Republican Political Strategists' Top Delusion: Fairness Doesn't Matter

by Anna Manzo

Politico has just compiled the 10 most delusional moments by top presidential campaign officials. Not too surprisingly, most of the foibles were by the Republicans.

However, long before delusional campaign statements surfaced about the "47 percent" and "rape", one delusional trait of its top strategists is woefully out of step with 21st century collective consciousness: The inability to recognize unfairness.

• In 2010, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell publicly stated that the Republicans' "top political priority is to make Obama a one-term president." 

Never mind that millions are struggling economically from job losses, long-term underemployment/ unemployment, lost pensions, downsizing, crushing debt, lack of health insurance. Really- the top priority is to "make sure the black man loses, by any means necessary"?

• Then came presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney saying he would dismantle Obamacare, even though it was based on the very healthcare system Romney had passed as governor in his own state of Massachusetts.   

Unbelievable how a presidential candidate could suddenly backpedal on his own healthcare system, the first in U.S. history with inklings of a universal health care system (which most other developed nations have had for many years) and had helped so many people! And sadly, it's not even true universal health care; Obamacare is a massive subsidy for for-profit insurance companies, unlike the nonprofit healthcare systems in Europe.

It's not a surprise that Obama won large percentages among minority groups that have historically experienced unfair treatment: women, people of color, the working class, gay and lesbians.

As Buzzfeed points out, here's how the 2012 election would have looked like in 1850 if not for the 15th amendment, when only white males could vote.

Recognizing unfair treatment is so intrinsic to humanity that you don't even have to be fully human to recognize it. Just a little more evolved than the rest of the animal world.