When Did the GOP Lose Touch With Reality?

Cook”s Outlook took some time off during the Thanksgiving holiday to relax, eat way too much and catch up on some reading.

One story, written by David Frum, in New York Magazine caught my eye.  Frum, a Republican who once served as a speechwriter for President George W. Bush, examines the when and why the Republican Party began to lose touch with reality.

Here”s a quote from the article that encapsulates how many in the GOP system have gone off the deep end:

Backed by their own wing of the book-publishing industry and supported by think tanks that increasingly function as public-relations agencies, conservatives have built a whole alternative knowledge system, with its own facts, its own history, its own laws of economics. Outside this alternative reality, the United States is a country dominated by a strong Christian religiosity. Within it, Christians are a persecuted minority. Outside the system, President Obama —- whatever his policy ­errors -— is a figure of imposing intellect and dignity. Within the system, he’s a pitiful nothing, unable to speak without a teleprompter, an affirmative-action ­phony doomed to inevitable defeat. Outside the system, social scientists worry that the U.S. is hardening into one of the most rigid class societies in the Western world, in which the children of the poor have less chance of escape than in France, Germany, or even England. Inside the system, the U.S. remains (to borrow the words of Senator Marco Rubio) “the only place in the world where it doesn’t matter who your parents were or where you came from.”

The article is a fascinating read from a Republican insider who breaks down how Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and the Tea Party are crippling the long-term prospects of the GOP.

Here”s the link to the article.