I enjoy Bill Maher's material and I have to agree with him on this topic...What is your opinion?
The GOP: Dvorced from Reality
The Republican base is behaving like a guy who just got dumped by his wife.
By Bill Maher ; April 24, 2009; Los Angeles Times
If conservatives don't want to be seen as bitter people who cling to their guns and religion and anti-immigrant sentiments, they should stop being bitter and clinging to their guns, religion and anti-immigrant sentiments.
It's been a week now, and I still don't know what those "tea bag" protests were about. I saw signs protesting abortion, illegal immigrants, the bank bailout and that gay guy who's going to win "American Idol." But it wasn't tax day that made them crazy; it was election day. Because that's when Republicans became what they fear most: a minority.
The conservative base is absolutely apoplectic because, because ... well, nobody knows. They're mad as hell, and they're not going to take it anymore. Even though they're not quite sure what "it" is. But they know they're fed up with "it," and that "it" has got to stop.
Here are the big issues for normal people: the war, the economy, the environment, mending fences with our enemies and allies, and the rule of law.
And here's the list of Republican obsessions since President Obama took office: that his birth certificate is supposedly fake, he uses a teleprompter too much, he bowed to a Saudi guy, Europeans like him, he gives inappropriate gifts, his wife shamelessly flaunts her upper arms, and he shook hands with Hugo Chavez and slipped him the nuclear launch codes.
Do these sound like the concerns of a healthy, vibrant political party?
It's sad what's happened to the Republicans. They used to be the party of the big tent; now they're the party of the sideshow attraction, a socially awkward group of mostly white people who speak a language only they understand. Like Trekkies, but paranoid.
The GOP base is convinced that Obama is going to raise their taxes, which he just lowered. But, you say, "Bill, that's just the fringe of the Republican Party." No, it's not. The governor of Texas , Rick Perry, is not afraid to say publicly that thinking out loud about Texas seceding from the Union is appropriate considering that ... Obama wants to raise taxes 3% on 5% of the people? I'm not sure exactly what Perry's independent nation would look like, but I'm pretty sure it would be free of taxes and Planned Parenthood. And I would have to totally rethink my position on a border fence.
I know. It's not about what Obama's done. It's what he's planning. But you can't be sick and tired of something someone might do.
Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota recently said she fears that Obama will build "reeducation" camps to indoctrinate young people. But Obama hasn't made any moves toward taking anyone's guns, and with money as tight as it is, the last thing the president wants to do is run a camp where he has to shelter and feed a bunch of fat, angry white people.
Look, I get it, "real America ." After an eight-year run of controlling the White House, Congress and the Supreme Court, this latest election has you feeling like a rejected husband. You've come home to find your things out on the front lawn -- or at least more things than you usually keep out on the front lawn. You're not ready to let go, but the country you love is moving on. And now you want to call it a whore and key its car.
That's what you are, the bitter divorced guy whose country has left him -- obsessing over it, haranguing it, blubbering one minute about how much you love it and vowing the next that if you cannot have it, nobody will.
But it's been almost 100 days, and your country is not coming back to you. She's found somebody new. And it's a black guy.
The healthy thing to do is to just get past it and learn to cherish the memories. You'll always have New Orleans and Abu Ghraib.
And if today's conservatives are insulted by this, because they feel they're better than the people who have the microphone in their party, then I say to them what I would say to moderate Muslims: Denounce your radicals. To paraphrase George W. Bush, either you're with them or you're embarrassed by them.
The thing that you people out of power have to remember is that the people in power are not secretly plotting against you. They don't need to. They already beat you in public.
Bill Maher is the host of HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher."
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Comments: 42
Thanks for sharing this, Carla.
I especially appreciated the part where Maher points out what topics are of most interest to Americans, and then compares that to a list of things the GOP has been talking about. The disconnect is astounding.
10 for you.
That has to be Bill Maher's best line EVER.
I'm not usually a fan of cut-'n-paste articles here on Gather, but I'll make an exception for this. Bill has it absolutely right. Even the hyperbolic sarcasm isn't really sarcasm. It's simple truth.
Just to show the people that they received this message loud and clear, Republicans have responded with: 1) belligerence; 2) simplistic jingoistic solutions to complex problems (cut taxes, let the market decide who wins and loses); 3) denial of Republican mistakes (the economy and the deficit is all Obama's fault); 4) narrow minded persistence with failed policies (tax cuts and laissez-faire, market driven capitalism); 5) an abdication of the party's elected leaders in favour of failed leaders (Gingrich & Cheney) and hate-spewing pundits (Limbaugh, Coulter).
Now that's a forward looking bunch, eh?
"Divorced from Reality" is an excellent phrase to describe
the current state of the Republican Party.
I love Bill Maher's way of describing "the way it is" with such humor.
But I don't subscribe to HBO, so I miss him.
Not many even admit to being Republican these days, but they still hate Dems, and think that calling us Socialists and Communists makes it so.
Hannity considers himself to the leader of "a government in exile" as if they (his listeners) have some majority right to rule.
Noting wrong with opposition, but they don't know what to oppose?
Their own voted out of office policies?
They scream and rant about personal liberty. . . and mean stop all environmental controls, stop all labor laws, stop all public education, stop all programs that do not promote wealth to the few and mighty and oh well we do have to force people to be good Christians. (but only by their definition of what a Christian is.)
And by golly the Credit Card issuing banks out to be able to charge whatever interest they want and raise it as often as they wish, and add lots of extra charges for anytime you use the card.
How many of our Christian working people Republican voters are going to contact Congress and ask them to NOT have a law to stop some of the Credit Card issuers policies?
Now I do remember we Dems were highly critical of Geo.W'/Cheny's policies, but we did not pretend we were still running the show.
Great article and comments. Gotta agree with you Carla Rory and David are almost always spot on. I especially like the way David smacks down his stalker on global warming.
And Michele Bachmann is fast becoming Sarah Palin's successor (who was in turn Dan Quayle's successor). Her latest "hoot?" Heh, heh! Why, it's the "Hoot-Smalley" Tariff, passed by FDR and turned a simple recession into the Great Depression. She really said that, on the floor of the US House of Representatives. Uh, Michele, acushla, it's the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, created by two Republicans (Willis C. Hawley and Reed Smoot) in 1930, during the presidency of Herbert Hoover and three years before FDR took office. Doesn't she have a staff for this kind of research?
Right now they scrambling. They bring any random issue (abortion, gays, the bailout, eating garlic, weight loss,...) and scream out.
Good luck.