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(Some Of The Reasons) Republicans Are Delusional

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Republicans are delusional. Show them a picture, or say the sky is blue, and they’ll do backflips trying to claim something totally different. It’s always been bad, but over the past few months, they’ve gotten apoplectic.

Take the polls — state or nationwide — almost all of which over the past week show President Barack Obama with a healthy lead over Mitt Romney. Of course, the GOP and their supporters staunchly denounce the polls — oversampling of Democrats! they are claiming — ignorant of the obvious fact that there simply are more Democrats than Republicans, and Independents are leaning toward President Obama because the GOP has totally lost their grip on reality.

“On TV, talk radio and especially the Internet is a place where the swing-state polls that show Romney losing are not just inaccurate but part of an intentional plot by the heretofore unknown media-pollster axis to depress Republican voters, Politico reports. “In this other world, Romney not only isn’t losing — he’s on the verge of a convincing victory.”

“I believe if the election were held today, Romney would win by 4 or 5 points,” trumpeted Dick Morris on Fox News last week, predicting a win for the GOP ticket in Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Nevada and Pennsylvania. In public polls right now, Romney is losing in each of those states. But, Morris said, that’s because the data are all wrong.

So, it is rather surprising that, in an embarrassingly ludicrous op-ed that Politico actually published, Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) Chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, actually claims “I am confident about our Republican prospects for this November,” in a piece titled, “GOP bid to retake Senate looks good in homestretch.”

The president and the Democratic leadership want to evade responsibility, but there is no place for them to hide. Voters’ everyday lives are simply harder than they were before, and Democrats are directly to blame for that.

The high tax, high spend economy is a Democrat construct, and this has hurt their election chances — even in historically safe Democratic areas. And senators like Jon Tester, Bill Nelson and Sherrod Brown have not stayed true to their 2006 campaign promises to act as bipartisan representatives and put people first. These men, along with their Democratic colleagues and candidates, have continually sided with President Barack Obama and backed his failed policies.

One of the largest stains on the Senate Democrats’ voting record is the $800-plus billion stimulus package that failed to create American jobs or assist the economy in its recovery. While Senate Democrats led their constituencies to believe such a large waste of taxpayer money was crucial to the future of the economy, the results show this was a critical miscalculation. Voters will remember their words of reassurance — and their votes.

Never mind that the Congressional Budget Office and a gazillion reputable economists have debunked that totally bogus claim of “the $800-plus billion stimulus package that failed to create American jobs or assist the economy in its recovery.” Hey, whatever gets you through the day, Senator, but you’re just flat out lying.

“Did the stimulus work?,” the Washington Post asked, back in June:

Certainly not according to Republicans, who regularly blast President Obama’s “failed” economic policies on the campaign trail. GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney has called the $787 billion package of temporary tax cuts and spending hikes “the largest one-time careless expenditure of government money in American history.”

But on Wednesday, under questioning from skeptical Republicans, the director of the nonpartisan (and widely respected) Congressional Budget Office was emphatic about the value of the 2009 stimulus. And, he said, the vast majority of economists agree.

In a survey conducted by the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, 80 percent of economic experts agreed that, because of the stimulus, the U.S. unemployment rate was lower at the end of 2010 than it would have been otherwise.

“Only 4 percent disagreed or strongly disagreed,” CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf told the House Budget Committee. “That,” he added, “is a distinct minority.”

It’s one thing to play politics.  While we shouldn’t accept politicians twisting the truth, it’s become an art form for them, and many people — except for so-called “low-information voters” — expect that what they hear may be more wishful thinking than fact thse days.

But this isn’t wishful thinking. This is pure delusion.

The Republicans didn’t like the idea of a Black president, so they made up a way to make him illegitimate. Thus, “birtherism” was born.”

When that didn’t work, they made him gay.

When they don’t like the fact that their candidate is losing, and badly, they claim the polls are all wrong — even their own.

So, back to the polls.

In “Who’s Delusional?,” Andrew Sullivan today points to a Pew poll (image, right,) that shows exactly this.

“In our polarized culture, actual experience of the economy doesn’t seem to matter as much as whether you are on Team Red or Team Blue,” Sullivan writes:

The Pew graph shows Democratic optimism about the economy – and such a sudden switch in September, you just have to credit one obvious thing: the Democratic Convention and Bill Clinton’s speech especially. He told the real story of the past few years, as opposed to the ludicrous narrative of a desperate opposition. And Democrats believed him. But just as remarkable is the sharp rise since March of Republicans saying they are hearing mostly bad things about the economy. I know the recovery remains sluggish – even if it’s a joy ride compared with Europe right now. But it’s twice as bad now as it was in March? Shurely shome mishtake.

…

And so when I read or hear Republicans talking about this failed presidency in apocalyptic terms, I feel rather like Mark Lilla. It’s not that I disagree. I cannot even begin to see how a conversation can begin. We have different experiences of reality. But that’s why, I think, this election is so fascinating. It will, by default, offer us a direct take on the majority’s perception of reality.

 

Ultimately, if you haven’t been able to figure out how all this could happen, allow me to suggest this.

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News

Trump’s SNAP Claim Sparks Outrage

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October 31, 2025

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Amid the administration’s refusal to tap contingency funds to sustain the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) — and with two federal judges now ordering it to do so — President Donald Trump came under fire Friday for claiming that most SNAP recipients are Democrats.

Forty-two million Americans may lose their benefits starting on Saturday if the Trump administration does not act.

While there are no exact statistics on party affiliation, large numbers of SNAP users reside in deep red states.

According to WIRED, data collected by the USDA “shows that deep-red states like Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, and Louisiana are among those with the highest percentage of food stamp recipients.”

READ MORE: ‘Complicit in Evil’: GOP Firestorm Erupts Amid Heritage Head’s Carlson Defense

And according to Philip Bump, the former Washington Post columnist, “more members of vulnerable populations who receive SNAP benefits … live in districts that also voted for Trump.”

President Trump, however, offered a different perspective while speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on his way to Mar-a-Lago.

“And, you know, largely, when you talk about SNAP, you’re talking about largely Democrats, but I’m president. I wanna help everybody,” he said. “I want to help Democrats and Republicans, but when you’re talking about SNAP, if you look, it’s largely Democrats, they’re hurting their own people.”

Critics pushed back against the President’s claim.

“Florida has nearly 3 million SNAP recipients. Texas has 3.5 million. All those deep red Southern states have huge SNAP populations,” noted Punchbowl News co-founder John Bresnahan.

“This is not true at all. The loss of SNAP funding will hit red America hard, too,” observed MSNBC deputy managing editor of news Zack Stanton. “Even if it was true, it’s weird to be ok with Americans going hungry because they live in blue states.”

READ MORE: ‘Disturbing’: Johnson Scorched for Saying He’s Starving SNAP to ‘Pressure’ Democrats

“He’s trying to say—of course—that SNAP is for poor non white people, mostly living in the cities he wants militarily occupy. But, as it happens, SNAP is also for lots of poor white people living in the rural/small town areas Trump claims to care about,” wrote Dissent Magazine’s Richard Yeselson.

“And there it is. Trump openly reveals why he and other Republicans are cutting SNAP. The irony is that a lot of poor people in America who are on SNAP are rural Trump voters,” noted U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-PA).

“Trump is refusing to fund SNAP during the shutdown (something every other administration has done) because he wrongly believes that all families who rely on it are Democrats, and Democrats deserve to starve,” wrote The Lincoln Project.

“SNAP helps feed children, including one in four kids in America. Are children Democrats or Republicans? I don’t know BECAUSE THEY ARE CHILDREN. SNAP also helps veterans, seniors and people with disabilities,” commented U.S. Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA).


READ MORE: Americans Turn Against Trump’s Crime Crackdowns: Report

 

Image via Reuters

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‘Complicit in Evil’: GOP Firestorm Erupts Amid Heritage Head’s Carlson Defense

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October 31, 2025

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Prominent conservatives are rebuking Kevin Roberts, the head of the Heritage Foundation — the organization behind Project 2025 and self-described “intellectual backbone” of the conservative movement — after he threw his support behind right-wing political commentator and podcaster Tucker Carlson, now under fire for platforming far-right extremist leader Nick Fuentes this week.

The editors of the right-wing National Review in a scathing editorial explained: “Tucker Carlson, knee-deep already, has taken another step into the muck with a friendly interview with Nick Fuentes.”

“The issue isn’t merely that Carlson ‘platformed’ a white-nationalist influencer,” they wrote. “The deeper problem is that Carlson didn’t actually challenge any of Fuentes’s noxious views that he has spelled out quite clearly over the years. Fuentes has engaged in Holocaust denial, called Adolf Hitler ‘really f– cool,’ and said that if his movement gained power, it would execute ‘perfidious Jews.'”

The editors continued: “In his appearance, Fuentes stated that the ‘big challenge’ to unifying the country against tribal interests was ‘organized Jewry in America,’ and he expressed admiration for Soviet butcher Joseph Stalin. He did not receive any pushback from Carlson.”

READ MORE: ‘Disturbing’: Johnson Scorched for Saying He’s Starving SNAP to ‘Pressure’ Democrats

In a video rushing to Carlson’s defense, Roberts declared, “The Heritage Foundation didn’t become the intellectual backbone of the conservative movement by canceling our own people or policing the consciences of Christians. And we won’t start doing that now.”

Instead, he framed the controversy surrounding Carlson and Fuentes as “the robust debate we invite, with our colleagues, our movement friends, our members, and the American public,” while vowing to “always defend truth.”

And Roberts insisted that “we will always defend our friends against the slander of bad actors who serve someone else’s agenda. That includes Tucker Carlson, who remains, and as I have said before, always will be a close friend of the Heritage Foundation.”

He vowed that the “attempt to cancel him will fail,” and said that “canceling” Fuentes is also “not the answer” — before denouncing “the vile ideas of the left.”

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) in remarks made at a Republican Jewish Coalition gathering, said:

“If you sit there and nod adoringly while someone tells you that Winston Churchill was the villain of World War II, if you sit there and nod while someone says, ‘Well, there’s a very good argument that America should have intervened on behalf of Nazi Germany in World War II.’ If you sit there with someone who says Adolf Hitler was very, very cool and that their mission is to combat and defeat global Jewry, and you say nothing, then you are a coward, and you are complicit in that evil.”

READ MORE: Americans Turn Against Trump’s Crime Crackdowns: Report

As Jewish Insider reported, Cruz “did not mention the Heritage Foundation, Roberts, Carlson or Fuentes by name, though he accused anyone who uncritically promotes Adolf Hitler of being ‘complicit’ in spreading virulent antisemitism.”

Jewish Insider also reported that the head of the Republican Jewish Coalition, Matt Brooks, told the news outlet, “I am appalled, offended and disgusted that [Roberts] and Heritage would stand with Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes as somehow being acceptable spokespeople within the conservative movement.”

Brooks added, “obviously there’s going to be a reassessment of our relationship with Heritage in light of this.”

U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY), the former longtime Republican Leader, responded to Roberts’ video with biting condemnation: “The ‘intellectual backbone of the conservative movement’ is only as strong as the values it defends.”

“Last I checked, ‘conservatives should feel no obligation’ to carry water for antisemites and apologists for America-hating autocrats. But maybe I just don’t know what time it is…”

Right-wing commentator Erick Erickson, in a lengthy rebuke, blasted Roberts (and numerous other targets): “Kevin Roberts could have chosen to criticize Carlson as a friend. Kevin could have chosen silence. Instead, he picked the worst possible option of dismissing very legitimate criticism and did so in the most straw-man possible way.”

“I also know what Kevin Roberts, J.D. Vance, and others are doing as they dance around some of these guys, Erickson wrote. “They want to attract young zoomers to their side, many of them male, and they think the way to do that is to punch back hard at critics, refuse to fold to criticism, and show a high tolerance for inflammatory positions that rile up the left.”

READ MORE: ‘How Authoritarians Rule’: National Security Experts Blast Trump’s New Nuclear ‘Fear Show’

 

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Trump Admin Official: ‘Your Government Is Failing You’

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October 31, 2025

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U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, appearing to depart from official administration messaging, told Americans affected by the federal government shutdown and the loss of essential food assistance programs such as SNAP that their government is “failing” them.

“My message to America is, first, the fact that your government is failing you right now,” Secretary Rollins told reporters on Friday at a press conference with Speaker of the House Mike Johnson.

“That poverty is not red or blue. It is not a Republican or Democrat issue,” she continued.

“It doesn’t matter who you voted for, or even if you voted, that if you are in a position where you can’t feed your family, and you’re relying on that $187 a month for an average family in the SNAP program, that we have failed you,” she admitted.

READ MORE: ‘Disturbing’: Johnson Scorched for Saying He’s Starving SNAP to ‘Pressure’ Democrats

Speaker Johnson, who opposes any measures to fund food stamps or other safety-net programs without reopening the government, quickly stepped in.

“And it’s — clarifying,” Johnson said. “When she says, ‘we have failed you,’ she means ‘we, the Democrats,’ okay?”

“Because, as we’ve just explained, Republicans have voted 14 times to get this done,” he said of Senate votes to pass the House’s clean continuing resolution.

Democrats have refused to vote to reopen the government without legislation that would restore the Obamacare premium subsidies. Without those funds, some Americans are already seeing premiums for next year skyrocket.

Rollins was not the only Republican on Friday who appeared to veer from the GOP’s standard message.

U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke told Fox Business that inflation and food prices are high — contrary to remarks President Donald Trump has repeatedly made.

READ MORE: Americans Turn Against Trump’s Crime Crackdowns: Report

 

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