Here in part is how The Economist explained this tribalism and dysfunction in a recent issue (on May 24) under the heading “The primeval tribalism of American Politics.” No longer able to fathom how their partisan rivals can hear, and also see, think and say the things they do, Americans are increasingly liable to consider… Read more.
Republicans
Trump’s First Year Ends with Government Shutdown…
Which perfectly symbolizes the dangers, diatribes, disaffection, discrimination, disillusionment, dissembling, dithering, and dysfunction that have characterized his first year as president of the United States. In the final moments leading up to Friday’s midnight deadline, Senate Republicans and Democrats were unable to agree on a stopgap funding measure to continue government services. … Whoever works… Read more.
Success of Obama’s Policies Confounding, Vexing, Defying Republican Critics
The U.S. economy grew at a sizzling 5 percent annual rate in the July-September period, the fastest in more than a decade, boosted by strength in consumer spending and business investment… It was the fastest quarterly growth since the summer of 2003. It followed a 4.6 percent annual growth rate in the April-June quarter… The… Read more.
2014 Midterm Elections: Republicans and the Triumph of Irrational Exuberance
I’ve coined the term “irrational intelligence” to define that which informs people to do and say plainly ignorant things … with the conviction of a genius (or a saint). Think, for example, of people who say that President Obama is an incompetent leader whose socialist policies have ruined the economy. (Incidentally, polls indicated that the… Read more.
Obama Trumpets Obamacare Success … Despite Republican Sabotage
Republicans are not going to like the New Yorker’s latest cover. The illustration nods to Obamacare’s recent victory, and shows President Obama feeding medicine to a little boy… Artist Barry Blitt told the magazine ‘I enjoyed drawing Ted Cruz, John Boehner, and Michele Bachmann as petulant children — and I especially wanted to draw an… Read more.