Running on Delusional

Republicans are living in a delusional world and the facts are closing in on them. George Bush did exist. Barack Obama is a fairly successful president and not a socialist or Muslim. Michelle Obama does not hate America. Trickle-down economics does not work. Medicare and Social Security are still a third rail. And Mitt Romney remains undefined.

First and foremost, the Republicans have deluded themselves into believing that by ignoring George Bush, he will go away. He won't. That's not the way reality works.

Despite press reports to the contrary, George W. Bush was very much present at the Republican National Convention. His physical absence merely emphasized his political presence and his burdensome legacy. When Bush left the presidency, the economy had just fallen off a cliff and did not hit bottom until well after Obama was president. The Bush legacy underpins every fact and every argument. It is delusional to think otherwise.

The Romney team has convinced itself that they can still base a campaign on: "It's the economy, stupid!" They believe that alone is enough to defeat Barack Obama and elect Mitt Romney president. It isn't. The Obama presidency has been nowhere near the disaster the delusional Republicans paint. Obama succeeded in pinning the anemic economy on George Bush. Barring a sharp and unexpected downturn in the economy, or some other unexpected disaster during the next six weeks, Obama gets reelected. Delusions are costly.

The Republicans have to be delusional to ask if we are better off now than we were four years ago. Four years ago, when Obama was elected president, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had fallen to 6600. The economy was hemorrhaging 750,000 jobs a month. Major banking houses were falling like ten pins. The world was facing a financial cataclysm. Anyone with any knowledge of the true situation was panicking. Do the Republicans expect us to ignore the biggest economic disaster in 80 years? That is really delusional. Asking the question merely focuses attention on the lingering consequence of their failure.

No matter how often the right wing repeats it, Barack Obama is not a socialist determined to destroy our capitalist system. That is absurd! Can it be possible that they really believe that nonsense about Kenya and anti-colonialism? The facts show him to be a rather well-liked moderate, with Business Insider reporting a postconvention bump to a 52% approval rating. In the latest polls, 56% of the people like him personally and he has a 15% likability gap over Romney.

The conservatives originally tried to portray Michelle Obama as as an "angry-black-woman" with a lack of patriotism. Now she is, according to the Center for Electoral Politics and Democracy at Fordham University, "one of the most popular political figures in America," and a sensation at the Democratic convention.

Trickle-down is still voodoo economics. Cutting taxes for the rich and cutting spending for the middle class would deprive the economy of aggregate demand when there are already huge idle resources. The Ryan Budget, which would serve up $897 billion in spending cuts this coming budget year, would destroy the economy. That is just a hard fact the Republicans refuse to face.

The Republicans may have delusions about the Democrats but they appear more realistic in regard to their own people and policies. Republicans appear to realize that Mitt Romney is an empty suit, that he is running a very poor campaign and that he and his people botched the convention. They really did try earlier to get "anybody but Romney."

Paul Ryan added policy to the ticket but the professionals know that his budget policies, if widely recognized for what they are, will sink them. It is delusional to think seniors will not see the difference between their Medicare and his voucher system. As those policies are becoming known, polls are beginning to tip against Romney/Ryan. Republican commentators – even the likes of Laura Ingram – are now expressing worry about the very core of their party.

Maybe delusional  behavior is part of the pathological politics we suffer from. In any event, the Democrats are showing some of the same psychotic behavior. Obama believed he could work with the Republican Congress. He couldn't. They even said they would stonewall him. It is the purest kind of delusion to believe that Wall Street will regulate itself, that Pharma will stay bought or that the economy can somehow stimulate itself.

Reality is closing in on us all.