Peter Aitken: GOP can’t see reality

The May 18 letter “Nothing helpful” was a perfect example of how a certain segment of the right wing has walled itself off from reality.

The “liberal agenda” this writer described (unlimited welfare spending, promotion of voter fraud, unrestricted access to taxpayer-funded abortion) is a fantasy that is not espoused by any serious liberal politicians but that exists only as a straw man created by the bloviating right-wing talk shows, Fox News, and the like.

It’s a lot easier to stir up the base by presenting a simplistic and exaggerated liberal agenda that is mostly lies and distortion, and a lot harder to enter into an informed discussion of real issues and real proposals. By willfully remaining ill-informed, these folks create for themselves a comfortable cocoon where there is no need to actually think and the automatic response to anything is “conservative good, liberal bad.”

This happens on both sides of the fence, of course, but it sure is a lot more prevalent on the right. Why is that?

This story was originally published June 1, 2015 at 5:25 PM with the headline "Peter Aitken: GOP can’t see reality."