“Pondering the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
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Paul Krugman: A Tale of Two Parties
Do you remember what happened when the Berlin Wall fell? Until that moment, nobody realized just how decadent Communism had become. It had tanks, guns, and nukes, but nobody really believed in its ideology anymore; its officials and enforcers were mere careerists, who folded at the first shock.
It seems to me that you need to think about what happened to the G.O.P. this election cycle the same way. [..]
As some political scientists are now acknowledging, America’s two major parties are not at all symmetric. The G.O.P. is, or was until Mr. Trump arrived, a top-down hierarchical structure enforcing a strict, ideologically pure party line. The Democrats, by contrast, are a “coalition of social groups,” from teachers’ unions to Planned Parenthood, seeking specific benefits from government action.
This diversity of interests sometimes reduces Democrats’ effectiveness: the old Will Rogers joke, “I am not a member of any organized political party — I’m a Democrat” still rings true. But it also means that the Democratic establishment, such as it is, is resilient against Trump-style coups.
Charles M. Blow: The G.O.P.’s Cynical Gay Ploy
One of the most brazen — craven even — ploys by Republicans in the wake of the Orlando massacre has been to suggest, incredibly, that they would be better for the L.G.B.T. community than the Democrats. [..]
These vacuous appeals fly in the face of facts and are simultaneously laughable and infuriating.
At first, I couldn’t figure out the motive and mechanism of these appeals.
Were they about abject silliness, or a political senility, or an exercise in depraved cynicism? In any case, it is flat out wrong and a distortion of the reality — both in the language of hate and the policies of inequality — that queers know and live.
Then it occurred to me that these weren’t appeals to the L.G.B.T. community at all. This wasn’t a way of peeling off the rainbow contingent from liberals’ rainbow coalition, but instead a way of making Republicans and amenable independents feel good about supporting the party’s schismatic policies. This was a way to salvage nobility for the homophobic, to say that there are factional benefits for tribalism, that liberalism itself is flawed because you can’t house the wolves with the rabbits.
But this too shall fail.
Christopher R. Barron: The hard truth for Republican politicians: Trump is their passport to success
Republicans in competitive down-ticket races are fighting to distance themselves from the party’s nominee. It’s a recipe for failure
Whether Republicans in competitive races in the House and Senate like it or not, their fate is inexorably tied to that of the Republican nominee for president – Donald Trump.
Over the last few decades, as the partisan divide widened, we have increasingly become a nation of straight-ticket voters. Split-ticket voting is going the way of VCRs and cassette tapes. After the last mid-term elections in 2014, 84 members of the Senate were of the same party as the presidential candidate who last carried their state. As far as representatives were concerned in 2012, the number was 409 out of 435.
These facts haven’t stopped Republicans in competitive races in November from trying – almost assuredly in futility – to distance themselves from statements by Trump they believe will be unpopular in their state or district.
Lucia Graves: Hate killings won’t end until toxic political discourse does
At a time when American politics is dominated by a revived gun debate, the killing of a British member of Parliament an ocean away shows gun control isn’t enough – we must also remake our violent political discourse.
With its strict gun control measures, shootings in Britain are rare. Those measures did not, however, stop an attacker from savaging lawmaker Jo Cox, an outspoken advocate for multiculturalism and an inclusive approach to immigrants. The attack comes amid a divisive debate about whether Britain should remain in the European Union.
Usually, it is possible for people to qualify strong sentiments around race and ethnicity and to express them in ways that are functional within a democratic society that prizes free speech and freedom of religion. But just as a weapon in the hands of the mentally unstable can have violent consequences, the rhetoric of bigotry – and hatred cloaked in a veil of politics – can conjure violence. [..]
Cox’s death is tragic and terrible. It’s also a reminder that Trump’s response of hate-filled political scapegoating and stoking of fear – enabled by a toxic political rhetoric and spread by social media and the web – is more than exactly the wrong response: it’s at the heart of the violence.
Ana Kasparian: Let’s stop pretending like gun advocates care about the Constitution
When Edward Snowden leaked that the NSA was indiscriminately spying on all Americans by monitoring their emails and phone calls, there was very little blow-back toward the Obama Administration. The media quickly chose their preferred narrative that implied Snowden was a traitor instead of honing in on the fact that the government was clearly violating the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. [..]
It was shocking that so many Americans were apathetic to their Constitutional rights being toyed with. Members of Congress who argue against big government have been the same politicians who vociferously support the spying program in the name of “national security.”
Even though there’s evidence proving that the bulk collection of data is counterproductive and doesn’t help with intelligence of terrorist threats, fear-mongering about Islamic radicals has succeeded in making Americans comfortable with letting go of their freedoms.
But the same can’t be said of the Second Amendment, which has been wrongfully interpreted as a Constitutional protection that gives the 10,000 people on the Terrorist Watch List access to deadly weapons.
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