Heya, gang.
Listen, um ... you're doing some stupid things.
Some really stupid things.
So I thought I'd clue you in on what they are and why you should stop them.
It's going to look like I don't care, so bear this in mind: I wouldn't scold if I didn't care.
Traditional media:
You might have noticed that a black Democrat -- a young black Democrat -- won last year's election by about six points.
He beat out a guy who has been on the national political scene since about 1985. A war hero who had all the experience you could ask for.
A man who had to run on the Dick Cheney platform because that's what the party has been reduced to.
America dismissed Dick Cheney's policies in November and hasn't looked back since. We're not interested in torturing people (trying to make someone think they're going to die isn't harsh, it's torture. And if you have to stand behind something lest you come off as too Democratic, say, "Policies President Obama and Attorney General Holder have denounced as torture" on first reference and torture on second reference), invading countries under false pretenses or cutting taxes for the people who need the money least.
And that's just the tip. Don't even get me started on deregulating anything.
So when you invite Republican strategists on your news shows, or when you host Republicans on your opinion pages, you might want to set some ground rules. I suggest:
No lying: This is not a center-right nation; most Americans do not favor deporting anyone who looks Mexican or happens to eat too many tacos; most Americans who will be alive in 15 years are far more concerned with the economy than with the scary homosexuals (who also are pretty concerned with the economy); most Americans who are politically aware don't respect the party because it can't currently do anything more sophisticated than seem like a 2-year-old ("No!") or someone stuck in the Cold War ("I don't have a good idea, but you're a socialist!").
Also, for the love of Og, stop talking to Dick Cheney. He isn't interested in the country's prosperity. He's interested in Dick Cheney. Unless he's going to admit he failed or that his party is suffering like it hasn't since the days of Nixon and Ford, why should anyone listen to anything he's going to lie about?
Unless and until you realize all of this and act with it in mind, I'll be part of the growing crowd of people simply uninterested in helping your ratings. I'm tired of listening to people lie to me and ask in return that I respect their lies. Tired of being lied to and thought of as sufficiently ignorant as to believe easily debunkable lies. Tired of balance being a polite way of saying you have to let the liars have their say as well. If a certain group of people has been lying to the country for the last eight years ("Obama is going to raise your taxes if you make more than a dime a year!"), why do you not even challenge what they spew?
So when you're ready to do a good job of presenting the news, let me know. Otherwise, I'm not interested.
Republicans: Grow some balls and stand up to Rush Limbaugh, who is far more concerned with his ratings and his wallet than anything you do. His job is to get people to listen to his show and call in. This means he is going to say what he thinks will get the most people's attention.
Stand up to him and yeah, it will hurt in the short term, and probably the long term.
But keep letting him call the shots and he will keep having more power than you do.
Also: The social conservative wing of your party is following Rush's lead. Its purpose is to use the Republican Party to further its agenda. The tax stuff ... not its biggest priority. But fetuses, gay marriage and making sure everyone is praying, wherever they are?
Oh, it is on that shit like white on Katon Dawson.
And if you try to abandon it, it will scream like that 2-year-old child. Really. Promise.
It might seem unwise to diminish your base by dropping your obsession with the sex other people are having, but to mainstream America, the people who care so much about out sex lives are, well, kind of disgusting.
At best. (That's not counting the exhibitionists -- the folks who get off on being told they're disgusting in the sack.)
To most of us, see, that social conservative wing is a histrionic little child with a lot more hate than future. Believe it or not, a lot of people who are moderate fiscally have been forever turned off by the Republican Party because o its hate- and fear-based positions.
Manage to pry your party's future out of the hands of people with no interest in admitting defeat and life will surely be tough for you.
But fail to do so and you will within one election cycle -- two, max, and that's being generous -- be not even so strong as to be called a regional party.
Dick:
Friend, Roman, countryman.
Every word you say in public further isolates your party from America.
Every word.
Even worse, everything you do to undermine the president.
When this country rejected you and your lies, it was our not-so-subtle way of saying "Goodbye, Dick."
We don't want your lies around anymore. We're not interested in hearing what latest you've cooked up to justify lying, killing and torturing.
But you don't see things that way, do you?
You don't understand that you and Rush Limbaugh have turned so many hundreds of thousands of Republicans and Independents off the party, and more Democrats permanently so, because to do so would be to listen to the people -- which you've never been particularly interested in doing unless you get to put on your best "Have I tried to frighten you lately?" face or your "I feel more contempt for you than you could possibly imagine, so here's a smile" face.
We're not interested in your fear anymore. Someone finally stood up to it, and since then, everything you do has most of us thinking these are just more things said in desperation by the man no longer behind the curtain.
We're on to you. And we believe you less and less even as you speak more and more.
So do, do keep peddling your old, worn out, defeated wares.
But to the extent that any of them are based in anything other than fear and lies, we'll never know.
But outside the "Cheney is great ratings" mantra the traditional media keeps repeating, we've stopped thinking of you as credible.
love, kisses and waterboarding,
iampunha