Don't Take MY Word For It.

How hate has become the GOP's main political weapon (msn.com)

At first, I was going to excerpt early parts of this article.  But as I read, I realized there was almost none of it I shouldn't excerpt.  So you can read it for yourselves.  And you should.

This comes from an online publication called "Raw Story."  As best I can tell, it is decidedly left wing.  But I couldn't find anything in this article that didn't seem "fair and balanced," that wasn't based on agreed history, that wasn't a quote, and, for what it's worth, the author took into account dynamics of human nature (and even animal behavior, although he didn't call it that) that were 100% accurate.

For what it's also worth, the author mentions that his father "referred to himself as an 'Eisenhower Republican.'"  The author does not reveal his own political affiliation, and frankly, in view of the discussion he presents, it doesn't matter.  Eisenhower would, of course, be written off as a "RINO" today.  And frankly, not having been aware enough of these matters back then (I was too young), I don't know what made Eisenhower a Republican then.  The article states he was concerned about, or opposed to, McCarthy, who was a Republican of the type we see today.  For all I know, maybe McCarthy planted the seeds of today's Reps/cons, although he certainly had adequate support from a lot of people, including elected people, back then.

And as the author also summarizes, there's no difference between McCarthy, today's Reps/cons, and any other autocrats, demagogues, and hate-mongers.

I don't know how much of this attitude characterized Dems in the past.  It seems starkly clear that Lincoln would not be part of the "Party of Lincoln" today.  He'd resign as many of the less unbalanced ones are now doing.  And Reps and Dems, as is common among groups of people who have what they consider territories, have done a strange dance, so that today's Reps espouse what past Dems used to espouse.  (I'm thinking here about "states' rights," and how all the people who used to be southern Dems are now Reps.)  They just switch agendas, so they can continue to disagree with each other.  That's no doubt a somewhat more subtle reflection of the "hate" Thom Hartmann describes in this article.  Hate is not only more powerful than love, as Hartmann puts it, but it's more powerful than common sense or rational thinking.

The fact is that I myself don't disagree with some of the planks in the Rep/con platform (although I do disagree with them about the two supposedly most salient ones -- low taxes, especially to benefit the people who already have the most money, and government small enough, as Grover Norquist wisecracks, to drown in a bathtub).  And the couple of areas where I agree have no business being part of  the platform.  I agree because I think Dems are sometimes wrong, and sometimes go too far.  I don't agree because I'm filled with hate for things I can't even be bothered to think through.

But the point of the article is that today's Republican Party is essentially morally meaningless and bankrupt, and it uses as its central unifying factor "hate."  The appeal is to the most primitive of human characteristics: uses and thems; identification of an enemy or bogeyman.  The article explains some of the psychological and group dynamic factors that make that strategy work, as it has worked in other settings and at other times.

To give one example that I mentioned recently in another post, I sign a number of petitions about various things, if I agree with them.  Sometimes, the recipients of the petitions are Florida US Senators.  Although I most commonly get brief and unenlightening boilerplate pablum from Marco Rubio (as a response), I sometimes get a significantly longer discussion.  But the discussion is a mention of what bills Rubio has introduced about the subject at hand, and his people (whoever writes these responses) NEVER fail to criticize Democrats.  It's as if disagreeing with Democrats -- Rubio seems incapable of not disagreeing with Democrats, about anything (his response could just address the issue at hand, which has nothing to do with Democrats, instead of gratuitously and pathetically taking irrelevant swipes as Democrats, or Jor Biden) -- is an important or critical factor in his decision-making.  It's as if hatred of Democrats is the oxygen Rubio breathes, and upon which he depends to stay alive.

As another example of this problem, many Americans, and most certainly and concertedly Republicans, were, and still are, militantly anti-Communist.  They see, or allege, Communism where it's not clear it exists.  But if they're given a choice between confronting Vladimir Putin, who was a very active USSR/Communist functionary, and now as much of a Russian dictator as Stalin was, and who is pursuing an alliance with Xi Jin-Ping (that Chinese Communist leader),or taking any position that will disagree with Democrats, and especially Joe Biden, they reflexly, mindlessly, magnetically, rush to the latter.  Their blind hatred of Democrats prevents them from thinking straight, or even in any remotely consistent way adhering to their own agenda.

So, I suggest you read this article, and I'm afraid I'm left with no other conclusion than to ask you to "read [it] and weep."  It's very sad.  We've fallen a very long way from Hartmann's father's "Eisenhower Republican."  And we've become increasingly, and desperately, dysfunctional because of the fall.