Today's Cartoon And Reading - The Party Of The Automatons

(click on image to enlarge)



(Clay Jones, claytoonz.com)

We're still having fun with the spectacle of lightweight gusano Sen. Marco "Glug Glug" Rubio's (R- Mattel/ Koch) "software glitch" during last Saturday's Republican "debate." Let's dispel with this fiction that others aren't enjoying the schadenfreude, too. That it revealed him, on the eve of the important New Hampshire primary, to be a wind- up empty suit completely unqualified to be running for President is half the battle.  As Paul Krugman notes, Glug Glug isn't alone in his automaton behavior:

The truth is that the whole G.O.P. seems stuck in a time loop, saying and doing the same things over and over. And unlike Bill Murray’s character in the movie “Groundhog Day,” Republicans show no sign of learning anything from experience.

Think about the doctrines every Republican politician now needs to endorse, on pain of excommunication.

Krugman then details the domestic and foreign policy doctrines the Republican/ New Confederate/ Stupid/ Shooter's Party clings to, despite, you know,  facts to the contrary.  Since we try not to do spoilers here, please follow the link to the meat of the op/ ed.  Krugman concludes:

So how did this happen to the G.O.P.? In a direct sense, I suspect that it has a lot to do with Foxification, the way Republican primary voters live in a media bubble into which awkward facts can’t penetrate. But there must be deeper causes behind the creation of that bubble.

Whatever the ultimate reason, however, the point is that while Mr. Rubio did indeed make a fool of himself on Saturday, he wasn’t the only person on that stage spouting canned talking points that are divorced from reality. They all were, even if the other candidates managed to avoid repeating themselves word for word.

An observation Krugman leaves out is that the "media bubble" the knuckle- draggers live in, courtesy of Fox "News" and countless thousands of hate radio and internet mouths, is abetted by the "corporate" or "mainstream" media that has adopted a "let the facts get sorted out by themselves" posture over many decades (a.k.a., the "Chuck Todd Maxim").   Since there's been precious little push back on the 24/7 propaganda going into the bubble, there's hardly any way reality could intrude.

There's also the probability that the "biology, psychology and socialization" of the Republican brain would render any change in their fact- free beliefs or authoritarian behavior unlikely, as Chauncey DeVega points out.  That's a daunting challenge for politics in America, and one we're going to be living with for a very long time.

BONUS:  It's also helpful to remember that others were observing Glug Glug's robotic behavior a while ago.