Tuesday, September 06, 2011

Good news for the millions of disenfranchised Republicans, feeling trapped in their party. Apparently you can leave.

Courtesy of Truthout:

To those millions of Americans who have finally begun paying attention to politics and watched with exasperation the tragicomedy of the debt ceiling extension, it may have come as a shock that the Republican Party is so full of lunatics. To be sure, the party, like any political party on earth, has always had its share of crackpots, like Robert K. Dornan or William E. Dannemeyer. But the crackpot outliers of two decades ago have become the vital center today: Steve King, Michele Bachman (now a leading presidential candidate as well), Paul Broun, Patrick McHenry, Virginia Foxx, Louie Gohmert, Allen West. The Congressional directory now reads like a casebook of lunacy. 

It was this cast of characters and the pernicious ideas they represent that impelled me to end a nearly 30-year career as a professional staff member on Capitol Hill. A couple of months ago, I retired; but I could see as early as last November that the Republican Party would use the debt limit vote, an otherwise routine legislative procedure that has been used 87 times since the end of World War II, in order to concoct an entirely artificial fiscal crisis. Then, they would use that fiscal crisis to get what they wanted, by literally holding the US and global economies as hostages. 

The debt ceiling extension is not the only example of this sort of political terrorism. Republicans were willing to lay off 4,000 Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) employees, 70,000 private construction workers and let FAA safety inspectors work without pay, in fact, forcing them to pay for their own work-related travel - how prudent is that? - in order to strong arm some union-busting provisions into the FAA reauthorization. 

Everyone knows that in a hostage situation, the reckless and amoral actor has the negotiating upper hand over the cautious and responsible actor because the latter is actually concerned about the life of the hostage, while the former does not care. This fact, which ought to be obvious, has nevertheless caused confusion among the professional pundit class, which is mostly still stuck in the Bob Dole era in terms of its orientation. For instance, Ezra Klein wrote of his puzzlement over the fact that while House Republicans essentially won the debt ceiling fight, enough of them were sufficiently dissatisfied that they might still scuttle the deal. Of course they might - the attitude of many freshman Republicans to national default was "bring it on!" 

It should have been evident to clear-eyed observers that the Republican Party is becoming less and less like a traditional political party in a representative democracy and becoming more like an apocalyptic cult, or one of the intensely ideological authoritarian parties of 20th century Europe. This trend has several implications, none of them pleasant.

I imagine that for many old school Republicans they must feel as if the inmates have taken over the asylum, and are just hoping this is a passing fad, and that somebody will restore order.

Personally I have been watching things headed this direction for quite some time, though admittedly when I saw how horribly the Bush administration failed at running the country, I thought the GOP might be a little less cocky and more likely to work WITH Democrats in order to get our country back on track.

Why yes I DO still believe in the Tooth Fairy, why do you ask?

These days I can only predict that things are going to continue to erode until something really HUGE happens that will bring us all together. (And NO I am not suggesting that the Obama administration conduct a False Flag operation. Democrats don't do that.) Or the Teabaggers actually convince enough people to take up arms against the Federal government and we have our second Civil War.

That last option might seem a little crazy, and at one time it did to me as well.  At one time.

19 comments:

  1. Anonymous2:16 AM

    Where the hell was this jack ass when his St. Ronnie started this bull shit against "the people". He's the one who busted the air traffic controllers union way back in the 80's. That's when this "kill the middle class" shit was born. He got away with it and the whole right felt empowered to continue up until the shit storm we witnessed this summer.

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  2. Anonymous2:49 AM

    O/T, but I copied this from one of the c4per's comments.

    I had the honor to see Sarah at her Going Rogue book signing.....There was nothing in this world like that ! I actually got to stand in front of her, talk to her for a brief moment and shake her hand ! And, they took pictures....her personal photographer did , of each person shaking Sarahs hand and posted them online to see / PURCHASE...

    (The caps are mine)

    Does any other author/celebrity sell photos of themselves at a book signing? Talk about Chuzpah!

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  3. Thisby3:09 AM

    First of all, Gryphen, thanks for keeping us on our toes about all things that threaten our democracy, and not just Sarah whats-her-bucket. As far as the Republican party, I just don't know what to say. I grew up in a Republican household, but in the early 1970s Phyllis Schlafly came on the scene and told me I should stay in my kitchen, serving my husband, while SHE engaged in a lucrative political career devoted to decimating my civil rights. Subsequently, the party left me -- along with all sentient women -- in the lurch, soliciting our votes but never, ever, our voices.

    Nevertheless, I eventually became a state government drone and worked with a lot of Republicans over the years, most of whom were intelligent, educated, and decent people. That seems to have all ended during the Bush II administration. These days, my formerly mainstream Republican husband and various friends can't comprehend what's happened to their party. To this day, I have no idea why any woman with any kind of sense would be a Republican. The crazy right wing may look like they're winning in the short term, but in the long term they will lose the best and most decent of the party.

    To me, the most frightening thing about Sarah Palin or Rick Perry or Michelle Bachmann is how many people actually buy into their cloud of crazy. Political lunatics come and go, but the ignorant right-wing crazy is forever.

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  4. Anonymous3:28 AM

    Death to the tea party with their death to America agenda.My rallying cry for 2012.

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  5. Anonymous4:46 AM

    Raised in a conservative family, I had voted Republican/Independent my whole life.

    Until W. Bush. I thought two wars and an economic crash would cause the GOP some SERIOUS reflection, and we would see a sober and chastened party nominate only the best and brightest, in an effort to rehabilitate their image and reputation.

    We got John McCain and Sarah Palin.

    It was a rude wake-up call, and I have been re-examining my political premises from the ground up.

    In 2008 I voted for the Democratic Party for the first time in my life. My minimum requirement was intelligence and sanity.

    My thoughts so far lead me to believe that the whole election process needs to be rebuild from the ground up, starting with Campaign Finance Reform, and run-off elections.

    In spite of some disappointments in Obama, we are damn lucky to have him.

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  6. "Democrats ceded the field. Above all, they do not understand language. Their initiatives are posed in impenetrable policy-speak: the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The what?--can anyone even remember it? No wonder the pejorative "Obamacare" won out. Contrast that with the Republicans' Patriot Act. You're a patriot, aren't you? Does anyone at the GED level have a clue what a Stimulus Bill is supposed to be? Why didn't the White House call it the Jobs Bill and keep pounding on that theme?"

    As a Democrat who does understand language, who has warred against jargon and been duly pilloried and ostracized for the effort, the above passage particularly resonated with me.

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    Quail Hollow, Austin, Texas

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  8. I was raised as a conservative, Republican, Southern Baptist. Even then, there were many things they touted that I didn't agree with. Such as, their views on the environment, pro-life and I felt that gay people should be allowed to get married if they wanted. But I didn't speak up against it because I didn't feel that passionate about it...until the Bush Administration came along.

    The Bush Administration made me do some serious rethinking. I also started doing research on both sides of the political views. This was something I hadn't done before because honestly, I was afraid of getting 'confused'.

    Before, I thought if I just voted Republican, my party would be sure to take care of me and keep my best interest at heart. After all, they were the 'responsible party', right?

    Thanks to the Bush Administration, I am awake now. They turned a conservative, Republican, Southern Baptist that voted for her party with childlike trust into a liberal, Democrat, agnostic that votes as an adult. One who research's the issues before voting. One who will write to her senators and congressmen when they are doing something that I don't approve of.

    So in that sense, I guess there is one thing that I have to thank the Bush Administration for. They made me grow up.

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  9. Anonymous5:38 AM

    Actually Gryphen I am one former Republican that did leave the party. Couldn't stand to be associated with the crazies anymore. My husband and my mother did the same. Makes you wonder if there are more moderate republicans that have done that as well. I had never voted a straight ticket in my life until Nov 2010, when I voted straight D, and I was still registered as an R at that time. Didn't do me much good since I live in Kansas, but it felt good anyway. I also voted for Obama in 2008, and I'm glad I did. I'll be doing the same in 2012.

    Sue in Kansas

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  10. Gasman6:59 AM

    The sad state of today's GOP is the illogical conclusion to the policies that were begun in earnest during the Reagan years. The GOP has nobody to blame but themselves. For decades they have been fear mongering their idiot base and now they act surprised when the idiots show up with pitchforks and torches?

    The GOP has made ignorance THE main plank of their party's platform. I think they have already crossed a Rubicon of sorts and that they won't be able to reign in the morons. The GOP will either become nothing more than a regional party for white Southern racists or it will cease to exist entirely. The only question in my mind is whether this process will be cataclysmic or slow and wasting.

    A party that celebrates and wallows in ignorance cannot survive. So far, nobody in prominent positions in the GOP seem too concerned about getting those in the moron herd to get out of that wallow.

    I'll not mourn the passing of this imbecilic tribe of racist, xenophobic, racist krypto-fascist thugs. Our nation will be far better off without them.

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  11. Maddies_Mom7:47 AM

    Thisby@3:09

    Thank you, thank you very much.

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  12. Smirnonn7:49 AM

    Gryphen, thanks for the link to the Lofgren article in Truthout. Well written and spot on, IMO. This paragraph pretty much sums up the gooptardian strategy:

    "A couple of years ago, a Republican committee staff director told me candidly (and proudly) what the method was to all this obstruction and disruption. Should Republicans succeed in obstructing the Senate from doing its job, it would further lower Congress's generic favorability rating among the American people. By sabotaging the reputation of an institution of government, the party that is programmatically against government would come out the relative winner."

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  13. Maddies_Mom7:52 AM

    Next Chapter@5:20
    Blogger Next Chapter said...

    Thank you for restoring my faith.

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  14. Maddies_Mom7:52 AM

    Sue in Kansas@5:38

    This democrat thanks you.

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  15. Randall8:31 AM

    My parents were Goldwater Republicans.

    They liked Richard Nixon.

    ...until Watergate.

    Then they said that it was "too bad it happened to him."

    I said "what the fuck?

    "It didn't 'happen to him' - he ORDERED it."

    Mom still likes Newt Gingrich.

    sigh.

    If the Republican Party were still the party of Lincoln, the party of Theodore Roosevelt - I too, would be a Republican.

    But they're not. Nixon and his dirty tricks. Reagan's "welfare queen" lie, Iran-Contra, the layoff of the air-traffic controllers.

    George H.W. Bush in bed with the Bin Ladin family.

    George W. Bush and his mishandling of 922, the Patriot Act, the economic disaster, TORTURE.

    Dirty tricks, corruption, gutting the Constitution, TORTURE. Prisidential candidates that are religious maniacs that want to double-down on the same economic philosophy than damn-near bankrupted the entire world!

    Not only can't I understand my parents' allegiance to the Republican Party - I can't get my head around anybody's blind allegiance to that party.

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  16. Anonymous9:12 AM

    Thank You, Nasty Liberal! The semantics on both sides have always been an issue that's irked me. Democrats are targeting the educated and the middle class, using terms that are lost or easily manipulated by the right. The Republicans "get it", and use it to their advantage.

    I was raised in a Republican/Independent leaning family. My father never got over Nixon and what he did to the party and the country. Dad was fighting stage four cancer, he lived to see President Obama inaugurated, and he literally cried tears of joy.
    He was flummoxed, befiddled, and angry that McCain scraped the bottom of the cesspool and pulled up Sarah Palin. From the moment she was trotted out he said "There's something seriously wrong with that woman, you'll see" We watched the interviews with Charlie and Katie, and he just shook his head and said, "she's either stupid, evil, or both, and she's going to destroy the Republican Party". I'm so glad he didn't live to see what the tea party and the Republican party have become. He always drempt that the old GOP would come back, the one where people could disagree without being distructive, and get the work of the people passed.

    The GOP today is a totally different animal.

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  17. Randall, the manipulation of Blind Allegiance caused the Paradigm Shift.

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  18. Taking off from what Smirnonn said, I've been wondering what the Republican leadership thinks it is doing. So it destroys the country especially its economic base. Then they "win". What the heck do they think they are going to do then? I truly don't understand this kind of "winning", but it seems to be the goal here.

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  19. Martha again3:31 PM

    http://conservatives4palin.com/ says nada about the race. Huff Post has it on a back back page. Let's keep this story going!

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