(Some Of The Reasons) Republicans Are Delusional

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.

Image via Wikipedia