Andrew Cotto notes the similarities between Tennessee William’s play and his view of the Republican Party.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is a legendary play about a wealthy Southern family in the 1950s crumbling under the weight of its fractured legacy and tragic truths. A dramatic and moving narrative, Tennessee Williams’ play has much in common with the way I see the contemporary Republican party: bloated patriarchy, misogyny, closeted-homosexuality, faded glory, elitism, envy, ignorance, desperation and fear, but what best explains the rising flames under the current Republican roof is the play’s dominant theme of mendacity. I know: Politicians of all stripes on all levels practice a certain amount of duplicity. It’s inherent in the occupation and a reality of the requirements to seek office and enact influence once in said office. But extreme deceit, or mendacity, is what I see as the defining characteristic of the Republican Party in the age of Obama.
It began in earnest in this modern era with the nomination of Sarah Palin to be Vice President of the United States. While this was primarily a move of desperation, it also required a concerted effort to convince the American people that the newbie governor of the 49th state was qualified to be second in command to the most powerful nation in the world. It was a disaster, like many failed attempts at deception, which I believe set off a pattern of blatant mistruths which have defined the Republican electorate since that time, from faux-ideas like “Drill Baby Drill” and trickle-down-economics to a shame-free pattern of deflecting blame for the deficit, the recession, the housing crisis, and the debt-ceiling debacle. Republicans made a mess of America during the Bush Administration and picked right back up in their currently-controlled session of Congress, and they blame it all on Obama. Mendacity.
It’s easy for a political party to practice their deceit when a national media entity serves as their proxy. Fox News regularly report as fact Republican-originated myths that seek to belie the Democrat’s agenda. This explains why their viewers are so painfully misinformed about so many issues, for they are naïve enough to trust the “news” in the new Republican age. And this is the content from their so-called news desk. The opinion segments of their programing features (or has featured in recent times) a legendary lineup of “Mendacity All-Stars,” such as Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, and Michelle Malkin. Scary. And this excludes the independent but ideologically aligned “Master of Mendacity,” Rush Limbaugh.
I see the most ludicrous of the Republican-related attempts to misinform Americans in the mountains of mendacity piled upon President Obama. This has been a concerted effort, launched from all fronts of the Republican opposition: politicians, pundits, news anchors, charlatans and random clowns like Donald Trump and Orly Taitz. According to the all-arms assault, the President is a socialist of Kenyan birth and Keynesian doctrines who doesn’t believe America is exceptional. His militant wife hates America and calls our kids fat. The President also wants to kill the elderly, bleed the rich, crank up gas prices, isolate Israel, grow the government, shrink the private sector, and host non-stop hip-hop BBQs at the “Hizzy” House.
Mendacity has made it from the Broadway stage to the nation’s capital. And Mitt Romney has assumed the leading role in the Republican production to upstage the sitting president. He’s a great choice, an actor’s appearance with a showman’s ease with scripted fiction. As I wrote about Romney’s trouble with the truth in these pages in February,“Whether it’s off the cuff or in pre-scripted manner, Romney drops whoppers on his personal past (in an attempt to seem less privileged), his professional accomplishments (his job creation numbers fluctuate wildly), on his political policies (where he changes positions more than a porn star), and on his opponents (where he has no problem painting blatantly false narratives).” I could provide a dirty-laundry list of Romney’s falsehoods, but a simple Google search of “Romney lies” yields 19,500,000 responses. Wow. Does mendacity cover it? I think we’re going to need a bigger word.
Joseph Goebbels is infamous for his belief and success with the concept of telling a huge lie, and then repeating it over and over. Karl Rove brilliantly brought that into mainstream politics with Bus and expanded it with his PAC, then Romney & Ryan gave speeches that even the slime at Fox News admitted were filled with lies. When called on their lies, Romney and Ryan grin, dissemble, and repeat the lie — with the exception of his silly lie about his sub three hour marathon. The Runners jumped up, talked of formal recognition of this fantastic event, and asked… Read more »
The left’s endless obsession with all things Fox News is hysterical, and I don’t mean funny.
The dishonesty and want of power is on both sides, but the obvious stupidity falls squarely on the hyperpartisans like Andrew. Just calling out stupidity, Andy!
I don’t write articles in order to change people’s minds. People change their own minds (or not). I am calling out dishonesty. If you want to get off the sidelines and compile a long list of Democratic lies, it might make a nice comparison.
Nice rant there, Andrew. Do you think you changed anyone’s mind? You didn’t change mine.
How would you react to my listing a long list of all the lies, half-truths and distortions which I believe have been perpetrated on America over the decades by Democrats, Liberals and Progressives? Would any such list, no matter how accurate, change your views? You claim to be against petty name calling and ‘insults’, but you can’t quite come up with anything else yourself.
Mike, I think you are conflating mudslinging with honest accounting. Calling a liar a liar is not mudslinging (unlike calling President Obama a liar during the State of the Union). It’s truth. The golden wisdom you cite is a lovely idea, but honest criticism is a necessary component of democracy. As a citizen and a journalist, I am entitled to deliver what I believe is honest commentary. I’m not calling a woman who wants access to contraception a slut; nor am I creating ads taking words out of context to present a false narrative (I could go on and on… Read more »
Your points are well taken, Mike (and ones certainly raised by the editors prior to publication), but the overriding point of the article is that meaningful policy discussions are moot at this point, considering the unwillingness of the GOP to engage in honest and inclusive policy discussions. Even when the administration finds way to compromise on matters of concern (contraception comes to mind), the Republican response is to push the issue even farther to the right. I could easily write an article justifying each and every one of those “insults” (pick one and I’ll be happy to do so), but… Read more »
Andrew,
I’m really sorry, but your argument seems to consist entirely of the phrase “They started it!”.
Shouldn’t we hold ourselves to a higher standards than our opponents? Is the inadequacy of the opposition really grounds for stooping to their level?
Is the way Republicans in Washington act really acceptable justification for bad behavior on our own part? Should we simply shrug and join in the angry, yet meaningless, shouting? Or should we perhaps follow that golden piece of wisdom and “Be the Change We Want to See in the World,”?
When did the Good Men Project become the Ad Hominem Attack project? Seriously, if we’re going to talk politics, can we at least talk about specific policies as though we are informed individuals? Typing a list on insults like “bloated patriarchy, misogyny, closeted-homosexuality, faded glory, elitism, envy, ignorance, desperation and fear” might feel good, but it doesn’t really contribute to serious policy discussion. Indeed, it probably just invites name calling from the other side. If the Republican Party’s policies are truly and completely deceitful (as the author claims several times) then how hard would it be to call one out… Read more »