Captain Obvious: Republicans are in Denial

The headline of this piece is perhaps not as clear as I'd like it to be. Especially since I've put it under the heading of Captain Obvious. But what I'm getting at, is that Republicans are denialists. Or perhaps, they are deep into the weeds of conspiracy theories. Why do I say this? Because they deny all manner of experts, or they claim that those experts are being controlled by liberals/socialists/Marxists/Maoists/communists/statists (there, I said it!). Here is a list of experts that many conservatives discount or are deeply suspicious of:

- Climate Scientists: Hoaxers or are in cahoots with Democratic politicians. Invented phony Global Warming/Climate Change. Falsely believe that 100+ years of spewing waste into the environment could possibly have any effect on it.

- Psychologists/Psychiatrists: Falsely claim that gay people are born that way. Wrongly purport that "praying away the gay" is harmful.

- Economists: Lie when they say that government should be spending during a recession. Lie again when they say cutting government spending will hurt the economy. Only if they are supply side/trickle down economists are they to be believed.

- Archaeologists/Anthropologists/Geologists/Biologists: Falsely tout the "theory" of evolution. Falsely date the earth at (far) more than 6,000 years old.

That was just a short list, hitting the bullet points. The breakdown is basically that no matter what experts say, or how many of them say it, if their findings go against Republican policy goals, the experts are wrong. Period.

In short, Republican/conservative ideology has morphed from a political philosophy into a religion. It's a new New Testament, welded onto the (usually) evangelical Christian religion. And like all religions, it is immune to empirical facts, immune to reason, immune to argument. So:

- Global warming is a hoax, or at least is just cyclical, and not man-made.
- Gay people choose to be that way, and deserve no rights or legal recognition.
- Cutting taxes, especially for the rich, and cutting regulations will spur growth and create jobs. Even though it hasn't for the last ten years that we've tried it.
- The earth, man and all life was created, not evolved. It's all too complex to have "just happened," or have always existed. However, this does not contradict the fact that God--who is infinitely more complex than the universe--has always existed, and didn't require a creator.


And that's just a short list off the top of my head. Obviously.