My former Texas Senator, John Cornyn, with whom I’ve never agreed, told Ted Cruz words to the effect that you don’t burn the house down to kill the rats. But I wonder. Is Cruz crazy enough to try to do just that? I read he is now collaborating with House teabaggers to create a coup against their own elected leader, John Boehner to take the country to the brink of default on the debt ceiling issue.
I saw these people up close and personal in my Texas life and I can tell you that while they give lip service to the Constitution, they do not recognize the rules laid down therein. They do not recognize the results of democratic elections when they lose and in fact, do all kinds of nefarious things to break rules which do not serve their interests. These people are rabid revolutionaries. They are not incrementalists by any definition. Burning the house down for them is the easiest way they can achieve their white bread theocracy. They are smart enough to understand that they have to first inhabit the house in order to get to the oven to light it and burn baby burn.
And inhabit they do. School boards, county administrations, city halls, state houses all over the country. And now, 51 of them inhabit the House of Representatives. They do not recognize their own Party leadership who helped them get there. I’ve known a few anarchists in my days. These guys make the most strident anarchists look like amateurs. Democratic process? Bunk. Truth? They make their own to fit their narrative. Ethics? That’s for losers. They view themselves as Cruz’s father has described his son. Chosen by God to save his father’s adopted country. The chosen make their own rules. These people are on a divine mission.
So, you ask, would they really take the good old U.S. of A. over the debt limit brink to default if they could? You bet. These same people have rewritten the bible. Have rewritten the Constitution. Have worked in stealth to subvert the voting rights of people who don’t look like them. They harrass voters, trash voting registrations, move polling places, shrink voting schedules, falsify voting information. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. They intimidate at the polls, create legislation to deny rights and are neo-confederates. Meaning, they see no value in the federal government and would rather re-create a confederation of states.
So, bringing the federal system down fits perfectly with their world view. One must ask their funders, Armey’s army and the Koch brothers, are they so cynical in their pursuit of profit and power as to turn this rabid crowd of revolutionaries into the national wrecking crew? Is their anything in their histories that suggests they won’t? I don’t see it.
We need to urge our congressional Democratic Party allies to marshall our majority vote with reasonable Republicans, including speaker Boehner and stop this coup in its tracks. I’m rarely afraid, but this time, I’m very afraid. I hope you are too. But not frozen in fear but mobilized to act with a very strong offense.