Or Maybe They Just Can't See the Forest for the Trees.

I always say that no one can adopt the modern Rep/con agenda without being a hypocrite, dishonest, or both.  And frankly, I haven't had any evidence that that's not true.  But I thought it over again.

Earlier today, I read an article about Representative Scott Perry (R).  Perry reportedly leads the House "Freedom Caucus."  George Stephanopoulos was interviewing him, and Perry was getting defensive.  At one point, he said elections should be "easy and fair."  His complaint, as is true of many in the so-called "Freedom Caucus," was that recent elections were not fair.  The main one far right wingers claim was so faulty as to have been unfair was the presidential election of 2020.

Perry is of course absolutely right that elections should be easy and fair.  The problem is that no one has any evidence that elections in this country are not fair.  And it's not for lack of looking for evidence.  There were 60 or 61 court cases over that election, and no one found any evidence of unfairness.  To the extent that anyone ever found any imperfections at all, they seemed always to favor Republicans.  I doubt Perry is complaining about that, and neither he nor any other Republican expresses concern about any election won by a Republican.

As I said, my usual conclusion is that they're hypocrites, dishonest, or both.  But maybe they truly believe their complaints, and they just fail to see the flaw in their approach.

A little later today, I watched a video interview of Representative Nancy Mace (R) of South Carolina.  She describes her district as "very purple," and she says she has to represent Republicans, Democrats, and Independents.  The interview was on one of the media that is commonly associated with a left leaning approach, and the main purpose of the interview seemed to be to showcase Mace's characterization of Matt Gaetz as a "fraud."  But she also happened to use the term "fiscally responsible."  She didn't claim that it's Republicans who are fiscally responsible, but very many Republicans describe themselves that way.

There is no one in this country, and possibly no one in the world, as fiscally irresponsible as American Republicans.  In my memory, it started with Reagan.  GHWB, who was running against Reagan in the primaries, described Reagan's approach as "voodoo economics."  Others described it as "trickle down economics."  I don't know much about voodoo, but nothing trickled down.  Reagan promised lower taxes, but no reduction of services.  Whoever did that math didn't consider that the country would be left with a large deficit.  But it was.  And when GHWB, who succeeded Reagan's second term, lost his nerve, and acknowledged (again) that American finances were not sustainable, and that he would, in fact, have to raise taxes, he got himself unelected to a second term.  He got replaced by Clinton, who turned the deficit into a surplus.  W/Cheney then took over, lowered taxes, started a random war (no government in the history of civilization has ever gone to war and lowered taxes, because it can't be done), and reinstated a now greater deficit, coming up with some insane theory that the war would somehow (for the first time in civilization) pay for itself.  Um...no...it didn't.  Obama did not increase taxes, as he should have, so the deficit continued to grow.  Trump lowered taxes again, and the deficit is somewhere in the stratosphere.  And Biden hasn't touched that "third rail," either.  But someone is going to have to do it.  In theory -- their own theory! -- it should be those "fiscally responsible" Republicans.  Don't hold your breath.  I'm not holding mine.

But again, my reflex assumption is that they know that what they're saying is nonsense, and they're hypocritical, dishonest, or both.  Scott Perry looked it.  Nancy Mace didn't.  It made me wonder whether she, and they, really just don't get it.

My go-to assumption is always the hypocritical, dishonest, or both one.  But maybe they're just dim.  You'd think there must be some Rep/con who understands this level of arithmetic.  GHWB did.  If they don't care about this country, or the people who live here (except for the "1%" and the donors), then that explains it.  But if they really believe what they say, then maybe they're not hypocritical, or dishonest.  Maybe they're just not too bright.  Maybe in their frenzy to lower taxes, they've lost sight of the forest, because each tax reduction just looks like a pleasing tree.  Never mind what the government can't do for the people, because Republicans are focused on keeping as much as possible of their money, and those who have so much that they can use it least get to keep the most.  It's hard to think of those people simply as stupid.  It's much easier to think of them as hypocrites, dishonest, or both.

(The relatively recent Republican who understood this best, and cared the most about this country, was Eisenhower.  He made tremendous inroads -- sorry for the pun -- in constructing the interstate highway system, because it was good for Americans, and he oversaw tax rates that maxed out in the 90s%, because that's what it took to finish rebuilding after WWII and build all those interstates.  I suppose today, he'd be written off as a "RINO.")