Ruth Marcus vs. The Onion

First up: Ruth Marcus, concerned troll:

The real-life consequence of Cantor’s loss will be to further diminish the already slim prospects for serious legislating, not only dooming immigration reform, at least in the short term, but also raising the prospect of dangerous showdowns on the budget and debt ceiling.

Cue The Onion:

Flawless victory for the Onion.

Further cud-chewing from Marcus:

As it happens, Cantor’s loss came just before the Pew Research Center released a depressing new report on that very topic: the increasingly polarized state of American politics. The findings are hair-pulling.

More Americans have moved to the ideological edges. “The overall share of Americans who express consistently conservative or consistently liberal opinions has doubled over the past two decades from 10% to 21%,” Pew reported.

To read the report is to be struck by the pragmatic attitude of the majority of Americans and by their simultaneous abdication of responsibility to the extremes — and, with it, power. This sensible center is willing to compromise; half said they’d be willing to split the difference 50/50 between Republicans and Democrats.

That's quality Broderism, Ruth.

Broderism 1) Actual examples of right-wingers doing stupid things (e.g. threatening to kill police officers, blowing up the Olympics, claiming that "Atlas Shrugged" is history rather than a crappy novel by a nutjob) serve as proof that The Left is equally bad. For obvious reasons, specific mention of the offenses of The Left must be avoided (they care about the environment, don't want to cut Social Security, or even blow up foreigners for corporate profits...THOSE CRAZY ANIMALS!!!).

Broderism 2) The greatest thing in the universe is sweet bipartisanship, aka when right-wing Democrats agree with Republicans on whatever short-sighted, vicious, and ultimately disastrous scheme the GOP has cooked up lately.

Cross-posted at Whiskey Fire. Mouse over pics for captions, and click them for larger versions.
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