The Republican Party base is white evangelicals. So it's no wonder that GOP lies about the country, the economy and the president worked. The folks who base their lives on religious mythology have spent lifetimes being trained to believe lies. On Tuesday they won. Lies won.
As the New York Times noted: "Republican candidates campaigned on only one thing: what they called the failure of President Obama. In speech after speech, ad after ad, they relentlessly linked their Democratic opponent to the president and vowed that they would put an end to everything they say the public hates about his administration. On Tuesday morning, the Republican National Committee released a series of get-out-the-vote images showing Mr. Obama and Democratic Senate candidates next to this message: 'If you’re not a voter, you can’t stop Obama.' The most important promises that winning Republicans made were negative in nature. They will repeal health care reform. They will roll back new regulations on banks and Wall Street. They will stop the Obama administration’s plans to curb coal emissions and reform immigration and invest in education."
Since the economy has rebounded and healthcare reform has worked, all that remained for the GOP was to lie. And since the base of the GOP is white aging southern evangelicals, the GOP was in luck. These are easy folks to lie to. That's because they already accept an alternative version of reality. Also, of course, since the lies are about a black man, that doesn't hurt. Yes, race is still an issue.
The midterm election boiled down to xenophobia about the "other." Ebola was the president's fault! ISIS is coming to get us! We aren't safe!
None of this is true, but no matter. In fact, judging by actual facts the Obama presidency has been successful in spite of GOP obstruction. The economy is back. Jobs are up. We've been kept safe from terror attacks. America is strong.
What we'll now see is a reinvigorated religious right. And since lies worked so well we'll have more of them. Creationism, anti-gay initiatives, anti-choice initiatives, and of course pro-Koch-brother-financed lies upon lies to bury climate change debate are on the way.
The Republican-dominated Supreme Court stands ready to back corporate- and religious right-financed attacks of the environment, pro-Wall Street laws and all the rest.
Racism won. Evangelical myth won. Wall Street won. The banks won. America lost.
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