Political discourse with Republicans won't work and why
Discourse is impossible when one side lives in reality and the GOP in a false reality
TAT readers,
As food for thought over the weekend, I offer today a discussion about why there is zero chance for political discourse while that the entire voting GOP is either a cowardly subservient politician or a fully brainwashed member of the party. By default, anyone voting Republican last November is partially brainwashed to the GOP’s false narratives, overt lies and daily doses of spoon-fed propaganda from the likes of FOX News and their ilk.
That last paragraph is a difficult truth to swallow but from a professional perspective, it requires what a dear scholarly friend would call, “radical acceptance.” I concur. So here’s the crux of the matter; no problem or threat can be solved without carefully and accurately painting yourself a brutally honest picture of the situation. I have been painting this picture regarding today’s version of the Republican Party, professionally, for well-over a decade. Much of what I say publicly is my attempt to paint you that picture as well, so that we can all work together to once again become what our founders foresaw for us, two-hundred and fifty years ago.
"If I had an hour to solve a problem I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions." - Most often attributed to Albert Einstein
One of my top-tier heroes is Albert Einstein and I often refer to his philosophical insights, especially regarding problem solving. One quote in particular applies to this part of this discussion and can be seen in the quote above. Please take it to heart. Today I will mostly focus on one point that prevents any progress in restoring our nation, and that we must all radically accept if we are to put things right. Why? because I have done as Einstein required, I put most of my effort into sourcing truth and then defining the problem here in print.
So… the one point that I am specifically speaking to is; there can be no political discourse between parties or voters, because today’s GOP slavishly repeats any and all Republican conspiracy theories and lies. The do this because they have been in lay terms, brainwashed. They no longer accept any and all reality. Their reality is simply what Trump says and his party repeats. As we all know, all of this is fully detached from any truthful reality.
They believed all manner of crazy statements about COVID. They believed that it was inflation rather than price-gouging by the very same oligarchs and corporate profiteers now increasing inflation again. After thirty years of FOX News and similar, they have an entirely false understanding of America’s history and values. They are victims of professional influence operations, often with support from Russia and advertising prostitutes that sold-out truth for the dollars they received for promoting the false narratives, that are permanently lodged into the psyches of Republican voters.
Every single Republican voter has bought into a long list of fake GOP grievances that have nothing to do with American values or even our constitutionally guaranteed rights. Then there are the culture wars, like their war on women and all things gender. They have hated green M&Ms, Mickey Mouse, Bud-light, non-existent CRT in public schools, Haitians eating dogs and cats, Taylor Swift, vaccines, masks and on and on and on.
Even those who cast ballots for Trump and Republican politicians that don’t consider themselves MAGA, are still living in a false reality, by believing that this criminal administration is good for the economy or all of us, the voting public. This group by default, voted MAGA whether they believe they are MAGA or not. Even those who selfishly voted R solely because it helped their bottom-line, are proof positive that a significant trait of self-serving, “it’s all about me” perspectives permeate today’s Republican Party.
Now, before anyone loses their mind about me not criticizing the “other side,” I want to be quite clear that some false narratives haunt the Democratic Party as well, but nowhere near the extent that it does the GOP. A couple of these issues are the far-left’s false narratives about Israel committing genocide and spewing the truly antisemitic line, “from the river to the sea,” while blaming Israel of committing genocide. Then, there is their failure to “read the room” by pushing for Democratic Socialism at a time, where the middle of the road voters, are the key to overturning this fascist regime.
The last thing we need while attempting to restore our government, is allowing the far-right and the far-left, to be driving all of the headlines. Of course, the far-right equals all Republicans while that those issues noted above, are only a relatively small percentage of the opposition. I don’t disagree with progressives advocating for their causes, just in their obsession with making them the primary talking points of the left. They simply do not realize that first, the resistance must win and then they will have a chance to promote their causes. If they continue as they are now, the resistance will remain disjointed and ineffective.
For over a decade now, today’s America has become a nation where the delusional minority is attempting to control the honest Americans in the majority, via unconstitutional, immoral and illegal means. There is zero common ground for discourse in such situations. For example, growing up, my only sibling, my brother Mike who was 19 months older than me, was severely mentally and physically disabled from birth, due to a horrific degenerative and exceptionally rare syndrome. For this reason, visits to him in an asylum before he passed away in my junior year of high school, brought me often into close contact other patients, most existing with an alternative perspective on reality. Even at five years old, it was perfectly obvious that I could not have a rational verbal exchange with any of these folks, no matter how hard they or I tried. I could see at five years-old what most Americans experience today attempting reason with Republicans addicted to conspiracy theories and lies. There is no point.
Like the story about my brother who I loved deeply and wished to communicate with, I had to acknowledge that all that I could offer him of benefit, was a hug and some soothing quiet words. More radical acceptance. The same applies to the Republican family and friends, that will still speak with me. Some have cut me out of their lives due to their rabid GOP addictions based on a false reality. I like most of America, have attempted for over a decade, to patiently communicate truth to them, only to be met with derision and dislike. Nothing mattered to them except repeating MAGA GOP talking points. Their ears were closed as much as their mouths were open.
In previous essays, I have carefully detailed how influence operations have converted lovely family, friends and colleagues into brainwashed zombies by previously noted influence operations. I won’t go into all of this now but will add a couple of links below for those who wish the in-depth explanations. Suffice to say though, after audiences have been radicalized past a certain threshold, peer-reviewed research and my deep experience with radicalization, extremism and counterterrorism, clearly shows that most will never fully recover from that radicalization.
This is terribly sad for a nation that has the name, “United” in its name. Yes, although being tragically sad, those hardcore Trumpers and MAGA Republicans may one day be civil, but they will always hold these lies and conspiracy theories closer to their heart, than anything else in their lives. In my profession, I’d say; this is now their “identity” and it often takes decades to convert someone’s identity. It took FOX News and similar, oligarch-supported Republican influencers and Russian witting and unwitting support, nearly 30 years, to alter the identity of Republicans to what we see today. There is no quick fix. Today’s Republicans that consume right-wing media, are now incapable of seeing any reality outside of the standardized talking points broadcast in sync, by all right-wing media.
We are now in a horrific situation where everyone who mostly sees reality, is pitted against Republicans who see little or none of it, and would be unable even if they wanted to. They’re just too brainwashed. Today’s right is now a domestic, violent extremist movement, led by a state-sponsored extremist organization called the GOP. The last thing that they are… is conservative.
Summary
This essay, building on the problem solving ideas from Einstein, leads us to see our threat via the following steps of logic.
Republicans have been brainwashed in incremental steps over at a minimum of the last thirty plus years. This was done subtly via known tactics in Narrative Warfare, that slowly converted their identity to the radically extreme version we witness today.
The primary culprits are oligarch funded influence/ marketing professionals, the Republican Party, influence advising and support from Russia and FOX News as the primary source of propaganda.
They have not only been radicalized past the point of no return, but that radicalization has converted their identity into a false conservatism and fake-patriotism.
Now converted, they can no longer discern truth nor reality.
Without an ability to understand reality, there can be no political discourse.
Any and all methods to support political discourse whether with friends or between opposing sides in congress, become a fools errand.
This logic trail tells us that the problem now is that we must solve the GOP threat before us in a manner other than we are accustomed to, political discourse. Our next election is under threat via technical means as well as several other tactics like, redistricting, voter suppression, legislating ID and unreasonable voting restrictions, severely limiting access to ballot boxes, etc.
Understanding a well-defined problem, leads us to a rather simple solution. Outside of massive turnouts of voters already committed, apathetic and plus the majority of so-called “on-the-fence” voters, there are few options going forward. The courts cannot save us because the administration has the ultimate trump card (pun intended), the US Supreme Court. Things will change over time, but my analysis here comes down to massive numbers of voters. I wish this was better news and had easier to achieve answers, but remember, radical acceptance of reality, is the only way to define the problem.
Now that we know, let’s do this.
Paul
a.k.a. Publius Redux
Apologies for picking out a single point, which was not the actual topic of the article, but are you stating that you do not consider that Israel is committing a genocide? That you consider this a "false anti-semetic conspiracy" from the left?
YEAH!!! We've finally stopped pretending this is a “difference of opinion.” This analysis reads like a field report from a psychological war zone: thirty years of coordinated propaganda, oligarch money, and Russian signal boosting have turned an entire political party into an identity cult. There’s no dialogue to be had with people who think Hannity is scripture and climate change is witchcraft.
Cobaugh’s call for radical acceptance is the first honest diagnosis I’ve seen in a long time. You can’t reason someone out of a delusion that defines who they are. The GOP isn’t debating policy, they’re defending ego death. The only viable countermeasure is overwhelming turnout and structural reform. Forget the “reach across the aisle” fantasy. You don’t compromise with an arsonist while your house burns. You grab the hose, douse the flames, and maybe, just maybe, rebuild later.