The GOP's 'alternate universe'

[JohnWxy]

Conservatives have always shown a facility for denying reality when their theories explode in their faces. It's a way of coping shared by all kooks and wing-nuts from the Unibomber to Karl Rove and Grover Norquist....


http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0711/59831.html


Elizabeth Warren, a leading legal expert who has been facing a fierce GOP onslaught against meager government attempts to protect consumers against predatory financial institutions, said dealing with the Republicans was like “living in an alternate universe.” Indeed, that’s what the GOP discourse sounds like now — a basic feature of modern conservatism is denying reality.

For example, if you just listened to conservatives, you would think that Wall Street and the reckless actions of big banks had nothing to do with the financial crisis. According to the GOP, the economic collapse was the fault of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which were government-sponsored entities. Though the majority of the really toxic subprime loans were made by banks and mortgage companies, and one big private firm, American International Group, sold the biggest bundle of credit default swaps, the financial industry was not a cause of the crisis, Republicans say. Nope, it was all Fannie and Freddie.

You would also have no idea that the bailouts started under President George W. Bush and were supported by many Republicans in Congress — not to mention Sarah Palin.

The financial crisis has discredited this conservative worldview. Yet the guts of conservative ideology insists that privatization is always good. The fact that Fannie and Freddie were privatized — and this caused enormous losses to taxpayers — no, this doesn’t discredit privatization as a strategy.

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