David Frum to the GOP: Come Out of the Cocoon and Get a Reality Check

David Frum fell out of the good graces of the Tea Party and Christofacists some time ago.  Why?  Because he refused to drink their Kool-Aid and get his world view solely from Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and others who effectively create a cocoon that insulates far too many Republicans from the real world - including some that I got to know years ago when I was active in the GOP and served on the GOP City Committee for Virginia Beach.  In a column on CNN, Frum basically bitch slaps conservatives who claim that America is on the road to socialism.  His piece dovetails well with a piece on Politico that looks at the world view cocoon inhabited by far too many in the GOP - people like Ms. Cox in Tennessee that this blog looked at earlier today.  First highlights from David Frum's piece:

The mood among American conservatives is now one of apocalyptic despair.  Having convinced themselves that this election arrayed freedom against tyranny, they now must wonder: Did their country just democratically vote in favor of tyranny?

On Fox News election night, BIll O'Reilly explained the meaning of the election: the "white establishment" was now outnumbered by minorities. "The demographic are changing. It's not a traditional America anymore." And these untraditional Americans "want stuff. They want things. And who is going to give them things? President Obama. He knows it, and he ran on it."

 O'Reilly's analysis is echoed across the conservative blogosphere. The (non-white) takers now outnumber the (white) makers. They will use their majority to pillage the makers and redistribute to the takers. In the process, they will destroy the sources of the country's wealth and end the American experiment forever.

President Barack Obama was not re-elected by people who want to "take." The president was re-elected by people who want to work -- and who were convinced, rightly or wrongly, that the president's policies were more likely to create work than were the policies advocated by my party.

The United States did not vote for socialism. It could not do so, because neither party offers socialism. Both parties champion a free enterprise economy cushioned by a certain amount of social insurance. The Democrats (mostly) want more social insurance, the Republicans want less. 

Even if you look only at the experiences of white heterosexual men, the United States of 2012 is a freer country in almost every way than the United States of 1962.

The Republican challenge next is to reassemble a new coalition for limited government and private enterprise. That coalition must include Americans of all ethnicities. To assume from the start that only certain ethnicities will contribute, and that others aspire only to grab, is not only ugly prejudice; it is also self-destructive delusion.

People of all backgrounds want to create, save and contribute to society. A party of the center-right should make them all feel at home, regardless of how they pronounce their last name, the complexion of their skin or the way in which they express love and build family.

Will the Republicans listen to Frum's sound advice?  Personally, I'm not holding my breath. At least not as long as rank and file members of the GOP get their "news" from Fox News and the far right media noise machine.  Here are highlights from Politico on this problem:

A long-simmering generational battle in the conservative movement is boiling over after last week’s shellacking, with younger operatives and ideologues going public with calls that Republicans break free from a political-media cocoon that has become intellectually suffocating and self-defeating.

GOP officials have chalked up their electoral thumping to everything from the country’s changing demographics to an ill-timed hurricane and failed voter turn-out system, but a cadre of Republicans under 50 believes the party’s problem is even more fundamental.

Now, many young Republicans worry, they are the ones in the hermetically sealed bubble — except it’s not confined to geography but rather a self-selected media universe in which only their own views are reinforced and an alternate reality is reflected.

Hence the initial denial and subsequent shock on the right that the country would not only reelect President Barack Obama — but do so with 332 electoral votes.

What worries Republicans, though, is that their Kaelism may be harder to overcome in the short term.

“Unfortunately, for us Republicans who want to rebuild this party, the echo chamber [now] is louder and more difficult to overcome,” said Grayson.

[S]ince President Bush’s second term went south, Republicans have been effectively without a leader. And into that vacuum has stepped a series of conservative figures whose incentives in most cases are not to win votes but to make money and score ratings by being provocative and even outlandish.

“Their bottom line is their main goal, but that doesn’t mean they’re serving the population that buys their books,” said Domenech.  And this, say next-generation Republicans, is where cocoonism has been detrimental to the cause.

And the entertainers’ power isn’t just with gullible grass-roots activists who are likely to believe whatever nefarious rumor about Obama is forwarded to them in an e-mail chain — it’s with donors, too.

There is a good deal more that's worth a read, but the message is clear: stop listening to demagogues and the Rush Limbaughs of the right and find out what the rest of America is actually thinking.  It may make me want to pull my hair out at times, but every day I check out some of the far right "news" sites.  One can only craft their plan when they know what the opponents are actually doing as opposed delusion statements by wind bags and blow hards.