If I learned anything from watching last night’s presidential debate in a room full of Mitt Romney supporters, it’s that President Obama cannot speak English, wanted Americans in Benghazi to die, hopes America will be taken over by the Islamic world, carries a literal Communist Party card, and should be sent back to Mexico.
These were among the accusations flying at a Romney debate watch party Tuesday night in southeast Las Vegas, where approximately 75 Nevadans crowded into a small room to watch the debate and trade jabs at Obama.
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The conversation then turned to Obama’s family. “Did you know his grandmother, his mother, Michelle, and him are all card-carrying members of the Communist Party?” [a woman] asked. “We’ve got copies of their cards and the numbers,” offering to email a scanned copy when I expressed skepticism.
“You haven’t done much research on Obama,” the woman told me. I asked what websites I could visit to learn more; she recommend WND.com, a birther-haven whose editor-in-chief has blamed natural disasters on the growing acceptance of homosexuality.
Look, I like the idea of everyone joining hands and working together as much as anyone, but this is just impossible. If one person thinks that weak consumer demand is hurting the economy and another thinks it’s Obama’s buddies in the Communist Party, where can you possibly begin? And what compromise between those two positions could possibly be anything other than batshit insane?
The rightwing in America has completely given up on the concepts of facts, truth, and proof. Perception of the world is a sort of artform, where the most interesting conspiracy theory is the truest explanation for anything and everything. In short, these people are nuts. And any attempt to work within their frame of reality will result in complete and utter disaster. It’d be like driving along on one road and pretending you’re driving on another; turning where the imaginary road turns, slowing down for the imaginary stop signs. You’re going to wind up wrapped around a tree.
And it’s not going to go any better if you compromise and only pretend to be on the other road for half the time.
