"I feel like we're living in the Twilight Zone," you may have said at any point in the last 10-32 years, with regard to what conservatives seem to be up to/focused on/valuing.
While this sentiment is generally understood to refer to the bizarre nature of what has become commonly described as "conservative" values and policies, it occurred to me that there's a more literal connection: the Twilight Zone episode, "Button, Button."
If you know this story, you know what I'm getting at. If you don't, check it out; you can easily get the impact from the description without having to view it.
Doesn't this psychological experiment of a fable capture the essence of the modern GOP political sales pitch to its base? Just agree to kill someone with whom you have no connection, and you'll become rich. Oh, and in consideration of the moral implications, pass over the biggest questions--who are you, how does this work, why should I trust you, etc.--in favor of questions about who might die. This question that, in essence, implies that the choice to commit an act of greed that requires the fatal sacrifice of someone else has already been endorsed on some level. To pass the moral test of the button, one must immediately reject it on the basis that no amount of personal gain justifies such a price, no matter who dies.
However, if one is isolated in a nation perceived to be increasingly populated by fearsome, immoral Others--illegals, Islamofascists, welfare queens, sluts, homos, pervs, unbelievers, all manner of cultural persecutors and sinners--then why not push that button? Why not vote for someone promising wealth if only the taxes that fund benefits for all those undesireables are cut? Why not vote to not only profit personally, but specifically at the expense of those one finds detestable?
Some may consider it hyperbole to accuse GOP policies of killing people. Sorry; it's time to level the death-panel accusation where it fits. The whole concept as constructed by Republican operatives is indicative of massive psychological projection on their part, owing to a lack of introspection, self-awareness, and self-criticism (in large part because they are financially incentivized against these). They have accused us of what they themselves are guilty: policies that cause suffering, starvation, and death.
In the sphere of public political discourse, these two things are kept as far apart as possible, because the pretense of Both Sides/Balance/Centrism so requisite for the profitable (to the media) close race cannot be maintained if one side is proven to be either right or wrong in a way that destroys the balance. In media, the cons can persist in their wrongness because their wrongness is never confronted & destroyed in such a way; they're safe. However, it cannot be proven to be correct, either, so it is also safe in that manner. The liberal factual ideas & policies capable of destroying the con position are not allowed sufficient time to do so, maintaining the balance. That is how that game is played.
A problem with liberals in media is that they either are not afforded the opportunity to make, or do not appreciate the necessity of making, the connection between conservative policy and conservative results in the Life/Death context--between pushing the button to get money, with someone else dying as a result. Why this is exactly can be debated--maybe they know they'll never be invited back on the air, maybe they see such opinion as "un-civil," or damaging to what they see as necessary maintenance of functional relationships with GOP lawmakers. I bet most of us on DK see little value in such opinion, but we should acknowledge that it was once a useful attitude, back when more members of the GOP were sincerely interested in governing and a real debate.
So my hope is that we can persuade our liberal activists & representatives to make that connection: to declare boldly and publicly that GOP policy asks us to endorse our own greed, at a morally unacceptable cost of suffering and death that may seem confined to others, but isn't, & which would be just as wrong if it was.