“Don’t you just look good enough to eat? Nom nom nom.”

Must-read essay over at Daily Kos today from Jack Cluth, who asks a question that’s been on a lot of our minds over the past few years: “What happens when an entire political party embraces the Dark Side?”

By the definition of today’s GOP, compassion is synonymous with weakness as charity is with enabling sloth and indolence. If you’re unable to do for yourself, whatever your situation might be, you have no right to expect government to do for you. Ill? Disabled? Uninsured? Unemployed? That’s too bad, but it’s not the responsibility of government to do for those unable to do for themselves.

It’s as if Republicans have decamped from anything resembling compassion and migrated en masse to the Dark Side. They’ve rejected anything that smacks of humanity and embraced a Darwinian view of America as a place where the strong rightfully survive and the weak get what they deserve. I don’t know about you, but this philosophy has nothing to do with the traditional Conservatism that Republicans profess to revere. Traditional Conservatism doesn’t reject the social contract. It doesn’t genuflect to the oligarchy and the military-industrial complex. It doesn’t traffic in fear, hatred, and loathing. It doesn’t reject science. It doesn’t embrace fundamentalist Christianity as the ultimate and only authority on what America should be.

Then again, this isn’t about Conservatism. It’s about doing whatever it takes to acquire, maintain, and increase power and control. It’s about enforcing Social Darwinism and Fundamentalist Christianity as the basis of the American experience and the law of the land. It’s about using fear, hatred, and propaganda in order to manipulate the American Sheeple into doing your bidding.

The guy nails it. Read more of The GOP: The party of pain, punishment, misery, and death (Daily Kos) and check out this amazing, snarling anti-GOP rant courtesy of Chris Matthews: “Does the GOP enjoy the misery of others?” Matthews makes a pretty clear argument that indeed they do…

My compliments to both chefs!
 

 

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