5 Reasons Why the GOP Is Still the 'Stupid Party'

by Alec Kohut

When Todd Akin made his infamous “legitimate rape” remark, Morning Joe Scarborough echoed GOP consultant Nicole Wallace’s view that she was tired of Republicans being, “The Stupid Party.” Without question, in 2012, the GOP again held firm their standing as Amercia’s stupid party. While one could easily write a book about the GOP’s sheer stupidity this election cycle, I have narrowed my list to the top five follies of the GOP that made rational people look at them and say, “they’re fuckin’ crazy.”

1.   What  Do You Mean You Don’t Like SPAM !!! (or Hate Obama)

Monty Python’s Flying Circus could easily recreate their famous SPAM skit with “What Do You Mean You Don’t Hate Obama !” Just as those in the Monty Python skit couldn’t understand how someone could possibly not like SPAM, the same could be said for the right-wingers who could never understand how people didn’t hate the socialist, Kenyan-born, anti-American, Muslim, Barack Obama. The GOP and the right-wing has yet to figure out that their repugnant vitriol and hatred toward the President, and creating a caricature of the man that no rational person see as credible, did not make people dislike the President, it only made the right-wingers look stupid. These actions have not, and will not ever hurt the President, but they do succeed at making the right and the GOP look totally batshit crazy.

2.   Take Out Your Damn Trash 

It really doesn’t matter how the trash got there, it doesn’t matter if you agree with it being there, and it doesn’t matter if it’s not your trash. When there’s trash in your house, it will stink up the house until you to remove it. In politics, it’s become known as a candidate’s “Sister Souljah” moment, in honor of Bill Clinton’s refutation of the black activist’s hate speech. Obama did it with Jeremiah Wright and Van Jones. George W. Bush did it to Robert Bork. And Mitt Romney did it never.

Mitt had his chances, with the Todd Akin debacle, he was lukewarm, saying Akin’s should quit the race. He did absolutely nothing in the face of hateful comments by Rush Limbaugh, Richard Mourdock, Joe Walsh, Allen West, Michelle Bachmann, Glenn Beck, and list goes on. Not only did he refuse to empty the trash and show some backbone to Donald Trump and John Sununu, he embraced them. And in turn, that trash stunk up the entire GOP house.

3.   Let’s Just Keep ‘Em From Voting

Give Bush some credit, he knew he wouldn’t win the African-American vote, nor the Latino vote. But nor was he going to show an outright hostility towards them that left him little option other than keeping them from voting. Which is exactly what Mitt and the GOP did. But it backfired, and backfired big. The idea that one political party would overtly try to prevent voters from casting a vote, did not just outrage and motivate the minorities whose vote they were attempting to suppress, but all believers in the idea of democracy in America.

And any conservative that tries to tell you that Voter ID laws are not about suppressing the votes, but maintaining electoral integrity is a DAMN LIAR….

“Voter ID, which is going to allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania. Done.”

                                                -- PA Republican House Majority Leader Mike Turzai

4.   Skewed Polls

Just like with climate change, and evolution, conservatives possess an uncanny ability to just dismiss actual data that doesn’t agree with their views. The clinical term for this condition is called stupid. And we saw their sheer stupidity in the great polling conspiracy idea of “skewed polls.” Now this doesn’t mean that campaigns and pundits shouldn’t spin poll data that is unfavorable. Declarations such as: “The only poll that matters is on election day.” Or, “our internal polling shows us making up ground on several keys issues,” are standard rebuttals when poll data looks bad. But not the right-wing in 2012, oh no, it’s a polling conspiracy to help the other guy. It’s bad enough a couple of idiot right-wing pundits said such a stupid thing, but the fact that a majority of Republican voters believed it, shows that stupidity is more widespread in the GOP than any of us thought.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, it now seems that the presidential candidate and his staff believed it as well. Reports now state that Mitt and his staff were “shell-shocked”  as the battleground states all went blue. It turns out their internal pollsters had “unskewed” its own polling to show Romney winning by a wide margin on election night. Stupid.

5.   America is a Bunch of Moochers and Freeloaders… Help the Wealthy !!

It’s funny when you think of it, the GOP pursues policies for decades of lower taxes, until we get to the point where 47% of Americans pay no federal income tax. Then the GOP nominee tells his rich friends, those people who pay no federal income tax suck, and won’t take personal responsibility for their own lives.

The irony of this issue is that the idea of an expanding welfare state and government spending has been used to help the GOP in the past. But once again stupidity ruled the day in the GOP, and in addition to Mitt’s 47% video, he nominated a VP candidate who wanted to voucherize Medicare and was actually booed by the AARP.

Republicans have traditionally framed the debate as “deserving vs. undeserving,” and saved the “maker vs. taker” talk for private functions with their wealthy benefactors. However this year, with the help of the Citizens United supreme court decision, and the alliance between Pual Ryan and Ayn Rand, this year the wealthy came out of the woodwork, crying not only that there is class warfare, but that they were losing.

Well, unlike Republicans, not all Americans are stupid, we’ve watched taxes on the wealthy fall, as their wealth skyrocketed, only to be stashed in Swiss bank accounts and Cayman Islands shell corporations, and we asked the simple question: Where are the jobs?

Multi-millionaire entrepreneur Nick Hanauer summed it up best in his TED talk, that at first was banned from release:

“If it was true, that lower taxes for the rich, and more wealth for the wealthy, led to job creation, today we would be drowning in jobs.”