THE DRUGS DON'T WORK
It seemed to me last night that Paul Ryan's speech was frighteningly effective, just the sort of thing that gets the faithful all worked up, and also wins over low-info swing voters (Hey, y'know, that guy's right: the problem is we've got too damn much government!). But, of course, I thought Chris Christie hit a home run on Tuesday night, and his speech has been widely reviled as a flop. Today, the Ryan speech isn't garnering the hosannas I expected from the right -- Drudge's headline is muted (Ryan accompanied by a non-red, siren-free, generic-sounding speech quote: "WE DON'T HAVE MUCH TIME"). John Podhoretz is declaring Rand Paul a star, not Paul Ryan. And Paul Ryan isn't trending on Twitter.
I was in pain when I staggered away from the table after the Christie and Ryan all-you-can-eat buffets of red meat. I thought there'd be an equal but opposite reaction on the right.
But it occurs to me that right-wingers hear this kind of non-stop, high-blood-pressure attack-dog rhetoric every single day. They get it 24/7 on Fox. They get it 24/7 on talk radio. The Two Minutes' Hate is on an endless loop. It's been on an endless loop for years and years and years.
So I guess this didn't get their blood pumping because they feel like this all the time. The controlled substance Christie and Ryan dispensed, the one that left me seriously impaired, is, for the right, on a permanent IV drip. They crave it, but they barely respond to it anymore. They need megadose levels, and they're still not getting what they need.
3 comments:
Wonderful analogy.
In the same vein (har), what's the antidote?
Well, if they're used to that kind of rhetoric, imagine their diappointment after hearing Mitt's speech tonight?
That guy couldn't lead an incontinent person, after a beer-chugging contest, to the bathroom.
What will be fun to read about tomorrow (since I refuse to 'spoil my beautiful' mind watching this 'Liers On Parade), is will Mitt go and play the rational man in the gray flannel suit, who will lead this country back to the glorious black and WHITE days of the 1950's (on its way back to the 1850's), appealing to the center (and risk angering the attendees by not being 'full-goose bozo insane)?
Or, will he try to be something he's not, and channel some inner angry Teabagger, to fire-up the base in the live and TV audiences?
And then, only to discover that all he's shown the faithful, was that the "tea" in their nominated flesh "bag," is Earl Gray?
Somehow or other, I don't think that tepid Earl Gray will quite be the rabid bases cup of tea.
I think he'll play the kindly and faithful man in the gray flannel suit.
But, that's why the powers that be sutured Ryan to Mitt's hip.
To give that old corporatist vulture capitalist a Teabagging rabid attack pitbull as his sidekick - for Mitt to try to sell American Conservative Fascism to the masses, while Ryan kicks him in the side when/if he starts to do or say something that might lose the good old boy and gal base, that they desperately need to show up on Election Day.
While Mitt tries to sell this Bush-era used car to the rubes, Ryan won't let Romney be "out-n*ggered.'
I saw or heard someone somewhere saying the relatively muted level of red meat being thrown out at the convention was like a small meth hit for someone who's been on it for 10 years. I don't know much about meth, thank goodness, but when your "leaders" have been screaming for armed insurrection and "show me the birth certificate", trying to blame Obama for the debt crisis just doesn't do it for you.
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