I’m wondering what it feels like when a Republican activist finds out that their family values senator is an adulterous crook. Isn’t it somewhat like how a Democratic activist would feel upon learning that his liberal senator was secretly writing checks to Operation Rescue?
Or, maybe not. Maybe it’s just refreshing to know that you aren’t the only person out there with sins to confess. Who knows with these people?
That activist will likely see it as the fault of relentless librulism.
My experience with Republican activists in my family is that stuff like this doesn’t faze them in the least. They start from a “ground” assumption that all politicians are crooked bastards and morons and so when one of their politicians turns out to be a crooked bastard or a moron, they’re not particularly shocked. They may be angry that they’ve opened up their “side” to a political attack by their antics, but there’s no sense of betrayal or disillusionment or anything like that.
This may be different if the pol in question has been singled out as a “Dear Leader” figure – if W had turned out to be stepping out on Laura behind her back for example. But the everyday run of the mill political sex scandal just doesn’t do much.
Well…
All politicians ARE crooked bastards and morons.
nalbar
I wouldn’t go that far, but I tend to believe that most politicians are power-hungry jackasses who will say or do pretty much anything to climb the political ladder and that you can only trust them to go as far as their own self-interest will take them. Which means if you want to get results from them you have to make it painful for them to not vote the way you want them to vote.
One of the most puzzling things to me as I’ve slid over the years away from my conservative Republican upbringing towards a more liberal outlook on life is how idealistically silly a lot of liberal activists feel about politicians that they back. They put their particular politician on a pedestal and then are shocked when the politician does something in his own self interest that is counter to what his supposed ideals would have had him do. And no matter how many times it happens, the same activists are ready to elevate someone new onto that pedestal just believing with all of their might that if we just get “good people” into those positions everything will be okay. It drives me nuts, because it’s a very, very rare thing for someone that “good” to be able to rise to that level of office, so what you need to do is find people who are not so good and make it painful for them to do bad things. Simple PoliSci stuff, but certain segments of the liberal activist base never seem to learn that lesson.
(That’s one of the reasons I like Jane Hamsher a lot despite not always being in agreement with her – she’s someone who really understands that politicians have no real loyalties outside of themselves and if you want to get them to vote for the things that are important to you, you need to grab them by the nuts and squeeze as hard as you can until they do the right thing. I’m really hoping that more liberal activists start looking at what Jane’s doing because that’s the only way crap gets done in this country – by being an annoying jerk that no one on Capitol Hill likes very much but everyone is too afraid of to tell them to “fuck off”.)
In a weird way it only makes them more endearing to the Christianist base who love rehabilitating sinners.
This is the “hate the sin, love the sinner” crowd. The important thing is not what you do but what you espouse. Having gay sex, or committing adultery etc. is understandable – after all humans are sinners. But saying it’s OK to be gay, or that we should accept human frailty without judgement and condemnation is WRONG, and in and of itself worthy of the worst vilification.
It’s all about the hypocrisy.
Once, when Henry Waxman was particularly exasperated with Bill Dannemeyer’s anti-gay ravings, he asked him what he thought about masturbation. Dannemeyer said that he didn’t think there was anything they could do about it.
LOL.
Not that they haven’t tried.
Here’s a book that answers those questions for you: The Authoritarians by Bob Altemeyer.
The answer is, they don’t feel much. They just file it under “reality to be ignored or explained away”.
Wingers are permitted infinite repentance – repentance of any democrat, however, (even a religious democrat – John Edwards, for example) doesn’t count. In fact, claims of repentance by democrats only serve to remind them of what the democrat did wrong and how irremediable that democrat is. Repentance of anyone belonging to the Lieberman for Lieberman party is recognized.
I would say it’s more like finding out the democrats you voted for, who campaigned on ending the war, restoring rule of law, repealing DADT and DOMA,and so much more have turned out to be as bad as or worse than the republicans on pretty much everything.
And i learned this morning the president has now flip-flopped on needle exchange too.
I believe we have been sold a bill of goods.
The republican party explains all of it!
http://imgsrv.gocomics.com/dim/?fh=03088ce2ba7406b185cb36df4f76c834&w=750.0
😀
I smell a reality show, a la Rock of Love, where all recent high profile philandering politicians (repub and dem alike – Ensign, Sanford, Vitter, Edwards……) jockey for the love of one woman. The question I’m still pondering is who that lucky woman would be?
Sins are for the Other — the ones not chosen. Ensign and Sanford, among others, are Chosen. The cult they belong to, The Family, literally says that. Their fanboyz undoubtedly feel that he chosenness rubs off on them as well. If you want to understand the macro cult/political dynamic you owe it to yourself to listen to the Terry Gross interview with “The Family” author Jeff Sharlet.
All is well with the Chosen as long as they enact the ritual teary public confession and public “getting right with God” porn for the base. And continue to seek punishment for the Other sinners.
family values it’s Family values
It’s true. These people don’t feel pain like we do. You know, like normal people do.