Mark Sumner

Lefty Blogger: Republican Party Starts Getting Swamped By ‘Tsunami’ of Its Own ‘Unreasoning Fear’
By Tom Johnson | September 4, 2015 | 2:27 PM EDT

Apparently at least two of the Beach Boys are Republicans, but when Daily Kos's Mark Sumner used a GOP/surfing metaphor, it didn't mean “catch a wave and you’re sittin’ on top of the world.” Rather, as Sumner sees it, the party is heading for a wipeout.

“For decades, Republicans have been thriving on a theme of Me-firstism and an insistence that it's the sworn duty of every American to fear those who have less than them,” wrote Sumner in a Tuesday post. “Republicans unleashed the tide of unreasoning fear and distrust, then they climbed up onto their boards and began to surf…Only, that wasn't so much a wave. It was more a tsunami.” And now, Sumner added, GOPers are so unhinged that in the presidential contest they’re abandoning their own political pros in favor of unqualified candidates who’ve never held public office.

Daily Kos: ISIS ‘Politicians’ Are No Threat to U.S., So ‘Stop Freaking Out’ About Them
By Tom Johnson | August 24, 2014 | 5:43 PM EDT

In a Sunday-morning post, Daily Kos blogger Mark Sumner argued that the “threat ISIS represents to the United States” is “[e]xactly none” and urged us not to overreact now the way we supposedly did after 9/11 and consequently “hand over freedoms for an illusion of safety. The NSA reading your email and listening in on your phone, idiots mistaking a dropped t-shirt at the Mexican border for the prayer rug of invading Muslims, TSA workers who know you more intimately than your spouse. Those are bin Laden's victories.”

Besides, Sumner remarked, everyday food additives may be more lethal than jihadists: “You could probably make a compelling case that corn syrup is more deadly to Americans than all the terrorists who ever lived.”

Daily Kos Says It's No Mirage; The Problem's Republican Sabotage
By Tom Johnson | July 27, 2013 | 10:31 AM EDT

The left often alleges that conservatives don't merely dislike government but deliberately undermine it for political or financial gain (and sometimes both). Daily Kos blogger Mark Sumner chimed in to that effect this past Sunday.
 
Sumner writes that conventional wisdom blames "rising incivility" and "simple intransigence" for Washington's failure to accomplish much of anything, but that in reality the central issue is "sabotage. 2013 Republicans are the 1919 Black Sox of politics, and the fix is in."  This deliberate destabilization, Sumner argues, started more than three decades ago:

Daily Kos Sneers at the Supply-side Easter Bunny?
By Tim Graham | September 29, 2012 | 11:18 AM EDT

Mark Sumner at the Daily Kos demands that reporters point out that supply-side economics is a complete fantasy. "Any politician who promises to right the economy through cutting taxes on the wealthy might as well invoke the Easter Bunny, and any reporter who fails to point this out is failing the public."

Conservatives believe in a supply-side Sasquatch? "There is a difference between believing in the existence of Bigfoot and counting on reducing taxes on the rich as a way to boost the economy. Bigfoot is simply very, very unlikely. Conservative economics are a myth." The Reagan Recovery is a myth?

Daily Kos on Reagan 100: He Inspired the Oklahoma City Bombing
By Tim Graham | February 9, 2011 | 7:56 AM EST

If liberals thought the celebration of the 100th anniversary of Ronald Reagan's birth was a little sickening, they could always find comfort in the loopy leftist loathing of the Daily Kos. On Sunday, "Slangist" took the fruitcake with lines like this: "First elected Governor on a muted inclination to shoot student demonstrators, Reagan spent his political life as an apostle of reaction, repression and recklessness."

Reagan's contempt for the U.S. government was the "direct ancestor of Timothy McVeigh's, though Reagan's damage hit all American urban areas, not just Oklahoma City." He was McVeigh, only more murderous. This Kosmonaut also boldly asserted that Reagan was a worse liar than Bill Clinton:

'I Hate People,' The GOP Theme Song?
By Tim Graham | December 13, 2010 | 10:59 AM EST

In the warm, generous glow of the Christmas season, it's quite expected that scolds of the Left will accuse the conservatives of being the very archetype of Ebenezer Scrooge. On The Daily Kos, Mark Sumner touts a Scrooge musical over diversions like "knife fighting for this year's top toy," especially when you can describe "I Hate People" as a "secret Republican theme song":

When it comes to musical versions of Dicken's [sic] ghost story, I much prefer the 1970 version Scrooge with Albert Finney in the titular role. With a dozen (if not a hundred) other versions of the story competing for a spot on your 500 channel tuner, this very British turn is often overlooked. However, this is the one irresistible marker of season at my house. And at any time of year, my curmudgeonly heart is warmed by a verse of "I hate Christmas," [sic] which I think of as the secret Republican theme song (when I see the indolent classes, sitting on their indolent asses, drinking ale from indolent glasses, I hate people).