Trivia

August 17, 2011

Published in El Universal
(Mexico) on 10 August 2011
by Carlos Loret de Mola (link to original link to original)

Translated from by Elena Atkinson. Edited by Katerina Kobylka.

They are a minority, but they have kidnapped the country’s public discourse. They do not even represent a quarter of Congress, but they have the capacity to paralyze national development. Within their own party, they generate divisions and mark as traitors those who were elected to public office under the same flag for the simple reason that they vote differently or are not in agreement with their opinions.

They discredit, insult and make fun of the president. Those who are not in their fraction — not to mention their party — are marked as accomplices to horrible crimes. Neither discussions nor agreements are possible with them. In more profound debates, even when their rivals say that they are right and adjust legislative packages, they vote against them. Some of their representatives are embarrassing and the most serious and independent analysts ask themselves how it is possible that they might have arrived at their positions.

They have one or two methods of preferred communication. They consider all others part of a dysfunctional system. They follow a handful of media sources, considered extreme by the majority of the public opinion, and it seems to them that they are the only ones who “tell the truth.”

Their speeches are discrediting and inflammatory, and personal against individuals who have then been assaulted by the very fundamentalists that they generated. Their outcry against this type of politically motivated violence is lukewarm, in a way that seems to justify it.

They consider themselves the only ones morally chosen to save the country from its deficiencies. However, their own proposals are built on false data (“the whole world has the right to their own opinion, put not to their own statistics”) and when they govern they do not put into practice what they have raised in their speeches.

They do not have ideas. They have slogans. They are not capable of arguing, only of repeating. When faced with a piece of data, a question, a criticism, they respond with a pre-scripted phrase that sounds good, that tries to say everything but in reality does not say anything. Their followers are more like fanatics and actively use the internet as a means of propaganda and attack.

I am referring to the tea party, the ultra-right-wing fraction of the already conservative Republican Party of the United States. In this week’s edition of Time magazine, this is how they were painted by Michael Crowly in his piece “The Triumph of the Tea Party” in honor of the debate over raising the debt ceiling of the United States.

Son una minoría, pero han secuestrado la discusión pública del país. No representan ni una cuarta parte del Congreso, pero tienen la capacidad de paralizar el desarrollo nacional. En su propio partido generan divisiones y tachan de traidores a quienes llegaron a puestos públicos bajo sus mismas siglas por la sencilla razón de que no están de acuerdo en lo que opinan o votan diferente.
Al Presidente lo descalifican, insultan y burlan. A quienes no son de su fracción —ya no se diga de su partido— los tachan de cómplices de los peores delitos. Con ellos no hay debate posible ni acuerdo alcanzable. En discusiones de la mayor profundidad, aun cuando sus rivales les dan la razón y ajustan los paquetes legislativos a sus designios, votan en contra. Algunos de sus representantes son de pena ajena y los más serios e independientes analistas se preguntan cómo es posible que hayan llegado hasta una curul.
Tienen uno o dos medios de comunicación favoritos. A los demás los consideran parte del sistema disfuncional. Siguen a un puñado de comunicadores, considerados extremos por el grueso de la opinión pública, y les parecen los únicos que “dicen la verdad”.
Sus discursos son incendiarios y descalificadores, en lo personal contra individuos que a consecuencia de ellos han resultado agredidos por los fundamentalistas que ellos mismos generan. Su condena de este tipo de violencia motivada políticamente es tibia, al grado que parece justificarla.
Ellos se consideran los únicos moralmente elegidos para salvar a la patria de sus carencias. Sin embargo, sus propuestas parten de datos mentirosos (“todo mundo tiene derecho a su propia opinión, pero no a sus propias cifras”) y cuando han gobernado no han puesto en práctica lo que tanto enarbolan en sus discursos.
No tienen ideas. Tienen slógans. No son capaces de argumentar, sólo de repetir. Ante un dato, un cuestionamiento, una crítica, responden con una frase prehecha, que suena bien, que busca decir todo, pero que en el fondo no dice nada. Sus seguidores son más bien fanáticos y usan activamente internet como método de propaganda y ataque.
Me refiero al Tea Party (Partido del Té), la fracción de ultraderecha del ya de por sí conservador Partido Republicano de Estados Unidos, que así retrata, en la revista Time de esta semana, Michael Crowley, en su pieza The Triumph of Tea Party (El triunfo del Partido del Té), a propósito de la discusión sobre el techo del endeudamiento de la Unión Americana.

This post appeared on the front page as a direct link to the original article with the above link .

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