Rachel Maddow - Fearful Texas GOP base amuses nation with conspiracy panic

[Galraedia]

[Buzz Clik]

1. I'm not sure these folks are the "base", but they have the governor's ear.

... which is pathetic.

[calimary]

2. And they have a governor whose whole political mindset is pathetic.

[minidriver]

3. I would like to apologize

for all the idiots my state has been producing of late. We're still trying to find the factory and shut it down before we reach foolpocalypse, although we may already be too late.

[nruthie]

4. No, it isn't amusing.

It's horrifying that some people actually believe this type of insane crap.

[minidriver]

5. It's really really bad

when even Guv Goodhair sounds reasonable in comparison.

[raindaddy]

6. Lets be honest here...

a dwindling 25% of Americans still identify as Republican. And if the trend continues as older mostly white people die off we'll be living under a two party system where at least one of those parties barely represents 20% of the population. And if the Democrats at 36% fail to reclaim their populist mantle the same will be true for them.

Who knows what percent of the Republican 25% believe that the federal government wants to take over Texas? But we're talking about a very small segment of the population of extreme RWers who continue to get a very disproportionate amount of attention from the media. In fact the same could be said for the whole party that now only represents 25% of the population.

[Lodestar]

7. I used to think that this rightwing fear mongering was specifically targeting the ignorant

under educated lower class 'sheep'within their constituency. However I recently talked to a VERY wealthy man from Texas who supports Cruse. He said he was a survivalist and was spending millions of dollars on building infrastructure and storage on his property to prepare for the 'end'. He and his wife seemed visibly frightened while speaking to me and not only feared the end but prayed to a God that they also seemed to fear. I realized they were living in a whole 'nother reality than me. If people with power and/or money are drinking the kool aid, we are in deep dooty.

[Moostache]

9. These people are clinically insane.

The rich sons-of-bitches who think the biggest problems we have are too many taxes and too much regulations have made an unholy alliance with the lunatic fringe ever since the rise of the "Tea Party" back in 2009. What they realized then was that the crazies are easy to fire up, destructive to any kind of substantive progress on any issue they are ginned up against and work comparably cheap when compared to lawmakers and lobbyists.

Its not that the kingmakers and industry/banking/hedge fund thieves are giving up on lawmakers and lobbyists - far from it as those vermin still provide a very necessary veneer of legitimacy to their fascist agenda - they just also realized that it is a lot easier to keep the status quo going by throwing out the crazies to distract the media attention and deflect questions away from really important issues like:

*Why did ZERO bankers go to jail for the massive frauds that facilitated the 2007-2009 economic meltdown?
*Why has Dodd-FRank been effectively neutered and nothing done about it?
*Why does a hedge fund manager, making BILLIONS A YEAR, pay a lower effective tax rate than the lowest paid workers?
*Why does the GOP continue to gut scientific research and budgets with almost no blowback?
*Why does the country allow morons to set text-book standards and rewrite history right before our eyes?
*Why is a climate change denier and damn near flat-Earther like Inohofe chair the most powerful environmental committee on the Hill?

Its obvious from a quick glance online that idiocy sells on the internet the same way "news" stories about violence and death sells on TV. While the TV news has had the saying "If it bleeds, it leads.." for decades, the internet equivalent is something akin to "If it drools, it rules..." Vines, fake tragedies, selfies, obsessions with seeing other people fall down, get slapped, get scared, slip, fall, injure themselves....these things are the current raison d'etre of much of social media. Outside of porn and "live" sex chats, the only thing more potent than the idiocy is hardcore partisanship and catering to the lunatic fringe.

This means more online (and increasingly traditional media outlets as well) sources for the guano-huffing fools to spew their ill-informed opinions and fears onto the general public. The internet has taken the National Inquirer and blown it out bigtime.

[Lodestar]

10. "..if it drools it rules". LOL. Of course in your listing of drool-worthy internet obsessions

you forgot cat videos.....meow.

[zebonaut]

8. The GOP contenders

Honk Honk

[tclambert]

11. I think Democrats should encourage Republicans' fears of Jade Helm 15.

Get as many of their candidates as possible on record regarding this craziness. Then throw it in their faces later. "Oh, that's what you said about Jade Helm 15." "Do you still believe in secret bases underneath Wal-Marts?" "Didn't you predict America would try to take over Texas?"

[turbinetree]

12. Lets look at

what Texas has done:

"Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott (R) explicitly referenced Texas Republicans' gerrymandering tactics in a court brief earlier this month, acknowledging that districts were redrawn in 2011 to minimize the clout of Democratic voters."

And then you have a whatever you want to call him, governor----I know I'll call captain Tin Foil Hat, with a beanie propeller twirling around on top, beaming to his right wing message signals into his brain, has convinced the idiots down there, that there is going to be martial law this coming July.

Well, if that is the case---
I want as a taxpayer to have every federal military based removed and all personnel relocated with every job tied to that economy, which means there Texas, your plants that are making the F35 Lightening II will be moved to another state for starters, I don't trust individual working or making an aircraft that is costing the taxpayers in the county over $250,000 million apiece.

I want all of my money that I paid to have the roads going towards those bases---paid back.

I want every Federal Court and building personnel removed and transferred to a state that is more sane.

I want all of my Federal tax dollars being giving to there Colleges and other institutions to be disbursed and re-allocated to other states

And I want a border put up so that when these Texans cross to come into the "United States" they must have government recognized passport to enter and have a doctors note saying that they are not crazy. But when they come they will have a thirty day quarantine, starting with Cruz and Gohmert, because they and other paranoid conspirators will have to relinquish there senate and house seat

And if that is not enough for you to come to the realization that your tin foil hat governor and all of the other paranoid schizophrenics should not be committed to an insane asylum----then you are really stupid.
You all must wear the tin foil hat to make sure you all get the same insane message of fear and hate, because your governor belongs in a loony bin, with a helmet wrapped around his head, so that he doesn't hurt himself.

And you have to vote

I just realize what your governor really is, a dictator backed by a legislature that sponsors a dictatorship
Your voting districts are so gerrymandered you don't vote---think you have a problem-----duh

[wolfie001]

13. Our mocking of these deluded dumbasses......

....seems to fuel them up even more.