For the health and benefit of the country, nigh the world, we have to learn (and that means teach, as well) that today’s conservatives just need to be IGNORED, and ridiculed.

They constantly assert their legitimacy in the national debate despite being wrong (you name it they’ve been wrong about it, a short recent list includes Obamacare, hyper-inflation, Iraq, Ebola, stop and frisk, chaos at the borders, my god you name it they’ve been wrong about it for fucking ever!)

Just because it is noteworthy – let’s include fluoride is a Communist plot, interracial marriage is a Communist plot, Social Security, Medicare – all Communist plots! Think that’s just fringe stuff, not mainstream GOP conservative thinking? Ronald Reagan warns against Medicare in 1961 and the right unpacks it as if it’s relevant against Obamacare 50 years later.

As we’ll discuss later climate change is… you guessed it. The absurdity is legion and such absurd beliefs are at the heart of the entire conservative movement today. Everything people need is a threat to FREEDOM. Everything business needs IS FREEDOM.

They constantly assert their legitimacy in the national debate despite being hyperbolic.

They constantly assert their legitimacy in the national debate despite flat out lying about history a brief list of outrageous nonsense: the founding fathers were Christian Conservatives, like them, The New Deal made the Great Depression worse, black people were better off because of slavery, etc. etc. you get the picture.

They constantly assert their legitimacy in the national debate despite being racist. And OMG here at the Heritage Foundation

They constantly assert their legitimacy in the national debate despite being almost maliciously rockheaded in thought and deed or electing rockheads to office (again too numerous, see Tea Party, see Bachman, Gohmert, Steve King, Steve Stockman, Virginia Foxx, Ted Cruz, Ron Johnson, Renee Elmers, an almost endless list of stupid statements, stupid legislation, stupid assertions, stupid reasoning, stupid actions and stupid inactions on local, state and national levels). They’re turning us into a nation of stupid.

They constantly assert their legitimacy in the national debate despite being pigheadedly against science, math and facts (97% of climate scientists around the world are on the take but those in the employ of extraction industries are scrupulously honest).

And this is really the big one because global climate change is by far the biggest, most alarming red lights flashing issue we have ever faced as a species. Their intransigence on this issue is holding worldwide society back from addressing catastrophic changes that will devastate communities in the near term and could make the planet unlivable in the long term. And amazingly, the easy question they cannot answer is “what if you’re wrong?” Their misguided faith in either (a) a deity that wouldn’t allow devastation to happen (“God is up there” – Sen. Imhofe), (b) man’s ability to devise technology to fix it if it does happen, or (c) that it is indeed a complete hoax, a worldwide conspiracy concocted to bring about worldwide socialism (yes, they really believe that), makes them hold their breath and just say “no” to any reasonable, rational action to stay disaster. They are more afraid of any possible economic costs of dealing with the problem rather than the rising seas, acid oceans, droughts, floods, storms, extinctions, etc.

Conservative think tanks make up the entire campaign against global climate change action, create all the talking points to feed to the Right Wing Noise Machine, lobby all the GOP politicians on those talking points. And have cowed the media into diminishing coverage of the issues because it’s “political.”

It’s a breathtaking display of head in the sandism that is absolutely holding us back from the actions we need to take as a society. And only because somehow, someway, they are taken seriously enough despite being consistently WRONG that they get away with their latest boneheaded reasoning and shit flinging outrage.

Dems did not learn from 2000.

They did not learn from 2010. They said they did, but they didn’t.

You cannot run away from your values and assets. One shouldn’t have to write that sentence. It’s like saying “you cannot run away from oxygen.” Why would you want to?

Dems do run away from their values and assets because they don’t trust them and they believe they have to play “smart” political games. How’s that working for you?

This is actually remarkably simple.

If you rely on simple nostrums, platitudes, primal fears, greed and ignorance then you can formulate very basic messages and play all sorts of mind fuck games with the public.

But if you want to appeal to the better angels of people’s nature, logic, rationality, facts, science, math, etc. then you better damn well be willing to stand up straight and stand for those values 100% and do not be afraid to be pedantic about it. Be a thought leader that drives the debate. DANCING AND PLAYING ‘SMART’ POLITICAL GAMES WILL NOT WORK FOR YOU!

You can either have capitalism regulated by democracy or democracy run by capitalism. You can’t have both unfettered capitalism and democracy because the unfettered capitalists won’t allow it. Money is speech, don’t you know?

Our entire history has been one where the moneyed interests pretty much run the show lock, stock and gold plated barrel. Occasionally, when they run things into the ground — ’cause shit happens — and for their own preservation by the way, they will permit certain enlightened conservatives to enact very limited progressive policies to mollify the public. See Andrew Jackson, both Roosevelts, not all that much else actually.

Many of us recognize that capitalism regulated by, balanced by, and working with government works really well for the greater numbers of people when its been done. It’s a bottom up approach. It’s a mixed economy, stupid. It’s also pretty much what every other industrialized economy does with not so much controversy.

But one of our major political parties has taken as an article of almost evangelical faith the most hard core economic creed that the capitalists are always right and the economy is always top down.

Enlightened conservatives they are NOT! They do not even accept the few ameliorating adaptations we’ve made for the greater good. They merely tolerate Social Security, Medicare, public schools, public anything, etc. while working to undermine them under the radar. They had unions forced on them for a period but always worked to beat them back and finally won.

How we got to such a place in the 21st century where a very 19th century version of America could be espoused is a heluva story. They really still believe that America was better off when courts denied government the ability to regulate business and, theoretically, everybody was free to engage in whatever contract they saw fit – which in reality left most of the population really no better off than indentured slaves to a fabulously wealthy overclass. It’s an undemocratic vision of economics that has never, ever worked, which is why we needed the amelioration – and of course, we still do!

But that reality, that one of the major political parties has adopted an extreme and dangerous advocacy of unfettered economic elitism without the public really being aware and alarmed is perhaps the even bigger story.