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Doug wrote: "You might have heard the dirge of depressing education statistics: The United States has dropped from first to 18th place in [etc.]" --quoting John Legend at Huff Po

The leadership of the Republican Party and their pundits (i.e. Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, etc.) have explicitly and/or implicitly expressed their regard for their base in a multitude of ways. If you consider for a moment the strategies they've used to appeal to their base, or to "energize" their base, or to draw a reaction from their base, or even how they portray their base in their political ads, it becomes apparent that they think that their base is:

- racist
- uneducated and anti-education
- uninformed
- homophobic
- xenophobic
- gullible
- self-righteous religious hypocrites
- and last but not least, bitter, clinging ... hicks!

Yet, when one considers that their base nonetheless continues to blindly support and defend them, in spite of these perceptions, it also becomes apparent that the leadership and the pundits know their base better than their base knows themselves.

"The clock is ticking. . . . The war is just beginning. . . . Shoot me in the head if you try to change our government. . . . You have to be prepared to take rocks to the head. . . . The other side is attacking. . . . There is a coup going on. . . . Grab a torch! . . . Drive a stake through the heart of the bloodsuckers. . . . They are taking you to a place to be slaughtered. . . . They are putting a gun to America's head. . . . Hold these people responsible." ~ Glenn Beck

Coons said that creationism, which he considers “a religious doctrine,” should not be taught in public schools due to the Constitution’s First Amendment. He argued that it explicitly enumerates the separation of church and state.

“The First Amendment does?” O’Donnell asked. “Let me just clarify: You’re telling me that the separation of church and state is found in the First Amendment?”

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,” Coons responded, reciting from memory the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

“That’s in the First Amendment…?” O’Donnell responded.

Republican psychology

The abhorrent behavior of Republicans is beyond reason until one looks at the fundamental meaning of sociopathy, authoritarian rule and cult mentality.
There are two main groups of Repubs.

1. Those in power - The true form of sociopathy where consolidation of power and control is a driving force. These people willingly subvert others in order to Read More... satiate their fears of inadequacy by perpetuating control over others and by consolidating wealth at the expense of others. This is an ego based phenomena driven by primal instinct that trumps any intellect or reason.

2. Those who follow - These are the cult followers who willingly bow to authoritarian rule. Once again, their needs are fear and ego based but is different in that they need to be told what to do and how to think. Through willful ignorance and cognitive dissonance, they create a walled off false reality by denying the existence of other concepts and by dehumanizing those who think differently. They are very intolerant of any divergence from what they consider to be the normal which is usually conceptualized in terms of their religion, race, history, nationality, culture, language, etc. They tend to be very superstitious and lend credence to folktales or interpretations of history that fit their preexisting definitions of reality. They think in extremely stereotyped ways about minorities, women, homosexuals, etc. and thus very dualistic. The world is conceived in terms of absolute right (their way) Vs. absolute wrong (the "other" way), there is no [middle ground].

When the President took office, not only had the car gone into a ditch, the car had flipped over and was rolling down a steep embankment. We, the American people, were in the back seat, and the Bush Administration had removed all the seat belts, so we were all flying around the interior of this car as it was rolling and flipping and careening down this steep embankment, headed to a 2,000 foot cliff. And at the bottom of that cliff were jagged rocks. And alligators.

Now, at noon on January 20th, 2009, as the car was careening toward the cliff, George W. Bush jumped out of the car.

President Obama somehow managed to dive in through the window, take the wheel and get control of the thing just inches before it went over the precipice. Then, he and Congress starting pushing this wreck back up the embankment. Now you can’t push a car up an embankment as fast as it careens down the embankment, especially if some people are trying to push against you. But we got it going in the right direction. And slowly we’ve gotten ourselves up the embankment, out of the ditch and onto the shoulder of the road.

There. That’s what happened.

Darrel wrote:"Urk. I just gave up on the presidential press conference. When Obama declared that Americans rejected Democrats in part because “We were in such a hurry to get things done that we didn’t change how things got done,” I checked out.