Quote of the Day: How Many Ways Can You Say “Crazy”?

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From George Packer, explaining why politics is covered as spectacle these days:

How many times and ways can you say that the Republican Party has descended into unreality and extremism before you lose your viewers and readers?

In my case, I imagine the answer is “several thousand.” And if I kept up Friday Catblogging, I’d probably keep a fair chunk of my audience even at that.

Still, Packer has a point. Hell, it actually makes my blogging life sort of miserable. Nearly every day I face the same decision: do I pretend to take Republican crankery seriously and write a few chart-laden posts about why they’re wrong, or should I instead write a couple of rants about how lunacy has become mainstream and can hardly be fought with yet more wonkery and tedious empirical evidence?

Obviously, I usually opt for the former. But not without qualms just about every single day.

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And the essential ingredient that makes all this possible? Readers like you.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to devote the time and resources to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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