Reasons not to Vote Republican, Part 2b: Refusing to Disavow Conspiracy Theories

Reason #2b: Refusing to Disavow Paranoia and Conspiracy Theories

I'm going to follow through with my plan to write several posts on why not to vote Republican in 2012 (which translates to why I'm not going to vote Republican, because--haven't you read your neuropsychology?--whose mind am I going to change) although I already feel as if I've fallen down a rabbit hole. But these are the rational posts I'm going to cling to as the Crazy Season hits hurricane force before the election. 

I can't think of a single mainstream Democrat who publicly supported the crazy conspiracy on the far left that President George W. Bush and the American government destroyed the Twin Towers, but I don't have enough fingers to count the mainstream Republicans who have publicly supported the Birthers or who have remained silent in the presence of others who publicly support the Birthers. That anyone believes that Barack Obama's birth certificate is a forgery is a mystery to me, for that belief requires all kinds of mental contortions. Do people really believe that one political party would allow a member of the other political party to become president if that president-elect were not a natural born citizen? Geez.  I personally know people who believe the Birthers, who think that Barack Obama is president illegitimately. (Where were these people when the Supreme Court ordered that the vote recounting be stopped in Florida in 2000? Oh, and by the way, the loser in that election supported the right of George W. Bush to be accepted as president.)

But, hey, refusing to disavow the crazy birthers helps Republicans in the polls. Donald Trump received a bump in the polls when he stepped aboard the Birther Train. In February 2011:

Fifty-one percent of 400 Republican primary voters surveyed nationwide by Public Policy Polling said they ascribe to the controversial birther conspiracy theory — despite the fact that the state of Hawaii has posted Obama’s certificate of live birth.

 Only 28 percent said they think the president was born in the United States — a constitutional requirement to be president. Twenty-one percent said they were “not sure." (Politico, "Poll: 51 percent of GOP primary voters think Obama born abroad.")

In April of last year, the new Republican National Committee chairman, Reince Priebus, was reported in an interview with U. S. News and World Report to repudiate the birthers and their crazy conspiracy, but later, Priebus tweeted that he never said that. As Sahil Kapur states in a blog post on the topic ("RNC chairman denies he ever repudiated 'birthers'"): "[t]hat Priebus felt the need to back away from what US News & World Report depicted as nothing more than a clear repudiation of the birthers is a testament to the influence that the fervent conspiracy theorists have in mainstream Republican circles."

Overlapping the birther crazies are the Obama-should-be-impeached-for-treason crazies and Obama-is-a-Muslim crazies. Mitt Romney is being compared to John McCain because of an incident that happened at a town hall meeting near Cleveland, Ohio, this week.  A woman who stood to ask Romney a question said that Obama "should be tried for treason," for which comment she received a round of applause from the audience. In a similar situation in the last presidential primary, when a woman at a town hall meeting said that she didn't trust Barack Obama because he was "an Arab," John McCain denied her claim civilly, saying that Obama was a "decent family man, citizen." But the current Republican presidential candidate let stand with no comment a claim that our president is "treasonous"--until much later, away from the crazies, when he was questioned by reporters.

Mainstream Republicans are acting in rational self-interest, of course, by not repudiating birtherism and other crazy shit conspiracy theories that have sprung up to try to deny our first black president's right to the office. Those of us who remember the Clinton years remember how well conspiracy theories rallied the far-right base then. But, really, if mainstream Republicans repudiated the conspiracy theories of the far right, would those voters vote the Democratic ticket? Of course not. But they might stay home and stew in their conspiracy juices and not vote at all. 

This is personal for me. Although I am no longer on the crazy list for forwarded political e-mails, I am just tired of hearing people I know spout this stuff. Thank you, Reince and all you other otherwise rational Republicans, for helping destroy whatever respect I once had for some of those I love. But even more importantly, now that you've gotten in bed with conspiracy theorists, you're going to have a difficult time kicking them out of the bedroom if you win the presidential election in 2012. What will you concede to then for their support?