Consent Of The Gullible

It's the Republican way.  Tom Delay on State of the Union this morning:

"You know," Delay said, "there is an argument to be made that these extensions, the unemployment benefits keeps people from going and finding jobs. In fact there are some studies that have been done that show people stay on unemployment compensation and they don't look for a job until two or three weeks before they know the benefits are going to run out.

Digby once again finds the truth here:

I would guess that this is going to catch on among the dittoheads. The right is reasoning that they can appeal to a good number of the majority who are employed and make them question why they should subsidize all those losers who are not. It worked with health care.

Empathy for your fellow man, or even a selfish sense that you might personally need some assistance someday, is being attacked by the right wing head on. And I would guess that there are more than a few people who secretly have thought these things but didn't have the social support necessary to say it out loud. Now they do.

This isn't a widely accepted point of view. Yet. But its infecting the body politic. 

Empathy for your fellow man is socialism.  Republicans want to teach selfishness to the point that spending tax dollars is evil, and that the federal government itself is illegitimate when it does so.

But now things are looking a bit dicey. According to a recent Rasmussen Poll , only 21 percent of American voters believe that the federal government enjoys the consent of the governed. On the other hand, Rasmussen notes, a full 63 percent of the "political class" believe that the government enjoys the consent of the governed.

It's tempting to stress the disconnect here, and that disconnect is certainly huge. Unsurprisingly, the political class -- which talks mostly to itself -- thinks that it is far more popular, and legitimate, in the eyes of the country than is in fact the case. In this, as in so many things, America's political class is out of touch with reality.

But forget the views of America -- where, it seems likely, more people believe in alien abductions than in the legitimacy of our rulers -- and look just at the more cheerful view of the political class.

Even among the rulers, only 63 percent -- triple the fraction of the general populace but still less than two-thirds of the political class -- regard the federal government as legitimate by the standards of America's founding document. The remainder, presumably, are comfortable being tyrants.

Obama Derangement Syndrome has become so bad that it has turned into Government Derangement Syndrome.  The normal process of governance that Democrats are engaging in is no longer legitimate to Republicans, simply because Republicans are not in charge.  If the GOP cannot be in charge of the government, then the government's legitimacy must be called into question.  That is their plan.  They are openly and overtly attacking the basic principles of governance now, when wielded by Democrats, as something that must be halted by any means necessary.

The Republicans are going for scorched earth here.  They are going full out now for the destruction of the United States of America.  There are those out there that fancy themselves patriots, who take this Second American Revolution thing seriously.  The Republicans are overtly appealing to them now with talk of rising up, with talk of "no other choice", with talk that if Democrats pass HCR, the American Experiment comes to an end.  They are looking for martyrs.

If they can't run the country, they will foment its destruction.  Period.

Things are about to get very, very bad.  And soon.