Crazies

As we look at the shattered remnants of our political discourse, two things about our elected betters are clear: that Democrats are money hungry, timid, spineless, fuckups and the GOP is comprised of money hungry, deranged, conspiracy theorists. Now there is no great constituency holding marches on Washington encouraging the Democrats to so completely bungle their current majority, but there are large swaths of Americans who descend upon Washington to argue that Republicans need to get crazier and espouse more and more incoherent conspiracy theories about government and the President.

The only question is how much do these fringe teabag enthusiasts represent the mainstream of Republican voter thought. Thanks to Daily Kos and Research 2000, we know that answer: they represent and disturbingly large margin.

•"Do you think Barack Obama is a socialist?" Yes 63%, No 21%, Not Sure 16%.
• "Should Barack Obama be impeached, or not?" Yes 39%, No 32%, Not Sure 29%.
• "Do you believe Barack Obama was born in the United States, or not?" Yes 42%, No 36%, Not Sure 22%.
• "Do you believe Barack Obama wants the terrorists to win?" Yes 24%, No 43%, Not Sure 33%.
• "Do you believe ACORN stole the 2008 election?" Yes 21%, No 24%, Not Sure 55%.
• "Do you believe Barack Obama is a racist who hates White people?" Yes 31%, No 36%, Not Sure 33%.
• "Do you believe your state should secede from the United States?" The answer here is Yes 23%, No 58%, Not Sure 19%. Among Republicans in the South, secessionism is stronger at Yes 33%, No 52% Not Sure 15%.

I don't know what's more disturbing, that the Yes and No answers are so close together or the fact that the Not Sure numbers are so high on whether Barack Hussein Obama is Kenyan born socialist Muslim racist who wants America to lose, was installed into power by ACORN, and should be impeached. They can see the pro and con arguments for believing such a thing, but just need to do a little bit more research before coming down one way or the other.

That's in addition to the other finding in the poll which show, by large margins, that GOP voters don't want people in trade unions and don't wants gays to be allowed to do anything. Also: over a third believe that contraception should be outlawed and that birth control equals abortion.

So in case you had any illusions of the GOP and Democrats holding hands and working together, stow them away in the same place you put those dreams for world peace. Not only are the elected ones some of the worst conspiracy mongers out there, there exists a baseline of at least a quarter to a third of Republican voters that believes said craziness and a "not sure" base that could push support of that conspiracy up into fifty percent or two-thirds range.

So no, a battle of ideas won't be coming to our national political discourse anytime soon. Unless you think that "Run away and don't do anything" vs. "Impeach the Muslim socialist appeaser" is what a battle of ideas is. If it is, then you'll certainly be thrilled by the next few years of governance.