They call themselves Independent or Libertarian, then vote Republican. That way they don’t have to own all of the craziness.
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I am surprised Trump lets Wallace interview him. He is about as close to a journalist as exists at Fox News. Trump should insist on one of the lap dancers like Hannity or Doocy.
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There are two political ideologies that are worse than Republicanism - Libertarianism and Populism. I think the current GOP is really Libertarian. They sure as hell aren’t conservative.
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No, that one was a conscious fraud from the very beginning.
There was never any there there.
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I think that mental health professionals call it “word salad.”
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Yup! I’m reading Democracy in Chains, which is the origin story of all the right-wing institutions that have been working to dismantle government: the Cato Institute, the Federalist Society, the Heritage Foundation, etc.
Charles Koch bankrolled almost all of it. He’s an extreme libertarian, who believes that it’s tyranny when “special interest groups” like “a majority of voters” bring about policies that compel rich people to do stuff they don’t want to do. He thinks the only laws we should have are laws that 100% of all citizens agree to.
Koch-built institutions have been cultivating acolytes for decades and then drip-feeding them into the public sector. Citizens United just opened the tap, because now people like him can directly reward or punish candidates with campaign funds.
Koch has been turning the wheel rightward tirelessly for nearly 50 years. It’s amazing what one can do if they put their mind to it and are also one of the richest people on earth.
ETA: It hasn’t always been Koch. Before he discovered James Buchanan (the economist who created the blueprint and fabricated the intellectual underpinnings of “public choice theory”), funding for this stuff came from places like the Volcker Fund and the Scaife Foundation. There are a few others. IIRC, it was pretty exclusively rich guys who hated taxes or people ruling the American South through voter suppression, actual poll taxes, voter intimidation, etc. I.e.: the “winners” who were willing to cheat to stay on top.
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O you are - how cool. The author was on Bill Maher night before last.
Koch had help - it was not single handed. The religious right - which is more Populist than Libertarian by far - helped. A lot.
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You, sir, are an infinitely more tolerant and thoughtful person than I.
Good on you.
Only when it comes to money.
Not with regard to women’s bodies, or gay people, or any number of other crusades they’re on.
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“I don’t know where they go.”
How about…HELL??, post haste.
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Decision probably based on wanting ‘Sunday AM’ propaganda platform and Wallace is least threatening?
I agree with that but privatization is definitely Libertarian. The culture wars are from the religious right and they are more Populist than anything.
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“…Democracy in Chains…”
Sounds like an interesting (though inherently aggravating and depressing) book.
Thanks for the tip!
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It strikes me that it might be time to dump the term “Fake News”… It has become over used and miss-used by the right so much that it has lost its meaning. Rather, I think the term "Trump Truth’ would be a better way to characterize such news stories. Taking the surname ‘Trump’ and turning it into an adjective meaning patently false or more reflective on the speaker than on the nominal subject of the piece.
On a similar note… The WAPO should retire the popular icon, Pinocchio’s nose as a device used to rank or measure falsehoods. Again, a more apt image would be to rate a misleading news story using a rating of between one and four ‘Trumps’ as an homage to the master liar. I am thinking that stylized, disembodied caricature of his famous fake blonde combover would work as a graphic icon.
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“It strikes me…” that the name or word tRump should be stricken from our American lexicon as soon as possible.
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I should have said Post-Ike Republicans though even during the FDR administration they were against his various programs that got us out of a great mess.
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Donald said he would leave if a reporter gets out of line. Please do donald and don/t come back.
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Well, they’re this weird, bastardized version of Libertarianism due to how they cherry pick it, mostly because Libertarianism is a halfassed version of Objectivistism. They take the economic aspects…and that’s about it. They gloss over or outright ignore stuff about abortion rights (Rand was pro-choice), religion, art, etc. And they have no qualms with supporting people against the majority of those beliefs as long as they get their tax breaks. It’s basically just “fuck you, got mine.”
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They twist everything, but “fuck you, got mine” is the essence of Libertarianism. hahahahahaha
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