You’ll have to excuse the Republican Party for being a bit emotional right now, they’re still processing their grief over having lost their nomination to a man they never loved. A year ago, the GOP was so happy. The economy was dragging, unemployment was high, people were being buried in debt and losing their homes…who wouldn’t be happy? It looked like their plan to stonewall President Obama on repairing the economy had borne its rotten fruit and in 2012, they would be celebrating all of this by taking back the power of the Presidency.

It was a simpler time, the GOP was so blissfully unaware of anything that could come between their dream and it becoming reality. Until “he” came along. While the GOP was delighted about marrying a right wing conservative, Mitt Romney showed up as a wedding crasher and knocked over the punchbowl at what should have been one of the best times in the GOP’s life.

It’s hard to accept loss (which is why you pass Voter ID laws), especially when you lose someone or something that you were very close to. And the GOP was so close to having a slam dunk win of the White House this year. Sure, some people feel they’re being supportive by saying, “Well, you’re still in it! Romney could surge ahead if people buy into the SuperPAC-funded lies or Romney’s vague promises!” but it wasn’t supposed to be like this.

Obama was supposed to be trailing badly and all the Republican Presidential nominee was going to have to let the public know was that they should blame Obama for the bad economy. The Republican nom wasn’t supposed to be constantly trailing and pushed by the media to give details about his secret plans for the economy (psst…don’t tell anyone but it’s to make the wealthiest 1% wealthier and the 99% poorer).

It was supposed to be a referendum election on Obama, not a “choice” election. No one was supposed to even think about the GOP nom, they were just supposed to elect him to throw Obama out. Doesn’t anyone remember the GOP’s affair with the American public back in 2010? When it didn’t matter if you were a witch, a racist or an elitist millionaire, you were voting against the Democrats so any Republican could run competitively for office.

Instead…the Republicans’ nominee…is actually being looked at by Americans and assessed based on his honesty, character and experience. It’s just not fair.

They worked so hard in their primary to hold onto their dream, pushing anyone but Romney to the top of the polls at one time or another. It didn’t matter if you were a racist multimillionaire with a ridiculous comb-over, an intellectually challenged pizza company with Tourette’s Syndrome when it came to the number “9”, a disgraced and censured adulterer that also was proudly racist or a religious fanatic who wants to oppress women, gays, Latinos and black people…as long as you weren’t that awful dream killer Mitt Romney, there was nothing too low to stoop to as long as it meant avoiding Mitt Romney being nominated.

But it didn’t work and to the GOP’s dismay, they lost their soulmates and are now wedded to a man they don’t love.

What we’ve been seeing since then from Republicans is a much broader sweeping expression of the five stages of grief, as reflected in the Kubler-Ross model.

Stage 1: Denial

After Mitt Romney won the GOP Primary, many of those Republicans who saw him as a weak candidate swallowed hard and spouted out that they now believe in him and that he will beat Obama. When polls keep contradicting this as a probability, they deny the validity of polls. When facts undermine Romney’s veracity or campaign, they deny the facts. When Romney says something that’s self-destructive, they deny he said it or that it was a negative. But deep down, they fear facing the reality that looms over them. They are so deeply in denial, that they will deny they are denying anything and if the irony of this is pointed out to them, they will deny there’s any irony about them denying that they are denying their denials.

Stage 2: Anger

Is it any wonder that Rush Limbaugh, Republican politicians, the Fox News rodents, etc. have become so vicious lately? This anger comes out of an intense frustration. They need to be able to vent and blame someone for what’s happened with their nomination going to Mitt Romney and he and Ryan sabotaging their hopes and dreams. So they lash out and try to attack anyone they can for their situation, beginning with Obama. Some Republicans never make it out of this stage and the previous one, they go along their whole lives in a kind of Stage 1 and 2 purgatory, just denying reality and being angry…the clinical term for this is Tea Party Member.

Stage 3: Bargaining

The Republicans decided to use the occasion of their national convention to go through this stage…on a stage. They bargained with themselves, with women, with Latinos and black people. They promised they’d do anything and everything if only Romney won’t lose. They’ll be on the side of women if only they’ll vote for a man who wants to take their rights away. They’ll be on the side of Latinos if only they’ll vote for a man who wants to self-deport 12 million of them. They’ll be on the side of their right wing base if only they’ll let them pretend they won’t be. They will make a deal with God that if he will only make their candidate win, they will follow His word to the letter…except for the parts that have to do with Jesus.

Stage 4: Depression

You can already hear the depressed voices starting to grow in the GOP when it comes to Romney. Many well known Republican pundits have been criticizing him and warning of a coming loss in November. It’s depressing just being a Republican unless you’re in the top 1%. Imagine, having to wake up every morning and listen to Rush and watch Fox News to know who you’re supposed to hate today and why. Voting against your own interests, having to endure people who rudely bring up facts and worshiping prejudices and lies like Scripture. Republicans have enough depression to go through that’s voluntary, it’s tough when you have to be forced to go through more. With Mitt Romney trailing Obama the whole way and falling behind with less than two months to go, it’s hard not to want to cry a little. Which is why no one has ever questioned John Boehner’s credentials as a Republican whose new motto is “Cry freedom…and for our party’s nomination process!”

Stage 5: Acceptance

This is one stage with which Republicans have a hard time. Often, they just loop back to Denial in Stage 1. A basic requirement of being a Republican is refusing to accept things. Climate Change, evolution, the Earth revolves around the Sun, pizza is not a vegetable, arithmetic, etc. For those rogue Republicans who do accept things, it can be lonely and scary but ultimately, a positive thing. For most however, they take pride and print on their t-shirts, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results. And we’re cuckoo for cuckoo pols!”

Granted, the election is far from over and will require the energy and donations of Obama’s supporters to clinch a victory but if that occurs, it will indeed be mourning in America for the GOP.

 

 

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agrippa
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agrippa

I think that it will come down to what it ususally come down to:
turnout.
People who would vote Democrat actually have to get out and vote Democrat.
As for those people such as Will and Ingraham: I am more conservative than they are and I am a liberal.
But, that is too subtle and complicated for them.

KQµårk 死神
Member

Ouch! Counting your chickens a bit too early AdLib but another witty gem nonetheless. The GOP has definitely gone through the first four stages in fact they continue to go through them constantly because they can’t reach stage five.

Of course like you describe acceptance really is not part of the process in the GOP mind then again they have always come up short in all things intellect.

But I’ll do you a solid AdLib and show most conservatives are thinking what you are thinking at least when it comes to the fact that they think Romney will lose.

Gotta love some quotes I read today as well.

“He may as well be Elmer Fudd as far as we’re concerned,” Limbaugh said. “We’re voting against Obama. I don’t care who they put on the ticket, we’re voting against Obama. That has not changed, and there are more people now than in 2010 who are gonna vote against Obama.”

Limbaugh described the epitome of the modern GOP mind. They are not for anything anymore and only live to be against Obama and the Democrats. They are not even trying to develop new ideas or reach out to other demographic groups. They are simply the nihilist party.

Kristol said that it’s time for specifics. “When a challenger merely appeals to disappointment with the incumbent and tries to reassure voters he’s not too bad an alternative, that isn’t generally a formula for victory. Mike Dukakis lost,” he wrote in this week’s column, headlined “Speak Up, Mitt!”

The truth is that Romney and Ryan know if they speak specifics they will lose because what they are selling is a pile of steaming shite.

Columnist George Will, appearing on Ingraham’s show, returned to an earlier theme — that Romney simply isn’t a born conservative. “Mitt Romney does not have the feeling, the visceral, philosophically sound feeling for what’s wrong with the progressive movement in this country,” Will said. “He’s a good man, a good fellow. He’d be a much better president than the one we’ve got. But he doesn’t — what I’ve said before about him is conservatism is a second language for him. And he is still learning it. And it’s hard to learn this thing in the midst of a high-stakes presidential campaign.”

If Romney had a core conviction it would be a surprise to anyone. Trying to make the conservative case would be another loser for Romney because he does not believe it.

“I’m sure he’s a nice guy, but I don’t happen to think he represents the best vision for Romney on camera,” Ingraham said of Fehrnstrom. “Election after election, we hire people who have lost previous campaigns, who’ve run campaigns that have failed, who have message campaigns where the message fell flat, and they keep getting rehired … I don’t understand that. I don’t know why those are the people you hire.”

My contention is that this fills the right wing self fulfilling prophecy. The reason they have a dearth of talent in the GOP is because they treat politics like a bastard step child. They really hate government and governing so the talent pool they draw from is getting smaller and poorer.

John Podhoretz, writing in the New York Post, slammed the Romney campaign’s tepid response to its tailspin. “The Romney campaign seems to have settled on an argument that Obama’s poll strength is just a post-convention ‘sugar high,’ as its pollster Neil Newhouse said in a strikingly infelicitous memo,” Podhoretz wrote. “It’s interesting Newhouse hit on the dismissive description of a ‘sugar high’ — because a sugar rush is what Romney’s side needs.”

Again Romney and his team of Keystone Cops is out of touch. It’s not a sugar high as much as people have seen the first real difference between the parties. On party is looking forward to the future and wants to lead the country in that direction. The other party is cynical and crass that just wants to go back to some previous date in time, some want to go as far back as medieval times where all the workers are surfs and the plutocrats have a divine right to rule.

“This is a very close race and one that still could go either way,” Cook wrote in National Journal. “But the odds of Romney capitalizing on this economy, and the opportunity it affords, seem lower than they were before the conventions. If Republicans and Romney supporters are growing nervous, they should be.”

This is probably the take I agree with the most. Romney is still very much in this because of the economy. Sure he’s 0-1 on the big stage but he still has three debates to impress people. The press still could really screw Obama if he does not meet their expectations game or Romney comes up with a few good lines. We’ll see Obama could have turned the corner like Bush did with his effective convention in 2004. Bush had bad debate performances and still beat Kerry on his likeability over Kerry. Obviously I have much more faith in Obama’s debating skills but anything can still happen.

The bottom line is Obama now has a definite lead at a very good time, actually almost the same time he had a definite lead in 2008. I see this election being much more like 2004 with for Bush than 1980 for Carter even though it’s not over ’til it’s over when the fat Limbaugh cries.

Nirek
Member

What is it about the GOP/TP that makes them hate America and all the good things America stands for?

They hate gays, women, blacks, and gay marriage, contraception, abortion, and civil rights for anyone but the rich.

What do they like? Money, power over others, more money, and guns and WARS (as long as they don’t have to serve.

Jenuwin
Admin

Well said about The Repulsive Party…oops, typo..I meant The Republican Party.

glenn
Member

“They are so deeply in denial, that they will deny they are denying anything and if the irony of this is pointed out to them, they will deny there’s any irony about them denying that they are denying their denials.”

That was priceless. The republicans/tpartiers’ circular arguments drive me crazy.

Then they throw out the $16 trillion debt, like that is all President Obama’s fault. They want to deny (there’s that word again) that over $10 trillion of that came from gwb, and that we are paying the interest on that every day. Over on other sites, I keep reminding them. I know the “die-hards” will never change their minds, but if I can get one independent to think for one second, and to see the lies, I feel I have helped progress along.

How can anyone in their right mind vote for a candidate with an aide who has said the campaign will not be dictated to by fact checkers. You might as well come out and say, “we’re going to lie to you, and we don’t care.” And the candidate himself did not even bother to correct him!

The difference between the DNC and the RNC was striking. The RNC was all about money, with that ridiculous debt clock, while the DNC was all about real people. Real people, whose problems have been mitigated by President Obama’s policies.

I know President Obama has not done all that most progressives thought he was going to do. But then again, who would have thought that the opposition party would be so strong in their hatred that they would sabotage the recovery. As is stated on one website, republicans/tpartiers are the party who will “keep millions unemployed to put one man out of a job.”

All one has to do is to look at two of Mitch McConnell’s statements. The first being the vow to make President Obama a one-term president. The second being, after the debt ceiling debacle, saying that republicans/tpartiers voted against it because they didn’t want to give Democrats a political advantage.

Shameful statements, both of them! In other words, we don’t give a damn about the American people; we will do everything and anything to keep Democrats, therefore President Obama, from helping the country, which would then give Democats a “political advantage”. Not one word in either of those statements about the American people.

Sometime last year, when the recovery began stalling, (and we all know why), I repeated McConnell’s first statement to a republican friend of mine, and remarked about how he hadn’t mentioned anything about the good of the country. Her reply was, “maybe they think that is good for the country” (to stop President Obama from instituting his policies). And, if that had turned out to be true, and the economy had improved more, I might have (might have)voted for a republican.

Now, never again in my lifetime will I vote for a republican.

Okay, I’ve “vented” enough now. Thanks for “listening”, and
VOTE a straight Democratic ticket in November.

Nirek
Member

Glen, you hit a home run! I agree 100% with everything you said. I really like that you used lower case letters for “gwb” I never use caps for him or cheney out of total disrespect for them!

Great post.

glenn
Member

Thank you, Nirek.

I also never use capital letters when I type “republicans/tpartiers” and always use caps when I type “Democrats”.

KQµårk 死神
Member

Ditto, AdLib truly has a gift for describing aspects of the human condition in a unique and extraordinarily insightful manner.

The example you give exemplifies that statement very well. The GOP has so many layers of denial with their echo chamber they just can’t even do basic reasoning.

Kalima
Admin

More good news.

Obama outraises Romney for the first time in months.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/10/obama-outraises-romney-for-first-time-in-months/