Cavett: "Is it too dramatic to ask what rough beast is gnawing at the soul of America?"

Although Dick Cavett in his NYT commentary is thinking only--I think--about gun violence when he writes "Is it too dramatic to ask what rough beast is gnawing at the soul of America?" Charles Blow answers, in a way, that for many of us seems none too dramatic and almost wholly explanatory: "Rhetorically, the G.O.P. is the party of calamity. The sky is always falling. Everything is broken. Freedoms are eroding. Tomorrow is dimmer than today."

Pondering American violence is but a part of the general gloom which has settled on the exhausted brains of everyone who tries to keep up. It's overwhelming. We just endured a two-year campaign that (or so went its theme) would resolve the question of America's philosophical direction for at least the next two years, and yet the daily news teems with nearly nothing but the GOP's abiding, rhetorical debauchery--and calamity, and falling sky, and broken everything, and eroding freedoms, and the endlessly bellowed ghastliness that tomorrow is indeed dimmer than today.

Republicans' rhetorical as well as procedural debauchery never even slows, let alone stops. It pounds, it grinds, and it wears the hell out of everyone who follows the circus. When we're not being treated to the attempted humiliation of a universally applauded secretary of state, the president's defense nominee is subjected to an unprecedented gauntlet or his nominated consumer advocate--a consumer advocate for Christ's sake--is blocked or now, yep, his three-times confirmed treasury pick has "got to still answer some questions or we may have to postpone the hearing."

And as this shit never stops all the other crap keeps running--from the enormously idiotic austerity of an enormously idiotically named "sequestration" to perpetual debt-ceiling collapses and impending government shutdowns and intelligent employment measures denied and on and on.

And just how much of this septic-tank loyal opposition is really necessary, even for customary partisan purposes?

Right.

So "Is it too dramatic to ask what rough beast is gnawing at the soul of America?" Not at all. And the answer is all too obvious.

Comments

[Robert Lipscomb]

This morning, I watched Bill Clinton's speech at the Democratic Party retreat. (I might have bought a set of encyclopedias.) Once again, Ole Bill has perfect political intincts and timing.

He urged the elected politicians to not simply point out GOP craziness; he challenged them to formulate a plan for growth and sell.

He also circled back to the same point and same phrase several times. he argued to not simply write off people who are not in "our demographic group". he challenged them to "turn into" the discussion - even when they think they have no chance to win.

He had multiple explicit points. One is that the arguments need to be heard and must be made to be heard. Another was that people needed to see that we have a plan and we believe in it. Some ideas just take time; so don't initial failure prevent you from engaging.

Finally, he argued that you might find more success than you expect. Thus the "turn into the discussion".

All this ties to PM's and Cavett's point. At this point in history, I think the so-called persuadables are available to shift which direction they lean - because of the rough beast gnawing at us. It is not enough to point out that it is a gnawing beast. We must give credible alternatives and explain why they are credible.

[BobB]

Re the Charles Blow observation,

http://crooksandliars.com/jon-perr/for-republicans-everything-is-holocaust

[AnneJ]

Great article, BobB thanks for the link. Don't know which part I liked best. The part where Virginia Foxx claimed that government would start putting old people to death, which made me think of her (with a slight pang of guilt, but only a slight one because if there is any old relic of a congressperson who needs to be put out to pasture if not death it's her). Or maybe where the wax over dramatically over a future where the next generations are saddled with enormous debt-the thought never occurring to them that if we paid taxes now, our junior citizens won't have so much to worry about-same thing goes for climate change-no their answer seems to be don't pay anything and leave craphole mess for them to clean up anyway, or when they warn that reelecting Barack Obama would trigger another Holocaust. I think we should have a law that says if you want to run for congress, drama queens need not apply.

[Peter G]

If only, ah if only, this peddling of dreck were limited to the right. The same site BobB references is also running and celebrating an asinine statement by Daniel Ellsberg that could have come out of Glen Beck's mouth without changing a syllable. And this crap is not at all uncommon on the left. Ellsberg at least has an excuse for extreme paranoia. Few others do and no the NDAA doesn't mean the government of he United States is secretly plotting against the entire freaking population.

[Jim Milstein]

Quite right: hysterics on both sides.

Yet, my GOP puts them forward for public office, makes the hysteria its party platform, requires otherwise reasonable people to say and do crazy stuff; the Dems, not so much, lately. I still haven't forgiven them for being the party of slavery.

[Marcia S]

LOL, talk about living in the past.....