becky sarwate

For years now, we’ve watched the Republican Party degrade from a once viable conservative response to liberal philosophy, into an apocalyptic crazy town where thinking and humanity go to die. I do not of course describe members of the dwindling class of genuine libertarians and old school conservatives who still believe the country should function if one side doesn’t get its way. But sadly there are fewer and fewer people like former Senator Bob Dole, who famously said last year of his party, “Reagan couldn’t have made it. Certainly Nixon couldn’t have made it, cause he had ideas. We might have made it, but I doubt it.”

More often we see the independent leaders of GOP past, such as Arizona Senator John McCain, completely selling out to the Tea Party, Palinizing us with ill-informed decisions. Contrast this tyrannical groupthink with Bob Dole, or former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who voted for President Obama and spoke out strongly against the strain of exclusiveness running through the right, on a January 2013 episode of Meet the Press. He said, “There’s also a dark — a dark vein of intolerance in some parts of the party. What do I mean by that? I mean by that that they still sort of look down on minorities…The birther, the whole birther movement. Why do senior Republican leaders tolerate this kind of discussion within the party?”

A dearth of this kind of logical intramural evaluation is killing the party, morally, creatively and demographically. And though it will be gratifying to witness the eventual demise of this era’s autocratic Republican chokehold on the democratic process (or lack thereof), the journey is certainly no fun at all. And it’s hard not to wonder at times why more intelligent conservatives (I swear kids, there was a time when this wasn’t an oxymoron) don’t raise their voices and pens against the death march.

Moreover, why does mainstream reporting allow the GOP’s Jedi mindtrickey to go unchecked (“The deficit is our biggest threat.” “Poor people bring poverty on themselves.”)?

Every once in a while there’s a beacon of hope outside of the Comedy Central studios. And this week, the light comes courtesy of New York Times contributor and journalism legend, Thomas B. Edsall. Edsall addresses the deficiencies in both media accountability and dissenting Republican voice in a piece this week, entitled “The Republican Case Against Republican Economics.” In it, he writes:

“[T]he conservative coalition, already facing demographic challenges from the rise of minority voters, is likely to lose core white support if it maintains its dominant anti-government ideology.

Once fissures have appeared in the conservative belief system, it will become increasingly difficult to maintain hegemony – or, to mix metaphors, you cannot unscramble a scrambled egg.”

By way of proof, Edsall offers a litany of testimony from radical lefties such as James Pethokoukis of the American Enterprise Institute, as well as three former speechwriters for President George W. Bush: Michael Gerson, Peter J. Wehner and David Frum. To Gerson and Wehner, he attributes the following description of modern Republican economic policy: “rhetorical zeal and indiscipline in which virtually every reference to government is negative, disparaging, and denigrating. It is justified by an apocalyptic narrative of American life: We are fast approaching a point of no return at which we stand to lose our basic liberties and our national character.”

The voices of GOP reason are out there and they’re not mincing words. When will those like them, who might also be palatable in a general election, decide to join the chorus? If and when they do, will it be too late for the party, and more importantly, our nation’s prospects of recovering middle class solvency?

In my opinion, it’s never a good day to be CNN Crossfire co-host and conservative commentator, S.E. Cupp. While she stops short of the unironic anti-feminist parody that is Ann Coulter, she does her own fair share of leveraging perceived sex appeal to promote a dangerous agenda. But in a certain way, Cupp outdoes Coulter in disingenuousness. I’m referring to the moderator’s tendency to offer opinion polls as “evidence” of a liberal guest’s misinformation on a given issue.

This week was a particularly challenging one for the hapless Cupp. And frankly she got what she deserved – from a mild-mannered, brilliant scientist wearing a bow tie. It was sort of majestic, and definitely inspiring.

Cupp was quick and repetitive in demonstrating the annoying trait described above on Tuesday night’s broadcast devoted to the climate change debate. She opened the show by turning to beloved scientist, engineer and TV personality Bill Nye (“The Science Guy”) to ask:

“Even if what Van and the White House are saying [about theNational Climate Assessment update] is all true, the scare tactics have not worked.”

And how do we know that the liberal tendency to engage scientific fact in order to promote revisions in environmental policy is a loser? Well, as Cupp said, “Only about 36 percent of Americans think global warming is a serious threat to our way of life.”

That is a neat trick of rhetorical acrobatics that has been appallingly effective for the GOP: promoting voter ignorance as an argument for party stupidity. It disrespects both the public and the political establishment simultaneously, yet the diehards eat it right up. One of the more confounding phenomena of our time.

Sadly, this is nothing new and many of us who enjoy critical thinking and the prospect of planetary continuity have become inured to the constant anxiety, depression and helplessness. We are used to the dread that accompanies awareness. We understand that the human race is careening toward a ditch in a car driven by global Big Business and its government lackeys, but we can’t get half of our fellow citizens to acknowledge we’re even moving. Simple science.

Thankfully Bill Nye is in possession of the type of feistiness that liberals (and yes, I acknowledge grief that environmental common sense has become partisan) are going to need in order to have a prayer of saving humanity. The discursive blows were delivered fast and furious to an outmatched Cupp and her cohort, Nick Loris of the Heritage Foundation (who might as well have stayed home). In only his second full sentence of the broadcast, Nye demolished Cupp’s smug misuse of statistics by asking, “So, how do you want to get public consensus, by saying that it’s not happening, that it’s not serious, that shorelines aren’t flooding?”

This was only the beginning of one of the most entertaining installments of the rebooted opinion show to date. Check out this beautiful exchange roughly halfway through the show:

“Cupp: You can look at entitlement reform, which will bankrupt this country long before climate change destroys us.

Heart disease kills seven million a year worldwide. 870 million suffer from hunger. I want you to look me in the eye and tell me in good conscience that climate change is our most urgent, No. 1 priority right now.

Nye: Climate change is our most urgent No. 1 priority right now.

Cupp: That’s what I thought you would say.”

I was ready to invoke the slaughter rule but Nye wasn’t finished by a long shot. He even gave those of us who fervently seek to address climate change, post-talking stage, a polite but tough slogan: “I think the scientific community has been very patient.”

We can’t afford to play nice anymore. Nothing less than the planet and human existence are at stake. And the more people we have like Bill Nye committed to the cause – armed with facts, backbone and most importantly, ideas – the better our shot at survival.

The best thing about the Internet is that it’s a completely unmitigated free-for-all. People can literally say or do anything. That’s also the worst feature of the World Wide Web (trolls, hate speech, misogyny, child pornography) but the relatively nascent life cycle of the Internet has trained us all to take the good with the bad. Almost to a person, we’ve agreed to abide by only one law: if you don’t want to see it, read it or hear it, then don’t. Click the next link. There’s quite literally something out there for everyone and almost anyone can leverage the tools of the Web to find success within their own particular niche, no matter how singular it might appear to one’s offline community. The Internet – the greatest of equalizers.

Enjoy it while you can.

According to multiple published reports, the Federal Communications Commission has offered a proposed set of rules that would effectively end net neutrality as we know it.

Edward Wyatt of The New York Times reports “The proposal comes three months after a federal appeals court struck down, for the second time, agency rules intended to guarantee a free and open Internet.”

The writer goes on to point out the patently obvious: in the decision to allow large media companies with deep pockets to purchase rides in the “fast lanes” of Internet service providers, the last egalitarian, populist institution we share as a human species is endangered. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Equal opportunity denied to the 99 percent (or even in more charitable Romney-like estimations, 47 percent) by the superrich.

Wyatt writes, “The rules could radically reshape how Internet content is delivered to consumers. For example, if a gaming company cannot afford the fast track to players, customers could lose interest and its product could fail.” Yes. And there’s also this:

“Consumer groups immediately attacked the proposal, saying that not only would costs rise, but that big, rich companies with the money to pay large fees to Internet service providers would be favored over small start-ups with innovative business models — stifling the birth of the next Facebook or Twitter.”

But those arguments are pretty much still looking at the issue through the corporate lens. I’m more inclined to side with the proletariat view of Todd O’Boyle, Program Director of Common Cause’s Media and Democracy Reform Initiative, who warned “If it goes forward, this capitulation will represent Washington at its worst…Americans were promised, and deserve, an Internet that is free of toll roads, fast lanes and censorship — corporate or governmental.”

There is still time for the F.C.C. to turn away from the proposed changes. A final vote is scheduled for the end of the year. Let there be a huge public backlash that renders defeat unavoidable. Moreover, it’s got to come from the ground. Because this isn’t like Arizona’s recently vetoed bill that would have allowed businesses to refuse to serve gay Americans based upon “religious beliefs.” We can’t rightly expect corporate interests to intervene on this one. No threat of lost customers here. Just another opportunity to squeeze out competition.

We’re going to have to do this on our own, the way the tools and power of the Internet have famously inspired rebellion the world over: Occupy Wall Street, Tahrir Square, Julian Assange. Right or wrong, individuals and groups have made their arguments heard and shared using the Internet. It seems fitting we do the same here, while we still can.

Visit the F.C.C. website when the proposed rules are released for public comment on May 15, and for goodness sake, comment. I may be preaching to the converted when it comes to PoliticusUSA readers, but if there is any occasion (and obviously I believe there are many more) worth making our voices heard, this it. This kind of garbage flies because we are a listless and complacent electorate, but we can put a stop to that anytime.

We owe it to the Internet. The glorious, messy, crude, amateur, uniting, creative and wonderful universe – for all to share equally.