Delaware Provides Microcosm of Looming Republican Civil War(…and glimpse at the outcome)
In Delaware we have all the factions that comprise the greater (to use a term loosely) GOP.
In Rick Jensen we have the empty headed nutbags who love Sarah Palin. I don’t listen to Jensen’s show but I heard a teaser for the show yesterday and Jensen’s Palin boner was as obvious as a basset hound trying to hide under an oriental rug. Jensen, is a perfect representative for the empty headed nutbags in the GOP because he likes Palin’s ability to get under the skin of liberals and he thinks she is cute. The Jensen’s of the world want a President as stupid as they are. It is reassuring to them to know that stupidity is not the liability their high school teachers claimed it was.
Opposite Jensen you have the Republican intelligentsia represented by Dave Burris. Although you and I know Burris to be a moronic windbag, he passes for intelligentsia among Republicans because he has money, tucks in his shirt and sets his table with a complete knife, fork and spoon even when he is not having a soup course. The Burris/Romeny’s once had the whip hand in the GOP and the nutbags like Jensen dutifully fell into line because the money men would pay lip services to the nutbag agenda.
There is a new Gooper-world order now though and the sand has run out of the Burris/Romney hourglass. Over the next eight years we will see the Palin/Jensen nutbags get increasingly saucy in their criticism of the GOP intelligentsia because 1) they blame the “intelligentsia” for picking McCain and 2) they think they can win if they only pick “real conservatives” (read whackos) to run for office.
Yes. It is going to be entertaining to watch the Jensen/Palin nutbags take over the party, but the stirring finale will be when the Burris/Romney’s get to meekly accept their fate and dutifully fall into line to endorse the ascendant nutbags in return for empty promises to cut the “death tax.”
Are there other types of Republicans out there? I don’t like the “intelligensia” – they’re the ones who gave us trickle-down economics and pre-emptive war. I don’t like the nutbags either – they’re the ones who have given us the culture wars and the anti-intellectualism.
There is a third category. The “decaying croakers” like Mike Castle. They gave is commemorative coins but are less a part of the game with each passing day.
I think that Burris and Romney might be more properly called party apparatchiks more than it’s intelligentsia. Repub intelligentsia are responsible for setting the ideology and the framing the battle du jour. Something that neither of these guys are doing.
At the end of the day, I don’t think of either of these factions as being too far apart — both are pretty much looking to the same solution for the same problem: more ideological purity to remediate ideological failure.
I agree Cassandra and I have some sympathy for that view. I remember Howard Dean and his “Democratic wing of the Democratic party” quote. I guess I feel I’ve been living through the ideological struggle for the soul of the Democratic party and I remember the DLC Democrats who tried to push out all the crazy lefties. The advice that Democrats were getting was that Democrats had to become more like Republicans to win, and a lot of us resisted this. So, I totally have sympathy for the Republican base who think they need to focus more on purer ideology.
Good post Jason, but I need more hope than the “South’s gonna do it again”, or the “Union won’t fail”. Guess I’ll keep tearin’ my petticoat ala Clara Barton, bandage both sides, and hope an Abe Lincoln arises who will have the good sense to say “let ’em go easy”. No chance it’s gonna be you heh?
There is a difference, I think, between the Democrats reclaiming their party from the DLC types and the elected types who saw no other pathway other than to keep triangulating to the right (which let the repubs move to even further rightwing extremes) and the current crop of christianists and small government types that are battling it out. Both are claiming that the current President from their party wasn’t a real Republican and they are in denial that they really have seen the ideologies that they fought for put into practice. They are looking for more extremism, more radicalism — not a move back towards some recognizable (and governable) middle.
Whoops, I forgot to add thanks to UI for remembering the walk in our shoes. This centrist stuff is tough.
I agree with your comment #6
I don’t think of either of these factions as being too far apart — both are pretty much looking to the same solution for the same problem: more ideological purity to remediate ideological failure.
. The question is which group is going to provide the animating vision and which is going to have to go along with some things that they aren’t crazy about in order to get a little bit of what they want.
That is the role reversal that is coming. I think the “fiscal conservatives” (as oxymoronic as that term is) were the party functionaries for the past 50 years, but have had the party stolen out from under them. Or perhaps it is more apt to say that they gave it away to big government “social conservatives” who have provided the right’s version of organized labor.
The difference between the “DLC/Progressive” tension on the left and the “Nutbag/business” tension on the right is that the right’s nutbags are flat out opposed to compromise and coallition building in a way that the progressives are not.
Hard core docrtinaire, uncompromising lefties leave the democratic party for the green party but the uncompromising wingnuts stay with the GOP because they have been sucked up to fo so long that they think they ARE the party.
Furthermore, they think that if they will WIN if they eschew compromise and coallition building. They honestly think that the path to electoral success is social conservative purity.
I suppose a Reagan type figure could rise over the next 8 years and bring these groups back together, but I doubt it.
The big problem I see for Republicans is that their ideology has failed. The social cons have big problems because their coalition is aging and shrinking. The corporate cons have an even bigger problem because we’re watching the results of their spectacular failure right now.
I agree that the left made a comeback because we were the ones with new ideas and energy. The DLC was the best we could do in the era of conservative ascendancy.
So, I think it will be a while until Republicans really come back. It won’t happen until they have new ideas, and I haven’t seen any of those yet.
Social Conservatives believe the Bible trumps the Constitution. Wasn’t it Huckabee who said… it’s easier to change the Constitution than the word of God? *shudder*
Truth is, Old School Republicans created a monster and then lost control of it. Putting Sarah Palin on the ticket only encouraged them. They now have a new Executive Branch litmus test… and they’ll use it. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if in 4 years the Republican primary contenders (if they’re not Far Right) have to name their VP pick before the first vote is cast.
Unstable Isotope
“So, I think it will be a while until Republicans really come back. It won’t happen until they have new ideas, and I haven’t seen any of those yet.”
Maybe so but dam it would be nice to have a party to really give a shit about Delaware. It seems the Delaware Democrats game here is rant about what’s going on in Washington and ignore the destruction the Delaware democrats have done at home. Minner travels the world Germany and Virgin Island after being beat by Markell and the home boy democrats turn a blind eye. The Delaware democrats give Senator Desk Drawer Adams the vote of confidence to keep transparency locked down! I see no way anyone D or R can be rational thinkers or really give a shit about the people if they are so far removed from center! Left and Center and Right of Center is not difference as both are in denial of reality!
Kilroy,
I agree that both parties need constant renewal and we need to make sure we hold their feet to the fire. We already lost the first battle when Thurman Adams and his desk drawer won his leadership position again.
Jason, you’re #8 is quite astute, but UI I am worried because the social cons you refer to aren’t dying and shrinking as party members. I really think the new breed is MORE dogmatic than the older ones (I can’t believe, my husband and I were just talking about this last PM). It’s no longer just attend church. It’s attend church
3x week, home/church school, talk in church vernacular, insert vernacular in any and all conversations, gather your children closer if not surrounded in areas of die hard dogma, invite, no insist others come to your church, now blow off those who don’t come to your church, spend home/church school time writing letters, making posters, and going to rallies w/ babies bundled to let DC know you vote too. Something was lost here–and I really think it translated differently for both sides. The Dems went totally wordly, to try and get a job done–they may deliver, but we pay a huge price in unintended consequences, and shifting expenses. The Repubs went to God, may have delivered, but we pay a huge price in globally offensive ethnocentricity, and economic
facade. My point being, is religion is being used as the new race card in politics. It’s a target for the Dems, it’s a liability for the GOP. It’s a shame. We all need to go to a well sometime, and whether it’s self-reflection, or a pulpit “inservice” we go. Why create this monstrous divide that takes America off message of providing for the poor, taking care of those who can’t care for themselves, and provide a COMMON defense. Let the absolute right back up, so they don’t have to fear and “double their efforts”, show them your good works. They may have one or two themselves. Maybe then we can put God, Jesus, Allah, Adonnis, Chief Twirling Twig, Mountains, and Conscience back to work, working for all of America with less time needed devoted to making you more of my enemy, and less of my friend. You have the ball in your court. Ever play “church ball”? ( I’m not kidding, there even is a “cute cult” movie out there) Some are playing that way now, and unlike UI, I feel it’s the up and coming. And it doesn’t have to be. Don’t keep score, keep Karma.
Disclaimer: This message targets no particular religious affiliation, and should be equally applied across the board to any and all who spend more time reacting and/or, absorbing, spewing, obsessing, charting, misinterpreting, and otherwise galvanizing the undermining of any and all good works on behalf of our fellow human being, and society in general.
My rule does not apply to music. Because I usually like the beat or the chorus, and can’t decipher the lyrics anyhow–so am I really culpable?
Nice post, Joanne. And I agree… this new breed is far more dangerous. Cult Politics is the new game in town. It’s divisive, and – hopefully – self destructive.
Divisive, and self-destructive to a party much more well-intended than what gets highlighted. You know “the fat girl, with a GREAT personality!”
Joanne, I’m with you. The world would be better served by a Republican party that was realistic, in touch with reality, and with the good sense to evolve with the times. However, the failure of Moderate Republicanism has been due to a dire lack of leadership. George Bush senior was the last of the breed to hold real power, and things did not go well for him. Had McCain been elected in 2000, things might be different today. But George W. Bush destroyed the Republican brand so badly that moderate Republicans would rather associate themselves with Obama (to protect their seats, as Gordon Smith tried and failed to do) than make a serious play for leadership.
What moderate Republican could act as the savior to the party now? John McCain circa 2008 abandoned the moderate wing and tacked to the right. Arlen Specter is old and has cancer. Susn Collins and Olympia Snowe seem afraid to speak out. Mike Castle is the wishy-washiest man on the face of the Earth. Peter King was never really a moderate to begin with. Arnold Schwartzenegger is hard to take seriously. Rudy Giuliani is a creep. Mike Bloomberg went independent, and had originally been a Democrat anyway. Mike Huckabee is too theocratic. Colin Powell is not a politician. Wayne Gilchrest was ousted by the Club for Growth. Lincoln Chafee lost his seat and then became an independent. Jim Leach will probably end up in the Obama administration. Nelson Rockefeller, Amo Houghton, and Sherwood Bolehrt are long gone.
Joanne, my advice would be to find other like-minded Republicans and start blogging. Until moderate Republicans become activists against the Theocrats, Misers, and Neocons, the Republican party will continue to be stranded on the far right path to obscurity.