Who do you blame more for the shutdown?

[afleitch]

The Republicans obviously.

The wonderful thing about a shutdown is that it reminds people, particularly sections of the ignorant poor (whose ignorance is often fanned by the GOP) of how important the federal government actually is to their daily lives.

Over the past decade the GOP has decamped from the ‘small government’ ethos that once argued for a balanced approach to federal government, state government, funding and growth to a position that seems to be nothing more than out and out hatred for government simply functioning. That attitude also seems to pervade positions taken by the court as well. People say that the GOP has a dislike for minority interests however recently it’s apparent that they are a minority in hatred of the majority. Public support and electoral vindication of ‘Obamacare’ has swamped them, same goes for women’s bodies, gay rights, immigration, education. The GOP takes the minority position on nearly every salient public issue of the day. It no longer rests on the political spectrum at all and is now a conspiracy driven machine. The truth is it’s the internet that did it. The GOP’s grassroots are conspiracy theorists; they are birthers, they are the poor who think Mexicans want to swamp the country, they are the people who think the Muslim Brotherhood have infiltrated the government, the people who think that women can shut down a pregnancy, that climate change isn’t happening, that science is dangerous, that atheists hate America, that teaching children the age of the earth is unconstitutional and that gays are the worst group of people in America. They are the people who boo gay servicemen. They are the Christian right and the Paultards and every ideology of that nature that exists on a diet of conspiracy or if that’s not their thing, create a version of ‘reality’ that meets their needs.

It was etched on their faces on election night; the entire Romney campaign just didn’t know never mind didn’t accept what was actually happening out there. These people have Palin, and Cruz and Beck and Fox and WND and Unskewed Polls and a whole wealth of internet resources to back them up. Reality is nothing more than an inconvenience. The problem for any moderates in the GOP is that these people are now conditioned to think that way. If it means driving the GOP off an electoral cliff they will do it.