The Revival of the GOP

I was at a lunch with some notables a few weeks back.  Those would be notables that no one has ever heard of, although one of them had been a featured guest on the Stephen Colbert show, so someone must have noted him.  One fellow was talking about the energy, the commitment, and the braininess of the young folks he was rounding up to revamp, recharge, and revive the Republican Party.  Of course, they were in the rEVOLUTION.  Pauliacs, one and all.  He got all boosterish in response to my comment, which unfortunately contained the ephithet "Pauliac," that in Hays County, where I live, the Pauliacs had made their move to dominate the party. 

The lunch continued, but this guy kept returning to the "Pauliac" comment, then tossed in his own "Know Nothing"  dig.  I looked up sweetly and said, "Oh, I do know something.  I know that you are the first Pauliac I've met who hasn't gone off your medication."  To his credit, he thought that was very funny. 

We're buds now, but really.  He thinks that the demographic of the Pauliacs recommends them, as he describes them, "They are young, idealistic and into computers."  So, that tells me that they are purist doctrinaire types who also harbor secret crushes on Ayn Rand, who can't understand people and the complexity of human interaction.  They retreat to the world online, to one's and zero's, forming their little armies for wargames or the rEVOLUTION or whatever.  It's a world with narrow definitions of expertise, a yardstick for virtue which is apparently as much of a moving target as anything else in the political realm.  As far as I can tell, the rEVOLUTIONaries are very tolerant of the pragmatism of their leader, Ron Paul.  Actually, I don't know if I'd call it "pragmatism."  He took the lithium-deprived contingent for a lovely and lucrative ride: they found a new world of buddies and he got a fabulous war chest for his congressional run.

Maybe Barack will cure my cynicism. 

Comments

[aelfheld]

Why would you want to be cured?

And why would you think a post-modern Elmer Gantry could?