Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire "When Did the GOP Lose Touch with Reality"

One helluva good read from David Frum. No doubt it won't be received well by this group, but it needs to be said.

The section on FoxNews and the conservative media is especially damning and dead-on accurate:

Extremism and conflict make for bad politics but great TV. Over the past two decades, conservatism has evolved from a political philosophy into a market segment. An industry has grown up to serve that segment and its stars have become the true thought leaders of the conservative world. The business model of the conservative media is built on two elements: provoking the audience into a fever of indignation (to keep them watching) and fomenting mistrust of all other information sources (so that they never change the channel). As a commercial proposition, this model has worked brilliantly in the Obama era. As journalism, not so much. As a tool of political mobilization, it backfires, by inciting followers to the point at which they force leaders into confrontations where everybody loses, like the summertime showdown over the debt ceiling.

But the thought leaders on talk radio and Fox do more than shape opinion. Backed by their own wing of the book-publishing industry and supported by think tanks that increasingly function as public-relations agencies, conservatives have built a whole alternative knowledge system, with its own facts, its own history, its own laws of economics. Outside this alternative reality, the United States is a country dominated by a strong Christian religiosity. Within it, Christians are a persecuted minority. Outside the system, President Obama whatever his policy errors is a figure of imposing intellect and dignity. Within the system, he�s a pitiful nothing, unable to speak without a teleprompter, an affirmative-action phony doomed to inevitable defeat. Outside the system, social scientists worry that the U.S. is hardening into one of the most rigid class societies in the Western world, in which the children of the poor have less chance of escape than in France, Germany, or even England. Inside the system, the U.S. remains (to borrow the words of Senator Marco Rubio) the only place in the world where it doesn�t matter who your parents were or where you came from.

We used to say "You�re entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own facts." Now we are all entitled to our own facts, and conservative media use this right to immerse their audience in a total environment of pseudo-facts and pretend information.

Absolute BS.

For sure.

Writing an article claiming reality is propaganda and opinion is truth is... well... propaganda.

Kent

A body would have to suffer a severe case of recto-cranial inversion to believe that.

Frum is a RINO/Wannabe Liberal that the liberal outlets label a conservative and cram his opinion down peoples throats as being the voice of the actual conservatives.

The GOP is a joke and Fox News is mostly neocon propaganda.

Great marketing but I'm continually amazed that the cattle still eat it up like it's some bastion of truth and conservatism.

You mean sorta like the "KoolAid" drunk by liberal Democrats? Appears you have had a heaping helping.

Oruacat2: Are you a cat?
For you to give any creedence what so ever (re-posting it!) to this bit of leftist propoganda is a damning testimonial to your intellect.
Of which I now assume you have NONE!
The GOP is 1,000 times MORE reality based than ANY other political party in the United States today!
AND... I see 100 times more truthful interpretaion and commentary on what few "conservative media" there are, than when I force myself to watch the much more populaced "liberal media" - like someone else posted "get your head out of YOUR ass".
This is NOT a "good read" as you describe but is simply worthless tripe and propoganda for the leftist MSM!
YOU should be ashamed of yourself.
Sheesh.
But... you ARE right about one tiny bit of your worthless posting - the post you made was NOT received well at all by me - I hold your posting in the same contemptuous category as lawn fudge in my waffle stompers.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

I am NOT going to waste the time to read the whole Frum piece, but it is for certain that oruacat2 has fallen into his/her own false reality by accepting the excerpted baloney copied into here.

On one hand, I see no convincing evidence that there is a concise form of GOP at this time, and some real shaping up needs to take place in the coming months - with appropriate inclusion of some important conservative values along with practical approaches to the mega-mess over which Obama has presided. On the other hand, anyone who attempts to present a reality that Obama is seen as a "figure of imposing intellect and dignity" by any sensible audience is whistling in the graveyard. No cross-section of my numerous intelligent contacts - domestic and abroad - views Obama as such, nor do they see the US populace "hardening" socially as stated. Yes, foreigners and liberal domestics see our problems and are concerned about paths to be taken and the effects upon them

In the case of the politicians who are trying to figure out how to win their points and stay in office - that's another matter. Clearly, oruacat2is frightened by the clout of the conservative media and, no doubt, dumbfounded by the ineffectiveness of the intentional liberal bias of the other big media. But, this Frum ploy is a joke in the face of some serious matters.

I couldn't really follow the logic of the article, but if he is trying to say Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingram, and the other Fox pundits, are neo-cons and a joke . . . then yes I agree. The only person worth listening to is Rush.

Another piece of [bleep] floats in from blue grass country (as in blue state) LOL get a life loser.

Of course, this exactly describes what the progressive/liberal/marxist/communist/facist movement that is the democrat/moveon party of the US has done. True to the falsehood propagation techniques of their mentor, Goebbels, they will now attribute their own reprehensible characteristics to the betters who oppose them.

That Rick is what they always do. It's in the handbook.

Have not read one word besides the title of the OPs' thread, but I have an answer, right or wrong. Wasn't Lincoln a Republican? He or that time period IIRC was the beginning of the end on the freedoms our founding fathers fought and died for to create this nation.. Now we have fools electing and will probably reelect a foreign raised socialist.

David Frum and his like are the ones who have �built a whole alternative knowledge system� about Obama, their Champion with feet of clay.

Reality is the landslide election of 2010 and all the Democrats and RINOs who lost their jobs in Washington.

Reality is the landslide election of 2010 and some 660 plus Democrats in statehouses around the country who lost their jobs.

Reality is the landslide election of 2010 caused the greatest political turnover in the nation since Reconstruction after the Civil War.

Reality is that Obama cannot survive his 60 percent disapproval rating.

Reality is that Obama cannot survive without Hillary Clinton as his running mate.

Reality is�
OBAMA:CLINTON
2012

Obama will win with or without Hillary.

I've given up on the GOP. They trot out Rino after Rino and laugh and mock a real conservative like Ron Paul. Fox News is nothing more than the mouthpiece of LIBERAL Republicans.

I hope RP runs as a third partier and wrecks Romneys plans. I'm of the opinion that Obama can do less damage, at least with an opposing Congress.

Just like with all the best lies, there is a tiny amount of truth. Just enough to make the reader think �yea, that part is true, so maybe I should give some credence to the rest of it�.

It is basically worthless to listen to this type of citizen of Conservatism without a fact based comparison with liberalism.

Is FOX news sometimes off base with a right wing bias ? Yes, but compare that to ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC and CNN, who are all way off to the left and one realizes that FOX is closer to reality than any of them.
Do right wing pundits stretch the truth and slant things to the right ? Yes, but consider this.
The most influential of them, like Rush & Hannity openly admit that they are conservatives.
Compare that to the likes of Brian Willams and Catie Couric who pretend to be non partisan news people while spewing their left wing agenda.

You miss the point. They're ALL liberal, including Fox. It's just a different brand of liberalism.

The GOP and conservatives are dedicated to preserving our country were individual rights are of primary importance and to maintain that which has made us the most successful country in the world.

The progressives are dedicated to the destruction of our country as we know it so they can build a progresive fascist paradise. Where they can enforce their will on the populace. Just like the Nazis, Communists and Fascists controlled their countries.

Look at how Obama and the progressives have targeted the 1%, they have focused the anger of the weak minded on this minority so that Obama and his crew could remain in power. This has had two benefits for Obama. First it has filled the media space, when it should be talking about unemployment, Solyndra, the deficit spending and all "great" accomplishments of Obama. Furthermore it has given him something to blame for his failures as president. "It was all the fault of those evil rich the 1% and their servents the Republicans."

Adolf had the Jews amd Obama has the 1%. We all know what happened to the Jews. It was the ultimate evil. Hopefully the same thing won't happen here. It is evil to prey on the weaknesses of people to gain political power. That is what Adolf did and that is what Obama is doing.

You complain about Fox News as being biased. They are the just about the only news media who gives both sides an opportunity to present their views fairly. The mainstream medis has abandoned the notion of objectivity and presenting the facts to inform their viewers. They have become agents of the progressive movement. Working for change hand in hand with the progressive movement.

Just look at their sickening performance in the 2008 election where they did everything possible to win the election for Obama. Just about every story on Obama was positive. Covering up his Reverend Wright failures, his drug dealing, his friendship with terrorists, his utter lack of accomplishments and that fact that he was pretending to be a moderate while being the most extreme liberal politician in the Senate. I don't think that anyone in the news media, except for Fox, asked him one difficult or challenging question.

While McCain was shafted by the mainstream news media. The best example of this is the frontpage story in the New York Times that claimed he had an affair with anonomous sources.

They are still at it today. Just a week ago or so a reporter asked Obama if the Republicans were stupid or evil. That says it all. Have you seen much in the news about Fast and Furious? For some reason the BATF started flooding Mexico with thousands of our guns with out making any attempt to trace the guns or arrest anyone. All the while Obama and Holder were promising the anti-gunners that they were working on gun control under the cover. This is a crime much worse than Watergate, yet the mainstream newsmedia is largely downplaying or ignoring it. If they weren't working for Obama they would be demanding Obama and Hoder's resignation or impeachment.

If you still believe in Obama and the progressive after the last 4 years you are one of them. Working for the destruction of our country, rebuilding it as a progressive fascist state.