The GOP has a reality problem. I'm not saying this as an attack on conservative ideals and policies, but rather the echo chamber the GOP and conservative allies have created around themselves that is only getting worse. It was revealed today that following the CNBC debate a few nights ago, the candidates and/or their representatives will be getting together, minus the RNC to discuss what they can do about the debates to make them more favorable. Now, I watched the debate, while some of the questions may have been a little weird, they were hardly "gotcha questions" (Thanks Sarah Palin for that phrase). In Ben Carson's case, the moderator had come with figures in hand for his tax plan and when he suggested the number would be "much closer to 15%" she then pointed out those numbers that still did not come even close to adding up properly. Donald Trump was fact checked on live television with something from his very own website to prove him wrong. The list goes on and on. This is hardly a new issue either. I remember 4 years ago when fact checking sites across the board couldn't keep up with all the lies, truth stretching and blatant ignorance on the GOP side. Yes there were some on the (D) side, but they paled in comparison. It makes you wonder, why is it such an epidemic in the republican party? Well, its because of the giant echo chamber that has been constantly under construction since the late 80s and early 90s. Through the 90s conservative "entertainers" blossomed across the airwaves, many of which are still on the air today. They exerted pressure on the GOP and the GOP acquiesced because it helped bring them into power. Then came Fox News. I'm not entirely sure when it became so detached from reality itself, but I do remember my little rural cable company finally made it available on basic cable around 2000 or so, which probably means thats when it started getting really popular since we always get things like that later than others. So now there were radio hosts AND TV hosts tied together, fairly uniform, harping on the same things, pressuring the GOP, the GOP, again, acquiescing because it made them stronger (at the time). Coinciding with the rise of Fox News (well known for being less than factual and having the worst informed viewers) was the networking capabilities of the internet. Throw in the Presidency which routinely coordinated with the aforementioned media outlets (talking point memos to them issued each morning by the POTUS office) and you begin to see a sphere of influence internal to itself that distrusts everything outside of it. It's no secret the conservative movement has always seen the media has being liberally biased, which, true or not in each individual case, still meant they would only trust their buddies. I distinctly remember circular rings of information 10s of points of connection deep in which one publication cited another publication, which cited another, and so on until you were back to the original publication being cited indirectly for its own assertions.
Okay, so all of those things and many others, lets move along. In 2012 there was a rash of distrust of polls for the Presidential election. Every day the radio voices would talk about it (I listened regularly) and there was even a website created by....I think a guy in New Hampshire.... that took all the major polls released and "adjusted" them to correct some sort of sampling bias he perceived. The man clearly had a knowledge of statistics, at least to an extent and I watched his poll releases daily. While all the regular polls had Obama up in swing states and nationally, or tied, his polls were always shifted 5 or even 10% towards Romney. The end result was (D) going into election day feeling good about the polls and (R) going into election day feeling good about the polls. This wasn't limited to just average listeners/readers/etc either. On election night there was a famous incident where Karl Rove was on air for Fox News going over his own numbers that were skewed in a similar way to the previously mentioned website and the look of shock on his face when his numbers didn't match reality was, needless to say, very enjoyable for a dirty pinko commie liberal like myself. But then, it went even FURTHER up the ladder. Mitt Romney HIMSELF went into election day thinking it would be a landslide. He didn't even have a concession speech prepared. The silence behind the scenes with his campaign staff was defeaning. Nobody could believe it. They were all devastated because their numbers didn't match reality.
The disconnect wasn't limited to individuals either. There were constantly "scandals" being thrown about in an attempt to tarnish President Obama. The Fast and Furious scandal, which began under the previous administration, was going to be the thing that brought Obama down. It turns out, it was overblown. There was also an IRS scandal. People were subpoenaed to testify, turns out the FBI exonerated the IRS of any wrong doing. There was also Benghazi which has had 9 separate investigations which found no wrong doing, but provided recommendations for improvements to be made. Millions of dollars later its still going on and nothing is coming from it except bringing pain to the families of those lost. Even the email server is not that big of a deal. Secretary Clinton has been exonerated of any wrong doing and the FBI investigation isn't of her, its of the State Department and thousands of released emails later, nothing has come of it except that we know what TV shows she likes. On top of all that, she was not the first Secretary of State to do this. Colin Powell and at least one other had done it and nothing came of that. Heck, even Bush/Cheney used a server kept in GOP HQ so that they could keep things away from subpoenas. They ended up erasing around 20,000 emails before they could be seized as well. My favorite, the Planned Parenthood videos which was over 12 hours of footage edited to look as terrible as possible and even inserting unrelated footage like a stillborn child while the audio was still playing. The echo chamber was so strong that Carly Fiorina insisted REPEATEDLY for DAYS and probably still does, that an image came up in that video that has never existed. Now theres an investigation to see if PP are the monsters they were being portrayed to be, selling organs for profit, despite all evidence pointing to the contrary.
Which brings us back around to the debates. The candidates stand up there on stage spouting the facts as they see them, and the second someone points out holes or errors, they cry bias and want to have softball questions lobbed their way(side note: the last two GOP debates had conservative radio hosts being called liberal media because of hard questions). One of the last remaining avenues for bringing people back down to reality is being pushed away. The GOP candidates will get their softballs, live in their own little world, and then get to the general election and get torn asunder or pull another Romney and live in a virtual reality until election night. The average conservative voter will also continue to observe this disconnect and manifest even more dislike of the GOP establishment, which will further tear the party apart, like we are seeing now. Reality has left the GOP. The conservative movement created an insulated world around itself and what gave it strength in the past is now tearing apart from the roots up.
/rambling rant
