but they aren’t dumb. They know this: people are prone to wishful thinking to wit: what benefits them should last forever. More is better. They are ALWAYS on the side of promises of more. With a horizon of two years, perhaps four or six, who cares if it won’t last forever. That will be another Democrat’s problem.
I think, by and large, that is the primary and overriding objective; most of them (politicians) aren’t into pursuing an ideological objective, they are simply intent on winning the next election… they will follow any trend if it may help them win. The next campaign begins on election day.
That makes me wonder if those who came in with Obama in 2008 were politicians in the normal sense. They knew they’d get slaughtered in the next election for passing their health care package, but they didn’t care. They knew if it ever passed, the GOPe led by The Turtle wouldn’t have the guts to repeal it. In fact, when asked if repeal was on the table, McConnell replied, “That’d be really hard to do.” The ink barely dry on the bill and he was already laying the groundwork for folding. So the Demos sacrificed their offices for something they believe in. I actually admire that, and wish the Repubs had that kind of commitment.
Well, in regard to Hank Johnson’s reelection by “intellectual Democrats”, I believe that if you take a casual stroll through his congressional district (and if you live to tell the tale) you won’t find all that many intellectuals there. And, although he will be forever remembered for his “Guam tipping over” remark, he has uttered many, many more stupid things.
What makes it even more tragic, is that he is probably smarter than his predecessor, the immortal Cynthia “Free Gaza” McKinney. (Of course, she did receive a PhD from Antioch University and everyone knows how rigorous the academic standards are there.)
Wow – I didn’t know that! Wonderful! A PhD from Antioch! Where they really believe in the stereotype: PhD = Piled Higher and Deeper.
Yes, thank you noD! I was going to say something similar. Oh, wait. I did:
https://ricochet.com/794901/only-republicans-practice-distancing/
What did they mean by that?
Yeah, right and left talk past each other. We have different paradigms and philosophies.
I’m reminded of the 0bamaphone lady who was asked where the money to pay for all these phones would come from, and she replied, The government! And when asked where the government gets the money, she said, The make it! And I thought, No! It’s taxes! And we can’t just print it because that would cause inflation!
But you know I think she was right after all. She saw MMT before anyone was talking about it.
Didn’t she also say that Obama was getting the money out of his “stash”? I was a bit surprised when she wasn’t asked to become part of his White House staff…
Now a popular meme.
Remember the trillion dollar coin? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trillion-dollar_coin
Idea endorsed by Paul Krugman years ago and re-introduced in Congress by Rashida Tlaib.
Debate club must be very different now from when I was a kid.