The reich-wing convention is providing many with a lot of laughs. But I question the

[T Wolf]

wisdom of taking this attitude toward what is, IMO, a very destructive force in America.

We can laugh at them, but far too many of our fellow citizens believe the filth being spewed. We can ridicule them, with good reason, but close to half, if not more, of all Americans buy into their bullshit. Making fun of them can be useful, to a limited extent - but only as part of a plan to totally destroy their credibility.

By laughing at them, we are saying that they do not matter. The fact is, they do.

Anything less than a full-scale attack that destroys their capability to pollute the political discourse will come back to haunt us. This is not Tokyo Rose. Theirs is a well-financed, wide-spread association of liars who have not been confronted in any meaningful way. They still dominate the media and do much harm.

Those who naively think that since Obama beat an incredibly weak opponent with a disastrous running mate by only a few percentage points, everything is now going to be hunky-dory because America has "seen the light" are simply wrong. That fickle electorate can, in a heartbeat, switch back in two or four years.

Allowing the right wingers to go unchallenged is a mistake. Taking them as less of a threat than they are will be suicidal.

[ErinBerin84]

1. yeah

I'm watching some woman who is whining about people who are elite and think that they are better than everyone, but in the last 5 minutes, she has told me that I don't love my country, that I don't love my troops, that I don't love God, etc.

[tridim]

2. I'm not worried. It's just a non-stop series of Jindalesque speeches from crazy people.

Compare and contrast with Obama's speech earlier this morning.

[alsame]

3. I agree, these people scare me. Not so much the mouthpieces

(who are mostly just interested in retaining their power and money), but their followers. Inciting hate and anger among groups of 'true believers' is not a good thing.

[Warpy]

4. Yes and no

Yes, they are speaking to a mostly undereducated, disinformed base located mostly in rural parts of the country.

However, we're seeing a real paradigm shift in this country wherein the people the GOP looks to when it says private enterprise and the free market will solve all our problems have been completely disgraced and exposed as thieves at best, fools at worst.

People out in the real world are experiencing pain, some of them for the first time, and they don't like it. They're finally starting to blame the people really responsible for that pain: deluded conservatives, power mad hacks, and corporate thieves.

Quite simply, conservative policies have now had their 40 years' trial and have been found not to work. People are fed up with the same old, same old, time and again from conservative leaders. Oh, they're not prepared to like liberals. They just know the conservative emperor has no clothes.

Conservatives are rigid and incapable of rapid enough change to try to find advantage in this cultural shift. Their speeches and policies are being seen more and more as anachronisms, as embarrassing relics of a past that really should not have happened.

Most people are fed up. They have only a minority of true believers, religious sheep, and bigots left. The country has always had those and will survive them.

[damntexdem]

5. That's right (heh heh), we must be more (ho ho ho) more serious ...ROAR!

Oh, it's just so hard to fight off the destructive forces while rolling on the floor!

Laughing at the idiots IS one way to challenge them -- and likely one of the most-effective ways to reach a fickle electorate.

Besides, all those comedians who rued the loss of Dubya now have their new mother lode.

[4lbs]

6. As long as they continue their chest-thumping fist-shaking ways, and not offer any actual

substantive alternative plans, I'm not worried.

Tax cuts for the wealthy and deregulation left with the 20th Century.