The first time I saw Chris Christie on TV, shortly after he became governor of New Jersey, my reaction was, “My Gosh! A Talking Republican!” It was almost like seeing a talking giraffe or a talking salamander.
Technically speaking, Republicans do talk, but talking is definitely not their strong suit. Nor do they seem to have put a lot of thought into what they say or how they say it. Articulate Democrats can get away with the biggest lies, without any serious rebuttal from most Republicans.
I haven’t heard any GOP official or candidate even try to answer a standard claim of the Democrats, that “deregulation” is the reason the housing market went haywire and brought down the economy. Thus, according to Democrats, Republicans who want to restore a free market are just trying to “go back to the same policies that got us into this mess in the first place.”
That sounds very persuasive, if you don’t know the facts — and it sounds like pure hogwash if you do.
But facts don’t speak for themselves. And if we wait for the Republicans to speak, the whole country can be in big trouble.
Federal agencies with powers of economic life and death over banks and other lenders forced these lenders to lower their lending standards. The regulators’ words are a matter of public record, and they sound like something out of “Alice in Wonderland.” They ought to be quoted, to give the lie to claims that “deregulation” is the reason for the housing boom and bust.
Some people think nonsense is too silly to answer. But not answering can allow nonsense to prevail — to the nation’s detriment.
Much as I admire the approach of Rep. Paul Ryan, I cringed during one of his speeches when he said — in just one sentence — that none of his reforms would deny benefits to people already getting Social Security. When the truth is just a passing blip on the screen and the lies go on at great length, guess which one is likely to prevail politically.
Vulnerable people, depending on that monthly Social Security check, need to hear that you understand that they paid into Social Security for years when they were working, and that it would be unconscionable to now cheat them out of what they paid for.
Policy wonks already know that nobody in his right mind has proposed any such thing. But if you depend on the votes of policy wonks to win elections, get set to lose in a landslide.
One of the biggest of the election year lies is that Republicans want to sacrifice the poor in order to have “tax cuts for the rich.” That would be grossly immoral — if it were true.
Unscrambling the confusion in that argument can involve work. But if people on welfare can be expected to work, surely people running for high office can put in a little work too — including the work of explaining in plain words what is totally false about the “tax cuts for the rich” argument.
So long as Republicans feel no urgency about refuting the Democrats’ claim that they just want to help the rich at the poor’s expense, they’re courting defeat on Election Day. Why lose to a lie because you didn’t bother to explain the truth?
Some of the time that was spent at the GOP convention trying to “humanize” Mitt Romney could have been better spent debunking the Democrats’ talking points. After all, we are not going to be voting for a Buddy-in-Chief, but for someone with some clear ideas about what this country needs — and who is willing to share those ideas with us in plain English.