Severe Conservative Syndrome

I can post two Krugman columns in a row, can't I? From the New York Times:

How did American conservatism end up so detached from, indeed at odds with, facts and rationality? For it was not always thus. After all, that health reform Mr. Romney wants us to forget followed a blueprint originally laid out at the Heritage Foundation!

My short answer is that the long-running con game of economic conservatives and the wealthy supporters they serve finally went bad. For decades the G.O.P. has won elections by appealing to social and racial divisions, only to turn after each victory to deregulation and tax cuts for the wealthy — a process that reached its epitome when George W. Bush won re-election by posing as America’s defender against gay married terrorists, then announced that he had a mandate to privatize Social Security.

Over time, however, this strategy created a base that really believed in all the hokum — and now the party elite has lost control.

The point is that today’s dismal G.O.P. field — is there anyone who doesn’t consider it dismal? — is no accident. Economic conservatives played a cynical game, and now they’re facing the blowback, a party that suffers from “severe” conservatism in the worst way. And the malady may take many years to cure.

More here.

And I don't really have much to add to that, it was put so succinctly.

Except for maybe the influence that Fox News and right-wing radio have had on the process. Indeed, conservative media actually have slightly different goals from conservative politicians: while politicians seek office and the power that comes with it, the media crave ratings above all else, and the best way to get good ratings is to ramp the conservative narrative up to blockbuster/disaster flick status, creating a product that is as entertaining as it is political. And the conservative media is where the conservative rank and file have been taking their cues for at least a decade now.

That is to say, Rush Limbaugh and his ilk have literally wrested control of the GOP away from its traditional monied establishment. Conservative media lead the Conservative Movement now, which is why conservative ideas are as absurd as anything you'll find on television today. Jersey Shore politics. I guess.

At any rate, that's what they get.

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