Why worry about next year while everything's
going along so swimmingly right now?
****************
Disciplining NBC
Okay, it was a train wreck, but the train was insured, right?
Anyway, somebody had to do it, right?
Right?
Come on. The hill billies love this stuff, don't they?
Of course we have to ponder a few details about "those questions" which continue to surface in such an exceedingly painful "superficiality festival" during the last debate. Who penned them in the first place? Where were they before they finally landed on the desk to be spewed forth from the debate moderators? Had anyone looked at them before hand? Did someone "in charge" actually think they were "the cat's meow?"
Although among the MeanMesa crowd, these questions are "no brainers," among the shockingly serious, unnervingly "independent," paragons of Fourth Estate journalism manning the executive helm of NBC broadcast corporation, these same questions must have been the 21st Century equivalent of the "Riddle of the Sphinx."
The catastrophe landed "so badly" that the corporate executives of the Republican Party have officially chastised the NBC "top dogs," and now, they have taken their ball and gone home. The respective campaigns have called for a "get together" where they can regroup. Yes, they are quite inclined to unilaterally "avoid" any more NBC "debate moderation" in the future, and there's even talk about the billionaire Owners of the Republican Party vaporizing RNC chairman Reince Prebus. [DailyKOS]
Rats. Another fender has flown off the GOP clown car -- and it this time it was barely moving! Oh well. Even though the hate mongering GOP clown car runs on tar and pitch, it IS funded by the billionaires, and that means that they can keep buying more "fenders" for as long as they like.
Well, by this time everyone has had ample opportunity to ridicule the "organizers" of the disaster, so -- for this post -- MeanMesa would like to speculate about just where this thing goes from here. After all, there IS an actual Presidential election scheduled for 12 months from now.
We'll all feel much better about this if we...uh..."turn our eyes to the future."
The "Clown Car's" Road Ahead to the 2016 Election
Try to ignore the bumps. Republicans don't
spend money on roads when they could be creating billionaires.
 |
| There may still be a few kinks in the image roll out. [GOLEFT] |
Okay. Let's begin with a "seven fold" overview of the GOP's current "tactical position."
1. McCarthy accidentally telling the truth about the Benghazi hearings, turned out to only be a preview to the actual disaster dragging on through eleven hours. 2. And, Boehner infuriated the Freedom Caucus hill billy hostage takers by making a deal with the President to not shut down the government. 3. The debate -- along with most of the actual material, political inertia of the GOP's election efforts -- went down in flames for a long list of painfully wrong reasons. 4. The surviving top tier "shoo in" candidates were imploding as Jeb faltered, Walker ran for the hills and Perry gave up the ghost while the rest of the single digit crowd were desperately scratching and scraping for an embarrassing seat at the "kids' table." 5. NBC had been dispatched to the corn field, and 6. the billionaires had sent the "long knives" to visit Preibus in the night. 7. No one among the Republican Caucus was willing to even try to "step into the breach" to be Speaker -- arguably the third most powerful position on the planet -- for three weeks.
But, perhaps on a brighter note, Halloween is approaching, and the GOP's highly public bumbling had provided dozens of "great ideas" for costumes.
We could add the incredible string of untruths mouthed by these ambitious oligarch "wannabe's," but those have no impact of the debate's "consumers," still stupefied by their saturating exposure to FOX.
They check nothing for veracity so long as it remains consistent with the well paid propaganda. If one of these carefully engineered falsehoods outrages this already unstable audience even more, it develops its own type of surreal, spontaneous "factuality."
 |
| As long as it makes me angry or fearful, facts mean nothing. [NoFluffZone] |
These "tactical political gaffes" have done serious damage to the demographic base of voters which has traditionally supported the Republican Party. Very little of this damage can be seen in the deep, single issue base, but much more is beginning to surface in the milder cases. These missteps have shaken the Party's brand by revealing significant questions about its ability to function, much less lead in some coherent direction.
The dilemma is rapidly slipping toward something akin to a car dealer attempting to sell from a lot where none of the cars function particularly well. Unlike this unfortunate car dealer, in the political frame prices cannot be reduced. The Owners of the Republican Party will not countenance the transfer of anything of value to anyone without a lobbyist, that is, to anyone who cannot make a really big campaign donation.
In recent times the loyalty of the GOP base has been sustained with incentives which cost the billionaires essentially nothing -- abortion, gun rights, racism, re-definitions of rape, vilification of poor people, destruction of unions, curtailing education funding, demonizing ObamaCare and so forth. But even in the midst of these inauthentic "bread and circus" escapades, the Party retained some semblance of at least an image of functional unity. THAT is what's taken the hit from the recent stumbles.
Given this litany of grief, we can single out its impact on the various groups of "players" in this on-going horror movie. It seems like everyone will have be stabbed "once or twice" to share the pain. With each group there will be significant "fence mending" along with other "necessary repairs" and new political "vectors" of persuasion and coercion to keep the already heavily abused Republican base and donors in line.
Here, we'll do well to remember Thom Hartmann's [The Thom Hartmann Show, AM1350 KABQ, Albuquerque, 10AM to 1PM, weekdays] prescient declaration:
"The Republican Party is comprised of two groups -- billionaires and suckers."
So, given Hartmann's "penetrating explanation" for the cause of the chaos, let's take a look at the political challenges now being presented to the GOP by each group of the...uh...affected parties. We can do it by the numbers.
The Aftermath
The clock is still ticking for the 2016 election's approach.
Just think of the "Pit and the Pendulum."
Just think of the "Pit and the Pendulum."
Understandably, after such a chaotic embarrassment the Republicans have some significant work to do if they insist upon even entertaining the possibility of owning the Oval Office in 2017. There are injured "relationships" which must be "set right," there are "adjustments" to be made to the multi-billion dollar GOP election machine and, importantly, something must be done with the now stumbling, confused, wandering hordes of hill billies in the GOP base.
The hateful religious bigots might still be standing in formation to perform as ordered, but the more rational types of the GOP's "center" are leaving in droves. The "act of abandonment" cannot attribute much of the blame to the leadership collapse of the GOP corporation. Instead, these "temporarily inconvenienced millionaires" are staggering away from the "party line" primarily because their dreams of riding GOP coat tails into the promised land are no longer convincing.
In fact those GOP coat tails no longer hold the promise of delivering the GOP's "blindly loyal" anywhere.
1. The "Marriage Made in Heaven" between the Billionaire Donors and the Owners of the Republican Party is in crisis intervention -- yes, "marriage counseling."
The hateful religious bigots might still be standing in formation to perform as ordered, but the more rational types of the GOP's "center" are leaving in droves. The "act of abandonment" cannot attribute much of the blame to the leadership collapse of the GOP corporation. Instead, these "temporarily inconvenienced millionaires" are staggering away from the "party line" primarily because their dreams of riding GOP coat tails into the promised land are no longer convincing.
In fact those GOP coat tails no longer hold the promise of delivering the GOP's "blindly loyal" anywhere.
1. The "Marriage Made in Heaven" between the Billionaire Donors and the Owners of the Republican Party is in crisis intervention -- yes, "marriage counseling."
The GOP's Billionaire Donors are now having their own version of a "Christmas Shopping hangover." Inebriated with the presumptive fantasy that election victories could be delivered simply by supplying an obedient candidate with enough campaign money, they were overly confident that they would gain access to the Oval Office -- and the keys to the Treasury. The billionaires' early error was their cynical presumption that absolutely anything -- obviously including "going through the motions" -- would serve as a satisfactory debate.
The fact that they were not exerting their typical suffocating control seems out of character.
The "campaign donations" [layaway payments for purchasing the government] had already been very, very generous long before the "debates" began. Some of the GOP's "front tier" candidates currently in the Party's political ICU still have literally millions of donated dollars stuck in their Super PACs. [MeanMesa - After the End, Super Novas and Super PACs]
However, the damage has been done. While still enjoying the total loyalty of the crustiest cranks among the Party's lunatic fringe's base voters, many of the more rational types are drifting away in droves. "Many" means "too many," and the billionaires know this. [MeanMesa - GOP: When the Billionaires Get Edgy]
The fact that they were not exerting their typical suffocating control seems out of character.
The "campaign donations" [layaway payments for purchasing the government] had already been very, very generous long before the "debates" began. Some of the GOP's "front tier" candidates currently in the Party's political ICU still have literally millions of donated dollars stuck in their Super PACs. [MeanMesa - After the End, Super Novas and Super PACs]
However, the damage has been done. While still enjoying the total loyalty of the crustiest cranks among the Party's lunatic fringe's base voters, many of the more rational types are drifting away in droves. "Many" means "too many," and the billionaires know this. [MeanMesa - GOP: When the Billionaires Get Edgy]
2. The GOP's curiously obedient Media has quit cooperating and started pouting.
The network moguls consider a Presidential election as a very important "seasonal earnings sector." We can see how impatient these executives have been to get the 2016 election reduced to a repetition of the traditionally abusive, aggressive "gotcha" and "mud slinging" carnival. That is the atmosphere which can sell 7-digit, "emergency" advertising packages to frightened candidates -- candidates frightened by an ad package they had already sold to someone else a day or two earlier.
Although some of the more visible billionaires own the media, apparently "other" billionaires own the Party, and, possibly, still "other" billionaires can be considered to own individual GOP candidates. For example, most everyone assumed that the Koch Brothers intended to funnel a generous portion of their announced $900 Mn "donation stockpile" into the Scott Walker campaign before it self destructed. Now, at least in the world of GOP politics, that cash is "roaming the streets."
The point here is that the corporate media was expecting that most of that $900 Mn was destined to wind up on networks' chart of account profit reports -- and, the $900 Mn was just the Koch money. There's plenty more, and every dollar of it is ready to be invested in taking over the remaining part of the country, but now there's a scrap between the GOP and the media. Ironically, while both sides of this conflict are controlled by the same ideological interests [oligarchs as a class]. we see that even within this collective force, individual interests [individual oligarchs] are now also in conflict with each other.
The network moguls consider a Presidential election as a very important "seasonal earnings sector." We can see how impatient these executives have been to get the 2016 election reduced to a repetition of the traditionally abusive, aggressive "gotcha" and "mud slinging" carnival. That is the atmosphere which can sell 7-digit, "emergency" advertising packages to frightened candidates -- candidates frightened by an ad package they had already sold to someone else a day or two earlier.
Although some of the more visible billionaires own the media, apparently "other" billionaires own the Party, and, possibly, still "other" billionaires can be considered to own individual GOP candidates. For example, most everyone assumed that the Koch Brothers intended to funnel a generous portion of their announced $900 Mn "donation stockpile" into the Scott Walker campaign before it self destructed. Now, at least in the world of GOP politics, that cash is "roaming the streets."
The point here is that the corporate media was expecting that most of that $900 Mn was destined to wind up on networks' chart of account profit reports -- and, the $900 Mn was just the Koch money. There's plenty more, and every dollar of it is ready to be invested in taking over the remaining part of the country, but now there's a scrap between the GOP and the media. Ironically, while both sides of this conflict are controlled by the same ideological interests [oligarchs as a class]. we see that even within this collective force, individual interests [individual oligarchs] are now also in conflict with each other.
3. The GOP media strategists must redomesticate the Orphaned Bigots, Religionists and other GOP Prodigal Sons.
At first we must realize that the Owners of the Republican Party, while quite interested in sustaining the arrogance and perpetual outrage of this very useful demographic of low information, single issue voters, have no particular interest in such retrograde issues for any other reason. There is a real question about what will re-energize the "post-Biblical evangelicals" lurking at the extreme right wing periphery of the right wing extremists of the extreme right wing Party.
Oh sure, the leading candidate for the Republican nomination is now proposing to replace the entire IRS tax code with some system derived from Old Testament tithing [Leviticus 27:30-33, Numbers 18:21-28], but such futile efforts only amount to mere "time wasting" peccadilloes for the crowd that is currently cheering botched executions, anti-gay discrimination and wing nut legislative control of the nation's uteruses -- not to mention another War on Islam.
The "Bible/mega church/obedience" business continues to lose market share. The professionally designed GOP meme' that Democrats are essentially Satanic lost a lot of its credibility as the Affordable Care Act gained national acceptance. Republican Presidential candidates continue to make pointed comments [Even Governor Christie said some things which actually sounded decent. Huffington Post] about "religious imperatives," but the consumer market for such nonsense is faltering -- and rapidly dying of old age.
Most of the folks who would have traditionally been nodding their heads and smiling when GOP candidates dutifully mention the Bible stuff are still trying to recover from the road rage economic thumping the GOP inflicted on them in 2008.
MeanMesa actually saw a Ben Carson bumper sticker today. The inhabitants of the car looked like nice people.
Oh sure, the leading candidate for the Republican nomination is now proposing to replace the entire IRS tax code with some system derived from Old Testament tithing [Leviticus 27:30-33, Numbers 18:21-28], but such futile efforts only amount to mere "time wasting" peccadilloes for the crowd that is currently cheering botched executions, anti-gay discrimination and wing nut legislative control of the nation's uteruses -- not to mention another War on Islam.
The "Bible/mega church/obedience" business continues to lose market share. The professionally designed GOP meme' that Democrats are essentially Satanic lost a lot of its credibility as the Affordable Care Act gained national acceptance. Republican Presidential candidates continue to make pointed comments [Even Governor Christie said some things which actually sounded decent. Huffington Post] about "religious imperatives," but the consumer market for such nonsense is faltering -- and rapidly dying of old age.
Most of the folks who would have traditionally been nodding their heads and smiling when GOP candidates dutifully mention the Bible stuff are still trying to recover from the road rage economic thumping the GOP inflicted on them in 2008.
MeanMesa actually saw a Ben Carson bumper sticker today. The inhabitants of the car looked like nice people.
4. GOP preparations for the national campaign need some very, very serious work.
There is probably some sort of limit to how long inflammatory, non-issue campaign rhetoric ["Take our country back." "Make America great again."] will continue to energize the more stable remnants of the GOP base. The audio "tid bits" which are functioning fairly well with the Republican Primary voters will ignominiously "drop from the vine" very quickly when a Democratic candidate who is not a sold out corporate fascist is standing in the debate.
Historically, primary campaigns are intended to reveal which policy proposals are able to gain traction which was potent enough to swing a national election. Incendiary gaffes might play well among the dead enders of the Republican Party or the industrial media networks, but there are a LOT of other voters out there. To whatever extent classist and racist hate phrases and other gaffes might draw applause from actors hired to attend an announcement speech, the pain level in the general electorate is simmering at a boiling point.
The General Election in 2016 may, notably, simply set aside the usual ideological comparisons entirely in favor of a far more pragmatic process of voter decision making.
"Oh sure, it's great fun right now, but just wait until it puts some one's eye out."
There is probably some sort of limit to how long inflammatory, non-issue campaign rhetoric ["Take our country back." "Make America great again."] will continue to energize the more stable remnants of the GOP base. The audio "tid bits" which are functioning fairly well with the Republican Primary voters will ignominiously "drop from the vine" very quickly when a Democratic candidate who is not a sold out corporate fascist is standing in the debate.
Historically, primary campaigns are intended to reveal which policy proposals are able to gain traction which was potent enough to swing a national election. Incendiary gaffes might play well among the dead enders of the Republican Party or the industrial media networks, but there are a LOT of other voters out there. To whatever extent classist and racist hate phrases and other gaffes might draw applause from actors hired to attend an announcement speech, the pain level in the general electorate is simmering at a boiling point.
The General Election in 2016 may, notably, simply set aside the usual ideological comparisons entirely in favor of a far more pragmatic process of voter decision making.
One party has policies. One party has no policies.
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