Republicans Are Simply Out To Fuck Shit UP – Day 5,895
I feel like I can finally breathe. The gaslight treatment that I’ve been getting from the world over the past ten years has been revealed to NOT be a figment of my imagination. Both sides DON’T do it. Republicans ARE the problem. The thing that got me into blogging was the nagging sense that nobody was talking about that obvious truth. Mike Castle bugged the hell out of me because he couldn’t see it. (Or he saw it and didn’t care to do anything about it.) John Carney continues to bug the hell out of me because he ignores the obvious pile of steaming dog shit square in the center of our national living room carpet.
Well, thank FSM – that is going to be tougher for Mr. Carney to do from now on.
Let’s just say it: The Republicans are the problem.
Rep. Allen West, a Florida Republican, was recently captured on video asserting that there are “78 to 81” Democrats in Congress who are members of the Communist Party. Of course, it’s not unusual for some renegade lawmaker from either side of the aisle to say something outrageous. What made West’s comment — right out of the McCarthyite playbook of the 1950s — so striking was the almost complete lack of condemnation from Republican congressional leaders or other major party figures, including the remaining presidential candidates.
It’s not that the GOP leadership agrees with West; it is that such extreme remarks and views are now taken for granted.
We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this dysfunctional. In our past writings, we have criticized both parties when we believed it was warranted. Today, however, we have no choice but to acknowledge that the core of the problem lies with the Republican Party.
The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.
When one party moves this far from the mainstream, it makes it nearly impossible for the political system to deal constructively with the country’s challenges.
“Both sides do it” or “There is plenty of blame to go around” are the traditional refuges for an American news media intent on proving its lack of bias, while political scientists prefer generality and neutrality when discussing partisan polarization. Many self-styled bipartisan groups, in their search for common ground, propose solutions that move both sides to the center, a strategy that is simply untenable when one side is so far out of reach.
Ted Cruz speaking now at the Values Voter Summit and he’s not backing down.
“It’s not that the GOP leadership agrees with West; it is that such extreme remarks and views are now taken for granted.”
Actually, I think it has more to do with the fact that those comments benefited the GOP leadership.
This idea that “Establishment/moderate” Republicans just realized how crazy/destructive the Tea Party is, is complete nonsense. The time to claim the role of adult has passed. You don’t get to claim the high ground only when the monster you created and fed turns on you.
The “Establishment/Moderate” Republicans have zero leadership skills and zero backbone. If this does turn into a GOP civil war, my money is on the Tea Party.
@p “Ted Cruz speaking now at the Values Voter Summit and he’s not backing down.”
…but he is getting heckled.
Yeah, but the hecklers seem to be pro-immigration reform people.
Altho… Ted Cruz getting heckled is never really a bad thing. 😉
This: Many self-styled bipartisan groups, in their search for common ground, propose solutions that move both sides to the center, a strategy that is simply untenable when one side is so far out of reach.
Up to 2004 Presidential election it was the norm for candidates in both parties to run to their base during the primaries (sounding more specifically ideological) and then run back toward the center in the General to pick up the independents and undecideds. In 2004 there were so few independents and undecideds left that Dubya tossed conventional wisdom out the door and continued running to his base in the General. Added to the fact that Kerry was an inept campaigner, and this set up a different model. The GOP far (far) right base–particularly evangelicals–drew the (not incorrect) conclusion that they had helped elect a president, which put them in the position to demand more concessions from the “mainstream” party.
Problem was that this not only crippled McCain who tried the traditional run-right-turn-back-center campaign because the far right base then threatened to desert him, but also McCain as a campaigner was about as bad as Kerry and Obama was outstanding at running in the center to independents and undecideds. But the GOP far right base was able to spin the internal meme that McCain lost because he didn’t solidify his base, and that a more extreme evangelical candidate would be able to do so next time.
They never got–then or in 2012–that Sara Palin and Paul Ryan went from being curiosities to being liabilities. Both Palin and Ryan scared the centrist voters without being strong enough to bring along the base (VP candidates are only usually good for a single state when you come down to it). And even if they had brought in the base, the grim numerical reality for the GOP is that even with Base + Mainstream you only get about 47% of the vote–the GOP has to have another 3-4% of the center to win the presidency.
2004 was a fluke that everybody in the GOP misread horribly.
The hecklers are conservatives who paid to attend. It seems that some in his own party have had enough of him.
@Steve good analysis. Beyond Kerry being inept, we had (have) a Democratic establishment that doesn’t see the importance of activating the base. The “run back toward the center in the General to pick up the independents and undecideds” becomes a bland soup of vague wishes rather than a bold brand statement.
Given the choice between a sincere, but flawed, conservative candidate (Bush), and an undefined vaporous candidate (Gore) independents and undecideds rightfully went for the sincere sounding candidate.
Of course, Bush turned out to be an idiot surrounded by sociopaths who ended up being terrible. That was the fluke. Nobody thought Bush could be as bad as he turned out to be.
Related to this, Nancy Pelosi says that Democrats can’t go on enabling Republicans by being the grown ups.
Obama messed it all up. What a moron
Anagram wizard says: Seabeds ammo a thaw till up. Roam on.
Poor pornstached bastard can’t even troll decently anymore.
Agreed, I liked the Republicans far more when they were mere corporate hacks, Boehner comes to mind. Now it’s different, regardless of the outcome breaking bad for the GOP Ted Cruz and his fellow Tea Party Types will be back for more mayhem. As for “bad campaigners” the real problem lies with a rather foolish and uninformed electorate, Americans remain politically ignorant and not just in the south. Ya’ll.