Why do Republicans hate America? Mostly because they hate themselves and they project this hate outward onto their communities, their fellow citizens, and their country. It's Psychology 101, but psychodynamic simplicity does nothing to lessen the pure evil of its effect on our nation.
Right-wing politicians are busy fomenting hatred of Muslims by protesting the building of a Muslim community center in an old Burlington Coat Factory building in lower Manhattan. These politicians know fully well that this center is neither a mosque nor is it located on the "hallowed ground" of the World Trade Center. They also understand that televised scenes of Americans protesting Islam play right into the hands of the Muslim extremists who really do want to destroy America. So why do it? Because it gives them short-term power and an opportunity to benefit in the midterm and 2012 elections. More importantly they have learned through the years that there is not much downside in American politics to intolerance and hate.
The Republicans alienated black people through their "southern strategy" but built a massive coalition of mean white people that gave them electoral dominance for a generation. They are currently alienating Hispanics through race-baiting and xenophobia. Given that Hispanics are the fastest growing ethnic group why would they possibly want to do this (especially considering that many Hispanics are quite conservative on social issues like abortion and so would ordinarily be a natural constituency for Republicans)?
Because hate motivates voters more than "hope" or "change". Also, if they succeed in their efforts to overturn the 14th amendment they can dilute the demographic time bomb that awaits them.
Republicans are working feverishly to undermine and thereby destroy the fiscal health of America. Every time they have had power they have cut taxes on the rich while also exploding the defense budget. This has the effect of driving up the deficit and locking future generations into idiotic foreign military adventures. It distributes income upward to the rich while feeding the military-industrial complex.
Currently for instance the Republicans are fighting to the death over not letting the Bush tax cuts (that went almost exclusively to the top five percent of earners) expire as intended (by, among others, the Republican leadership when these tax cuts were enacted). Meanwhile they excoriate Democrats for any domestic spending that might stimulate the economy and provide jobs to working people because it might increase the deficit. This is utterly dissonant--how can they argue in one instance for fiscal irresponsibility while arguing in the other for fiscal restraint?
Easy--as Dick Cheney famously remarked "deficits don't matter". Republicans have learned that "fiscal discipline" is just a phrase to throw at voters and that acting on this legislatively is a no-win proposition. Let Democrats be the party of fiscal responsibility, Republicans just want to get elected so they can use their power to further damage America and then use that damage to campaign against profligate gay-marrying minority-loving tree-hugging SUV-hating Democrats. It's pettiness and xenophobia that win the day, not foresight and moral values.
Our nation is in ruins. Our infrastructure is crumbling but we spend trillions making war in other countries. Bankers have Americans strung out on more debt than can ever be paid off--we are serfs to Wall Street. We have polluted our planet and are now in the midst of catastrophic (and irreversible) climate change. Working people now try not to look past the next day, while the rich (the true constituency of the Republican party) complain about how hard it is to get good help.
This is exactly in keeping when the plan the Republicans put into place at the beginning of the Reagan era, and which they keep to faithfully to the present day. Ultimately though it is ourselves we have to blame for letting them do this to us.
The hatred of Republicans for America is pathological, but so is our enabling of it. We're like a codependent spouse who can't bring herself to leave a vicious, oppressive asshole. After all, some times he says he loves us, right?
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Kerry Lauerman
Joan Walsh
Salon.com
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