There are no better examples of the right wing disconnect with reality than President Obama, the Supreme Court Affordable Care Act decision, and the Republican Party's disenfranchisement drive through voter ID laws.
The line where belief that President Obama is a muslim, that he is a socialist, and that he was born in Kenya, passed from conspiracy theory to mass delusion long ago.
Cue Breitbart.com reader:
Dear Mr. Obama,
It occurs to me that you one of your major malfunctions in life is that you were not raised as an American. You were raised as Anti-American. It all goes back to your childhood; much has been written about it, and it is not necessary for me to recant how you relish being a street kid in indonesia learning the koran. Or how you spent years listening to Reverend Wright spew his hate fueled sermons. Frankly sir, I really don’t care about you, or your small, and insignificant life. I really only care about the American lives you are destroying in pursuit of the green or red liberal unicorn. Instead I’d like to discuss with you a problem you have with lying, cheating, and stealing.
Despite the false claims being disproved
again and
again these myths continue to persist.
Polling released during the Illinois Republican Primary showed that at least a third of Republicans polled believed that Obama was either a muslim or not born in the USA.
The rest is below the fold.
The epithets thrown at Obama reveal what the politically right wing believe are his characteristics of being anti-American. This belief is ingrained. They are absolutely convinced that he hates America.
Romney:
We will -- we will stop the days of apologizing for success at home and never again apologize for America abroad.
Obama has produced multiple forms of
proof of his American birth, he has explained he is a
Christian on multiple occasions, he hasn't demonstrated any socialist tendencies (more's the pity). To say that he hates America can be demonstrated as flat out wrong. Yet politically right wing people still hold to these beliefs.
Delusional theories don't stop with just President Obama.
Almost immediately after the Supreme Court announced its decision on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act right wingers were coming up with the most outlandish theories about why Justice Roberts sided with the liberal minded justices.
Bobby Jindal, Governor of Louisiana:
I don't know whether he was just playing to the editorial pages of the Washington Post and The New York Times. Extremely disappointing.
David Bernstein:
was he responding to the heat from President Obama and others, preemptively threatening to delegitimize the Court if it invalidated the ACA?
Michael Savage:
I'm going to tell you something that you're not going to hear anywhere else, that you must pay attention to. It's well known that Roberts, unfortunately for him, has suffered from epileptic seizures. Therefore he has been on medication. Therefore neurologists will tell you that medication used for seizure disorders, such as epilepsy, can introduce mental slowing, forgetfulness and other cognitive problems. And if you look at Roberts' writings you can see the cognitive dissociation in what he is saying.
Some guy called Harry:
How could John Roberts side with the liberals? The individual mandate is so clearly unconstitutional – even to a layperson – how could it be?
Kind of like a Vince Flynn book. Someone got to Roberts. I bet they got to him and told him he has to vote this way or members of his family – kids, wife, parents, whoever – were going to be killed.
Bizarre stuff.
But the position that I think truly explains what right wingers feel about the decision was summed up by Brent Bozell.
“His reputation is forever stained in the eyes of conservatives, and there will be no rehabilitating of it,” Bozell said. “He will be seen as a traitor to his philosophy.”
For those on the right wing, judges are not meant to uphold the law according to the constitution. They are meant to uphold the law according to what politically right wing people think is acceptable.
The same reason that conservatives believe that President Obama hates America, and that John Roberts is a traitor to conservatism is why they so strongly support voter ID laws.
To be sure there are those Republicans in elected office for whom disenfranchising people more likely to vote Democrat is just a cynical ploy to improve their electoral chances.
However a large number of ordinary Republican voters genuinely believe that there is actually large scale massive fraud being perpetrated across the country.
Judicial Watch, an organisation dedicated to defending the disenfranchisement laws posted this story on Breitbart.com:
You would think, given the response by the ACLU and NAACP, that the Pennsylvania law is a monstrous invasion of voting rights. But this claim is nothing more than political posturing and it has no basis in reality. Pennsylvania House Bill 934 is a simple, commonsense provision that maintains the integrity of every vote.
The law requires voters to produce a Pennsylvania driver’s license or another government-issued photo ID, such as a U.S. passport, military ID, or county/municipal employee ID when voting. If a prospective voter does not have a valid ID, the law requires the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation to provide one at no cost.
In other words, the law asks voters to do no more than is required to board an airplane, use a credit card, or open a Netflix account.
Sounds quite reasonable.
Oh wait.
The number of Pennsylvanians who might not have the photo identification necessary to vote this November has more than doubled: at least 1,636,168 registered voters, or 20 percent of Pennsylvania voters, may not have valid PennDOT-issued ID, according to new data obtained by City Paper. In Philadelphia, an enormous 437,237 people, or 43 percent of city voters, may not possess the valid PennDOT ID necessary to vote under the state's controversial new law.
So what do Republican voters say to this obvious attempt to depress turn out for people one Wisconsin Republican Senator describes as "more likely to vote Democrat"?
Back over to you Breitbart.com poster:
Democrats have one of the most corrupt administrations we have seen in 100 years. But apparently being corrupt in that way is not enough. The Democrats want to be able to rig elections too. This is the only way they will maintain their corrupt power is if they can finally do away with that free election thing and put in place whom they deem really deserves it. No liberals have problems with this. This is truly disturbing, very disturbing.
It's ironic that those who profess their love and loyalty of a principle the loudest are usually the first to abandon that principle. The biggest sting of hypocrisy in this is not that Republicans accuse Democrats of wanting to end free elections while supporting laws that take away the freedom of people to vote - it is that they accuse Democrats of being the ones trying to subvert democracy.
For the record, a Department of Justice probe from 2002 to 2007 convicted only 86 people of voter fraud over that five year period.
Now we get to the crux of the issue.
When Republicans believe in such huge numbers that President Obama is a Muslim Kenyan socialist despite all evidence, when they think that Justice Roberts upholding a contentious Democrat passed law is an act of treason, when they genuinely believe that hundreds of thousands of people across the country are committing voter fraud when the actual rate is close to zero it points to only one explanation.
Its the reason why Mitch McConnell described his primary goal as making Obama a one term President.
The political right no longer accepts the legitimacy of the political left.
Representative democracy requires the citizens within it to accept and acknowledge the outcome of a legitimate political victory. When a political party is successful in winning an election it has the mandate of the people to implement its policies according to its philosophy.
Since 2008 Republicans have abandoned this central tenant of democracy. They no longer believe that a left wing party has the right to govern if elected.
I put this theory to you. If Obama does manage to win by a slim margin in November, the very first conspiracy theory to pop up on the internet will be that President Obama won re-election because of voter fraud.