This Story From Outside The Beltway Deserves More Attention

One story from September of last year written for publication by Doug Mataconis almost catches our current dystopian culture  "in a nutshell":

What The Gosar Family Tells Us About Our Broken Political Culture

Doug Mataconis · Tuesday, September 25, 2018

However - reacting sadly helps no one - It just keeps getting nuttier and nuttier and more nutty than ever before in one year after Mataconis - himself a conservative Republican - stated that this episode tells us about the kind of nation we’re turning into. OK. The story might tell us about some take-aways from social media jabber-jabber, media frenzies from media stogies, and flash-mobs showing up at staged public pep-talks and demonstrations, but we're ending up with a close to 50-50 split in a divided nation. . . where the "winners-and-losers" are determined by a small active percent.
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Six of Congressman Paul Gosar’s nine siblings - three brothers and three sisters - are starring in a political ad for his Democratic opponent:

"It might seem like family dysfunction or a very bad case of sibling rivalry.
Six of nine brothers and sisters of Representative Paul Gosar, Republican of Arizona, publicly endorsed his Democratic opponent in the midterm elections in videos on Friday, in what one of them said was nothing short of a moral imperative.
The siblings were alarmed at what they saw as the congressman’s increasingly extremist views on immigration, health care and white supremacists, . . "

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Bernadette Gosar, the siblings’ 85-year-old mother, at herhome in Wyoming said this:
“He’s done a hell of a job for Arizona, and they love him.”

Brother David Gosar has a totally different opinion:
“I’m just hoping either in this election cycle or next, the people get the idea that he’s just not fit for that office and he needs to be removed,” he said.
David Gosar said he’s not surprised his brother is trying to flip the narrative to make his siblings seem like the political radicals.
“He’s capable of saying anything. It’s par for the course,” David Gosar told the Arizona Republic.
“He’s so extreme that his take on this is that we’re so extreme,” he said.
“Here’s a guy who wants to block transgender people from using the bathroom of their gender identification. Here’s a guy who wants to kick DACA kids out of the country, who’s marching with white nationalists in Britain.”

As noted, Gosar responded on Twitter:
"My siblings who chose to film ads against me are all liberal Democrats who hate President Trump. These disgruntled Hillary suppporters are related by blood to me but like leftists everywhere, they put political ideology before family. Stalin would be proud."      #Az04 #MAGA2018

— Paul Gosar (@DrPaulGosar) September 22, 2018 

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BLOGGER NOTE: It's fairly simple to agree with Doug Mataconis when he states that political disagreements are as old as the country. That's rooted in the very idealistic stated foundations of a democracy and the inherent rights embedded in We The People where everyone is created equal and free to pursue the blessings of life, liberty and happiness.
"While there has been much understandable joking about all of this since the ads came out, it also speaks on some level to the extent to which political dysfunction and hyperpartisanship has infected our culture, our personal relationships, and our family. Political disagreements are as old as the country, of course. "
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WHAT'S THE PROBLEM? Politicians have no morals, beholden to "higher interests."
We just can't leave it there - Put a screeching slam on the brakes!
Democracy cannot exist if a nation's leaders are free to simply invent whichever version of reality best suits their own priorities and ambitions. We are seeing it happen:

02 January 2020

Duh! Golly, Gee Whizz! . . .So Many Media Stooges

Link > MesaZona 02 January 2020

"At the website PressThink, Jay Rosen had a post-Christmas examination of Meet The Press host Chuck Todd's startling new realization that, golly gee, it turns out that Republicans have been intentionally using his show and others to spread false information.
Yes, Todd just realized that now.
Yes, he is one of the top political "minds" in Washington, which ought to clarify just how boned we all are, as the nation's political press continues to somehow degrade into something even worse and more vapid than the chummy gullibles that brought us the Iraq War. . . "
So what now?
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READ MORE > The Daily Kos

Every approach, however, is a means of accomplishing the same thing: creating a mechanism by which those that spout disinformation to the public can incur damage, and not just rewards. This is not the same as attempting to shame politicians into honest behavior; there is no such thing as political shame.
Stop expecting it; stop presuming it. . . Liars will stop lying in public when the penalties for public lying are consequential enough to outweigh the advantages of broadcasting the lie.
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Mataconis's story ends with this paragraph:
"As for Congressman Gosar, it’s unlikely that this ad is going to have much of an impact on his political fortunes. After narrowly winning his seat by defeating Congresswoman Ann Kirkpatrick in 2010, Gosar was re-elected in 2012 by nearly 60,000 votes, re-elected in 2014 by roughly 80,000 votes, and re-elected yet again in 2016 by roughly 120,000 votes. His district, which stretches from the Phoenix suburbs to the far western and northwestern parts of the Grand Canyon State, is solidly Republican. He’s going to be re-elected in November, but the damage to his family relationships by the behavior on both sides is going to be longer lasting, and that’s unfortunate. What’s even more unfortunate is what this episode tells us about the kind of nation we’re turning into.
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