What Ailes Us
Dec. 15th, 2011 10:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
barking_iguanaRove and the current crop of GOP candidates are only symptoms. I'm coming to believe Ailes has been the real problem for 43 years.
The movement Buckley built was bad enough, destined to engender policies that would make the vast majority of Americans worse off. But Ailes co-opted it, recognizing that the common thread of conservative issues was a larger than average fear of the unknown--of vigorous but thoughtful debate, of change, of diversity in any form. From the 1968 Nixon-Agnew Law and Order campaign on, he has been cultivating an anti-intellectualism so strong that the so-called "conservative" political leaders of today are not merely wrong or evil in a Buckleysque way, but so short-sighted and functionally stupid that they risk breaking the system in ways that cannot be repaired.
Remember that S&P downgraded the credit rating not because of any fundamental difficulty in meeting our obligations. They did it because the GOP had intentionally put default on the table--something that will to some degree be permanent unless it is steadfastly ignored for a full generation.1 If these radicals posing as conservatives are not curbed soon, I think the politically manufactured debt ceiling debacle will be small potatoes compared to what comes next.
1"The political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America's governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable than what we previously believed. The statutory debt ceiling and the threat of default have become political bargaining chips in the debate over fiscal policy." - S&P
The movement Buckley built was bad enough, destined to engender policies that would make the vast majority of Americans worse off. But Ailes co-opted it, recognizing that the common thread of conservative issues was a larger than average fear of the unknown--of vigorous but thoughtful debate, of change, of diversity in any form. From the 1968 Nixon-Agnew Law and Order campaign on, he has been cultivating an anti-intellectualism so strong that the so-called "conservative" political leaders of today are not merely wrong or evil in a Buckleysque way, but so short-sighted and functionally stupid that they risk breaking the system in ways that cannot be repaired.
Remember that S&P downgraded the credit rating not because of any fundamental difficulty in meeting our obligations. They did it because the GOP had intentionally put default on the table--something that will to some degree be permanent unless it is steadfastly ignored for a full generation.1 If these radicals posing as conservatives are not curbed soon, I think the politically manufactured debt ceiling debacle will be small potatoes compared to what comes next.
1"The political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America's governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable than what we previously believed. The statutory debt ceiling and the threat of default have become political bargaining chips in the debate over fiscal policy." - S&P
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no subject
Date: 2011-12-16 04:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-16 04:10 pm (UTC)(One nitpick, though: I thought it was S&P, not Moody's, that downgraded US credit.)
no subject
Date: 2011-12-16 05:33 pm (UTC)