Marc Ambinder (who has really been tearing it up lately) has a take on the repeal-the-seventeenth craziness that I hadn’t heard before:
Two recent Tea Party-backed candidates who had success in beating Washington-designated candidates are quite taken with the idea of repealing the 17th amendment. Ratified in 1913, it provides for the direct election of U.S. senators. Previously, state legislatures chose the senators. Lots of logistical problems resulted, but you could fairly attribute the popular constitutional amendment to the Progressive movement and to political entrepreneurs in the press. Well, newly-minted Republican nominee for Idaho’s first congressional district Raul Labrador wants to repeal the amendment.
[…..]It’s become a part of the Tea Party orthodoxy, now. Being not sure about the amendment, or not knowing why the heck anyone would want to tinker with direct election of senators, marks you with the stink of the establishment.
[…..]Here is something I don’t think Republican strategists in Washington…many of them, anyway, understand about conservative voters now. Their discontent with the party is NOT about ideology. It is, quite simply, about them. The consultants. The leaders. The people who were NOT able to prevent Obama from becoming president. The people who were NOT able to prevent health care from being signed into law, despite promising that it wouldn’t be. The people who fed the bailout engine. So ideas that seem extreme and bizarre to the powers that be might be more accepted by discontented voters simply because the mainstream forces consider them to be extreme.
I hadn’t ever thought of this before, that teatards are fueled as much by their hatred of the Republican establishment as by their hatred of Obama. But I think it may be true. RedState phones in the anti-Obama stuff, soshulism, unAmerican blah blah blah, but Erick Erickson foams at the mouth when he goes after what he sees as the Republican establishment (I agree with him that what’s going on in the South Carolina governor’s race is unbelievably sleazy, btw).
After president Scott Brown was elected, I thought that the teabaggers would mostly go along with whatever general election friendly RINO their overlords told them to support. Obviously Scozzafava was a gay right too far, but I thought the line in the teabag line in sand was in a very different place than it appears to be now.
Cerberus
Janis Ian rocks. (h/t to your title)
That being the most substantial thing to say, this push is really really interesting.
I mean, I could easily see The Flying Monkey Brigade going for a repeal of that “evil” 16th amendment and I know that they hate the 13th, 14th, and 19th amendments with the burning white fury of a thousand aching suns.
These are the sort of things that a group of rabble-roused racists who “just want their America back” would be attracted to or easily steered to.
The 17th amendment shtick though?
I mean, that just screams Wormtongue.
Why would anybody think of it, why would they champion it outside of rank ignorance? I mean, let’s say they hate the establishment, why would they openly call for a greater consolidation of entrenched establishment? Frankly, they wouldn’t.
The whole insane phenomenon is in large part fictional, entirely played by various astroturfing groups, but there is likely one person in specific who has worked very hard to make sure the idiot racists would champion this specific cause and I think that’s the more interesting story.
Who’s planning on benefiting from this fight? Who’s astroturfing it and who’s financing that? And why?
That’s the real story, cause why the howling mob is against it? Probably just the fact that it is a “progressive” achievement and thus “evil”.
The Dangerman
I’m confused; I thought the Amendment they had the hots to repeal was the 14th; now it’s the 17th? How about we just repeal them all? That should make the Original Constructionists quite pleased.
Spiffy McBang
@The Dangerman: It would make them exceptionally pleased. Then they would scream about the results without ever noticing why those results occurred.
Joel
When Ambinder wrote “It was about them”, he’s right. But he’s got the wrong “them”. The teabaggers are about “them” as in, themselves. They want crazy laws because they know it pisses on the rights of everyone else. They have an elevated sense of self-worth and they want an elevated place in society to match.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Christ, it’s like watching some asshole hold a gun to his head and scream “Do what I want or I’ll blow my brains out!”
Yes. And?
Re: Idaho – it’s worth noting that the approved GOP candidate sucked real hard. I’m still waiting to see what the GOP learns from this but given their track record, I suspect calls to repeal the 17th will become mainstream. (And then I guess the Lipton Brigade will have to pick something ELSE to be against. Wheee!)
MikeJ
It’s interesting to see a political movement whose only principle has been “piss off liberals” try to add “piss off GOP leadership” to the platform.
It really leaves them with nothing but insanity.
Citizen_X
10th Amendment says you can do that. EXCEPT, of course, for the 2nd.
Anybody says otherwise, they don’t understand nothing about the Constitution.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
Running up to the 2008 election there was a lot of discussion on how the Republican party needed re-branding. I heard it repeatedly said that “If Republicans were dog food they would be taken off the shelf.” Well, the most of the Republicans re-branded themselves “Teabaggers” while others are a GOP/Teabagger hybrid.
Ron Paul ran for President as a Republican; Sarah Palin was the Republican VP nominee; Dick Armey was what, majority whip? Re-branding just allowed them to let their freak flag fly. They’re the same people they’ve always been, just openly crazier. But the crazy was always there.
Uloborus
@Joel:
I largely agree. They’re obsessed with tribalism, and they consider facts and logic unreliable, preferring instead gut instinct. They’re also very deeply hateful people, so instead of looking to expand their tribe, they’re always seeking to narrow it. Purity tests and taking up positions *solely* because everyone else thinks they’re stupid are exactly what you’d expect. Screwing the Hell out of the Republican elections with their demands for whack job candidates is also expected. Everything’s pretty much going according to plan from my viewpoint.
Cerberus
I don’t think it’s about pissing off the Republicans. And if it was, this is a nonsensical point of attack, even by the Calvinball rules the Rapturist cult usually plays by.
This shit is obvious “corruptor in the midst”. The whole teabagging thing has always been a sparsely attended joke of a movement astroturfed to the media. Someone in the Republican party obviously knew you could sell them any garbage to reiterate with the whole “death panels” crap and thinks this would be a great means to close the parties off even further or gain some short term political advantage.
I want to know who. And why. Because that person is way more of a danger than people who think that throwing Briar Rabbit in the briar patch would totally show the Establishment.
Davis X. Machina
They were running out of shibbotheths to distinguish the real party faithful from the fakers.
All the old guarantors of orthodoxy — the tax cut pledge, global warming denial, the darned fence, birthing, Tenthing, concealed carry of missile launchers in churches — are universally acknowledged by everyone.
I’m waiting for the pre-emptive, immediate adoption by every candidate of 17th ad’t. repeal, requiring the choice of a new secret handshake, say the 3rd?
“Senator Backasswards, how do you feel about the quartering of troops?
dmsilev
@The Dangerman: Except the 2nd, of course. That one was handed down by
MosesCharlton Heston on a stone tablet.dms
Woodrowfan
Beck has “taught” these people that the Progressive Era was evil, so they want to do away with the Progressive Amendments. the 18th is already long dead, they can’t touch the 19th, so that leaves 16 and 17. Plus, somehow the 17th amendment reduces the power of the states (which makes no sense to me).
Leave it to the teatards to pick an issue that would make the government even less democratic* than it already is.
(* as in direct vote by the people, not the party.)
QuaintIrene
Shit, you just have to spend five minutes over at Free Republic to feel their sheer white hatred for John McCain. And any Repub who doesn’t advocate that every Democrat/Progressive is part of a race that needs to be exterminated, is immediately branded a RHINO.
Quiddity
Tea Party types don’t want direct election of Senators. With that attitude, why bother with direct election of Representatives? In fact, just go to the end point and bring back the monarchy.
kommrade reproductive vigor
If I put on my tin foil hat I imagine the “thought” “process” goes a little like this:
1. Democrats keep getting elected because too many of the wrong sort of people vote for them.
2. Despite Diebold’s best efforts we can’t control every vote cast in a Senate election.
3. However, many state legislatures are made up of enough people who were elected by the right sort of people.
4. What if we could cut the wrong sort of voters out of the loop for senate elections by repealing the 17th Amendment?
5. Then we’d only have to make sure just enough of the right sort of people are in the state legislature.
6. They in turn would make sure only the right sort of people become senators.
7. We need to get that damn 17th amendment out of the way.
8. Fortunately there’s a party made up of people who express their support the 2nd Am. by shooting themselves in the feet.
9. Let’s get them to support the repeal of the 17th (can’t hurt).
10. Release the Gerrymander! Also.
scav
@Woodrowfan: well, it could also be understood as an attempt to keep the senate elected by the right kind of people (e.g. those that are elected), rather than the growing demographically scary hoi polloi. Maybe. could be overthinking the whole thing, finding patterns in random noise / screeching.
scav
@kommrade reproductive vigor: hey! apparently we share tinfoil hat makers! :)
Davis X. Machina
Not right now, they ain’t. The actual repeal of the 17th would be a nightmare for the GOP. State legislatures are presently at 27 D-Both, 8 R-Both, 14 split. Nebraska, unicameral and non-partisan, is excluded.
Cerberus
And the Wormtongue behind this insane movement is apparently an idiot himself.
The distribution of State Legislatures would actually benefit Democrats.
The whole thing is truly unique. Woodrowfan @13 noted that it’s probably prolonged by “anything connected to progressivism is evil” and “hey, it mentions the states”. But then the same comment revealed the stupidity.
They wingnuts hate the 16th Amendment. It’s the basis of a thousand already existing conspiracy theories and possibly the origin among others (cough 13th amendment) of the whole “original intent” that just happens to forget that there were amendments at all and that goes double for anything after the 10th amendment.
So, it’d make perfect sense to demand their leaders repeal the 16th amendment immediately.
But the 17th? How does that get instigated? Who thought that up? It’s a vast, dumb, and most importantly out-of-character stupidity and it’s that complete failure to follow from the insane rantings of the current stack of general conspiracy theories really makes me wonder about who’s the Wormtongue at the heart of this.
My bet personally is that this is either an attempt by the Republicans to try and tame their own wild dog by trying to engineer a “don’t throw me in that briar patch” scenario or the brain fart of some state legislator big honcho somewhere who feels snubbed by the senator selection rota and thinks this ups his chances of getting selected by his buddies in the state legislature.
The Dangerman
After some consideration, there could be something to this movement; at least I wouldn’t have to see any more Carly Fiorina commercials here in CA (if my claim to fame was taking a Fortune 500 company and setting it ablaze, I would probably take my severance package and lay very low for the duration of my days, but that’s just me).
Polish the Guillotines
Considering how many stalwart conservative Republicans have had rentboy problems of late — and taking into account the conservative fetish with all things military, I’m surprised there isn’t a movement to repeal the 3rd Amendment.
dmsilev
@kommrade reproductive vigor: Someone, I think at 538.com, ran the numbers and found that if the current set of state legislatures picked the Senate, you’d have more Democrats than we do right now.
It’s kind of moot anyway. Besides the teabaggers’ short attention span (by this time next month they’ll be screaming about interstate highways or the CDC or the Twelfth Amendment or something), the odds of 2/3s of the Senate agreeing to repeal the 17th are basically zero.
dms
scav
@Davis X. Machina: well, they’re not exactly the brightest bulbs. All they’re aiming for is in the teleologically correct ballpark at best.
dmsilev
Hmm. A thought. Perhaps the teaparty movement has been infiltrated by the greatest set of pranksters in history and this is the fruition of their work? Makes more sense than most of the other theories.
dms
Bill E Pilgrim
One thing you can almost be assured of: Whatever actions they take, like the insane rejection of the census, will do more harm to them in the end than to any other group.
It’s the law of rabies, or something.
@Cerberus:
Edit: I didn’t see your link until I had already written the above. See, told you.
jwb
@Quiddity: I think the ultimate idea is theocracy, not monarchy.
Davis X. Machina
The whole point of a shibboleth is that it doesn’t make sense.
Think about it — if you were to ask a secret question that would cause any rational person to give the secret answer, then it would be a piss-poor screen — too many false positives.
Like Tim the wizard at the Gorge of Eternal Peril:
“Tim: What is your name?….”
jwb
@kommrade reproductive vigor: I think the idea is actually that state legislatures are easier to buy off and more certain in favorable results than elections, even if you are backed by Diebold.
canuckistani
Perhaps they wanted to repeal the 16th Amendment, but they got the number wrong and now they’re too proud and stubborn to admit their error.
scarshapedstar
The reason you never thought of this before is that it’s bullshit. The teatards are the people who would have joyously tossed Dubya’s salad, right up until the day he left office in disgrace. They may have unrealistic expectations of what a congressional minority with miniscule public support can accomplish, but these fucking posers whine and stamp their feet every few years and become ‘independents’ from June to September, and then go back to voting GOP in November.
They’re the Kim Jong-Il of American electoral politics.
Polish the Guillotines
@scarshapedstar: This.
Tonal Crow
@dmsilev:
This. Except that the greatest pranksters in history are the people in Iranian intelligence who gave an eager Bush the “intelligence” he needed to “justify” crushing Saddam.
Mr. Wonderful
@Uloborus:
Exactly. The one good thing that would emerge from a Tea Party victory and assumption of power would be the popcorn-worthy spectacle of their immediate shattering into twenty splinter groups, each at war with the others. Tempting, tempting…
Hunter Gathers
It’s quite obvious that they boinked each other. “My husband is fine” and “We will address this after the election” is quite the admission of guilt. When the primary is over, she will come clean, say that she has reconciled her sins with her husband, her family, and whichever god she happens to pray to at the moment. Infidelity is never an issue in a general election, unless they happen to be a Democrat. An admission of adultery would have sunk her in the primary. This way, she gets to coast to a primary victory, and Dem who brings up the fact that she fucked a man who wasn’t her husband and lied about it is sexist, racist, and anti-religion.
wrb
@Woodrowfan:
That is how I read it.
Beck has identified the Progressive era as the moment when America ate the fateful apple and was thrown out of the garden of blissful ignorance, thus all things from the progressive era are evil.
Next they are going to campaign for trust healing.
Reassemble Standard Oil!
BC
Since they read the Constitution with the same literalistic fervor as they do the Bible, I think this is just “getting back to basics.” The Founders wanted the Senate elected by state legislatures, so let’s go back to that. Our history with that be damned. We liberals want a more representative Senate so the tea partiers want a less representative one – after all, they are like the Whigs who identified themselves as opposing everything the Democrats supported.
kommrade reproductive vigor
@Davis X. Machina: Thanks, it’s too hot for this damn tinfoil hat anyway.
All right, random lunacy and shrieking it is.
Uloborus
@scarshapedstar:
If that were true, Rand Paul would not have been elected in the primary. These people are off the leash. Oh, the IDEA was definitely what you’re describing, but I don’t think the GOP can control it anymore.
Eventually they’ll get control again, because history says that happens 90% of the time. But can they do it by November? They’re at least having some success controlling the candidates, but that just means the Tea Partiers get pissed at a candidate they were about to vote for.
Anton Sirius
@QuaintIrene:
This is one of the big reasons why I’ve thought the supposed coming midterm Dem bloodbath will be more like a paper cut. The “energy” of the conservative base is not directed towards electing Republicans, it’s directed towards, well, idiocy like repealing random amendments and general cuckooishness (cuckooosity?). They’re only going to turn out to vote for their own (and for 99 44/100% pure ballot measures, of course).
MattF
Of course, the ‘original intent’ of electing Senators in the state legislatures was to keep political power out of the hands of the crazy, irrational, and easily misled rabble. Wisdom of the Founders, yadda, yadda…
Karmakin
Yeah sorry but it’s bullshit.
The motivation for the tea partiers is kicking hippies. Nothing more, nothing less. Now that they don’t have control of the government to give it official legitimacy, they’ve taken it outside. That’s all.
Davis X. Machina
I think we’re looking at a phenomenon like the Anti-Masonic Party.
Let’s see if the four-year life-span is accurate — by 1832 the Anti-Masonic Party was nominating….Masons.
Uloborus
@Karmakin:
Okay, but I would return to you that they’ve stopped being able to identify actual hippies, and have decided that anyone who isn’t part of their own little private club of crazy must be a hippie. Not only are there a hundred Tea Parties rather than one, but they’re splintering already. ‘More Conservative Than Thou’ is their favorite game, and look at the people Beck labels as dangerous liberals.
Death Panel Truck
“Hadn’t never”? Where did you go to grade school? Mississippi?
Eric U.
it would be interesting to know how this all started. Since the teabagger movement was started by and is being sustained mostly by corporatist manipulators, I’m guessing it makes more sense to Dick Armey than it does to the teabaggers themselves. The wingnuts are very good at adopting an orthodoxy and defending it to the death even though it doesn’t make any sense. So I don’t think looking for logic in the repeal movement itself will pay off. I’m guessing that asking a batch of teabaggers why they support this will result in the answer, “because, that’s why.”
I think the teabagger movement is a natural consequence of the Republicans promoting the crazy for all these years. Now the establishment is getting more and more crazy. Eventually it’s going to get so crazy in there that the corporate money will leave. I don’t see this as a stable process, it’s going to break things up. And I’m afraid the first thing that will go is the Democratic Party.
Uloborus
@Eric U.:
I assumed it started with the militias and conspiracy theorists. They’re Beck’s #1 fans, the core of the Tea Party Movement. The 17th is just one of those things they’ve always hated, like the Law Of The Sea Treaty (the repeal of which is on the Maine GOP official platform now).
WereBear
Loony has its own kind of logic. One byproduct of disordered thinking is the search for the “keystone thought” that is both simple enough for the struggling mind to grasp, and important enough to be concentrated on and let other concerns go.
This is why psychotic thinking is so often dominated by paranoid thoughts of “aliens are sending me messages” or grandiose thoughts like “I am the Chosen One” or despairing thoughts like “The Death Angel wants me to join him.” They are completely off track of normal, rational, thought, but serves as both a focus and an explanation.
I think that’s what we got here. And it doesn’t matter what it is, as observers have noticed. The whole “we’re overtaxed!” thing ran along on greased rails until someone noticed that it was not, in fact, true, in the month since April 15th. So that got dropped and they pick up a new one.
But they don’t have to make any sense, and they don’t (except for pissing off liberals) have anything in common.
Hob
@kommrade reproductive vigor: You could both be right. That is, repealing the 17th really would seem attractive to the far right, especially the business wing, in terms of local politics — state legislators are easier to corrupt, if you only have 10 million dollars rather than 10 bazillion. The fact that it would currently be a stupid move on a national level doesn’t necessarily change that. Some of them probably are aware of that, but are thinking about the long term: since the GOP is lousy at winning federal office these days, why not focus on state houses and find a way to leverage the dirty tricks better. And some of them just haven’t thought it through, because they’re not that bright.
JGabriel
DougJ:
I think it may be true that a paranoid schizophrenic justifiably hates doctors because they’re after him, but that doesn’t make him any less crazy.
.
Corner Stone
@Death Panel Truck: Agreed.
I’ll give this up for my Southern compadres, but a wienie from Hahrvhard?
No sir.
matoko_chan
Approximately 50 years ago the GOP had a choice….between doing the right thing and winning.
They could have chosen classical liberalism and representation of all citizens….or boutique libertarianism and the Southern Strategy.
They chose the latter, and they have been have choosing winning over the right thing ever since.
Of course the base is angry….they are furious.
For a half century the conservative elite has been lying to them, saying an Obama could never happen, and conservatives aren’t really racists…yeah, its those other guys, and that supply-side economics would make them rich.
For 50 years the conservative base has been memetically culled for voters too dumb to vote in their economic self-interest, and under-educated enough to believe in creationism and ensoulment of diploid oocytes.
It was selection for stupid.
Now the GOP needs minority voters to survive….and what does the base do? Alienate hispanic voters with the Arizona SS law. Alienate african-americans with birtherism and fake-libertarian Rand Paul.
The Tyrrany of teh Stupid.
JGabriel
Quiddity:
I’ve always said that if it were the 18th C., today’s Republicans would all be Tories and Royalists.
.
Hob
And because every damn thing in the world reminds me of science fiction these days, I’d like to toss in a plug for Greg Bear’s latest near-future FBI/spy novel, Mariposa, which is way more interesting than its airport-thriller framework would suggest. Amid the somewhat over-the-top high-tech murder stuff, it’s got a depressingly plausible scenario for a fascist secession movement driven by local governments and their business allies; the feds have set it up by thoroughly fucking the economy and then getting us into various secret commitments to creditor nations, some of whom decide to throw in with the secessionists. The main Bond-villain-type guy in it has managed to enlist large parts of Texas as his own army just because he’s the only one offering any decent jobs. The non-political part of the plot involves a really unusual notion of what it would be like to have your brain improved (basically, it could be a problem). It’s a good read but not a happy one.
JD Rhoades
It’s funny…in other fora, such as the comments section in my hometown paper’s website, I often go head to head with these TP ninnies (as I like to call them).
The minute you mention something Bush or MCain did or said, they leap to insist “I’m not a Republican” or “I didn’t support Bush” or “I didn’t vote for McCain”–both of whom carried this county by substantial margins. Makes you wonder.
WereBear
@Hob: I feel like I am living in Brunner’s The Sheep Look Up.
It’s another “good read but not a happy one.”
Mike in NC
Only lived here a couple of years, but the pols down there seem to be crazier than shit-house rats.
I caught some preview of a Chris Matthews special on the teatard movement. Forgot which night it’ll be on, but I’ll make a point to avoid it at all costs.
QuaintIrene
Some truth there too. When wingnuts write about supporting/championing Sarah Palin (Sarah in 2012!!) the only reason they can give, besides ‘she’s one of us’ is that ‘it pisses off Liberals.”
Oh, the dumbness.
Mike in NC
@JGabriel:
Apparently they’ve merely decided to drag us back to the 19th Century, where they can be Confederates and Know-Nothings.
Woodrowfan
maybe we are trying to read too much sense into the crazee…
Cain
@Hunter Gathers:
Why did that guy reveal it in the first place? Especially if he’s a fan of her? Makes no sense. What’s wrong with just sort of keeping it in his pocket and maybe make another attempt for some fun later? Wierd shit. Now he’s kind of screwing her chances at winning and he’s a Republican…
cain
Tonal Crow
@Mike in NC: And don’t forget robber barons and patent-medicine salesmen — and carnival grifters. Especially carnival grifters. Too. Also. You bethcha!
Janet Strange
@WereBear: I read that when it was new. No one I’ve known irl has read it, so they never know what I’m talking about when I say (as I have, often, since sometime in, I dunno, the 90’s maybe):
It seemed futuristic at the time, but of a future that was oh so plausible and not very far away. I see your comment a lot now that I communicate with people I’ve never met on teh intertubez. For those of us who did read it, it made quite an impression.
I haven’t read it again. Not sure how it would hold up now that it’s not the really the future he’s talking about. But I actually own it, bought used from Amazon. It sits on my bookshelf, unreread, but as some kind of reminder to myself.
Chris
@Hob:
I’ve picked the book up several times..because it was Greg Bear. The spy thriller bit threw me though so I keep putting it back (like a spy thriller..but not why I buy Greg Bear). I’ll pick it up next time. Thanks for the synopsis.
Doctor Science
The question “Cui bono?” of the repeal-the-17th movement is an excellent one. I figure it’s someone in a state with a Republican state legislature and at least one Democratic Senator, but I don’t know what state(s) that could be. Does anyone know?
CarolDuhart
@The Dangerman:
Actually, the Carly Fiorinas would benefit immensely from this change. Instead of burning through a fortune buying ads, or campaigning and showing herself to be completely arrogant and clueless, she could spend far less buying sympathetic state legislators who would owe her and vote her in. How many would she need to buy? A hundred? Easily wined and dined (state house campaign funds are such a great example of transparancy), and if not winable and dinable,the folks running against them would be.
And these would probably be lifetime stints: unless another millionaire came along to challenge, she would be in the Senate practically forever, not needing to spend or raise money or make a case to the general public for her retention.
Indeed, I see this movement as a companion to the Supreme Court ruling that corporations could give directly to campaigns. It would be easier to give to faceless state representatives than higher profile Congressional and Presidential candidates.
Hob
@Janet Strange: I read it long ago, but I still have it. I’m kind of afraid to read it again. As awful as it was to grow up in the ’80s thinking that we would all get nuked, there was at least something vaguely comforting about the idea that you’d just get burned up and that was it, and fascinating (in a teenage way) because explosions are cool. That book was my first exposure to the idea that things could collapse slowly and painfully in a way that would not be cool in the slightest, requiring constant effort to fend it off just a little longer, and bringing out the worst in everyone. Gregory Benford’s Timescape is like that too– I’m still haunted by the low-key scenes of the scientist heroes hanging out in their suburban homes wondering how to protect their canned food from the neighbors.
Doctor Science
OK, I found the data for comparison:
State legislatures
US Senators
States where Republicans would benefit:
Montana
North Dakota
Michigan
Pennsylvania
Virginia
Florida
Am I right? or am I mis-reading?
FlipYrWhig
I assume the key idea is that (Tea Partiers believe) too many of The Wrong People vote in national elections — see the ACORN conspiracy of ’08 — and The Wrong People are less involved in state-level elections.
So government bodies formed via state and local elections are more responsive to “the people,” if you happen to define “the people” as The Right People, the kind who get keyed up to vote for school board and water commissioner and such.
Thus having Senators selected by state legislatures is a kind of euphemism for having them selected by high-enthusiasm, un-busy white people. Think of the anti-HCR crowds.
Hob
@Chris: Bear has been doing this thing of knocking out an airport-friendly book every year or so, and they’re definitely not as good as his other stuff but they’re all a lot better than they have any right to be. The FBI ones have an oddly authoritarian side, in the sort of muscular-liberal way that I associate with early Poul Anderson (who was his father-in-law), but way more thoughtful than the average techno-thriller. Of the non-FBI ones, Dead Lines is a pretty good horror novel and Vitals is just disturbing as shit.
Oh yeah, also if you’ve read Queen of Angels, Mariposa sets up some of the future history behind that– there’s a cameo by Colonel Sir John Yardley, best-named fictional dictator ever.
andrewtna
What about Dick Armey and Freedomworks? The tea party seems to think they’re alright.
artem1s
this may be fundamentally true. I know conventional wisdom is that the teabagger’s grew out of libertarians and rabid Bush supporters. But it seems to me that its true roots are the Ross Perot party. The GOP has been fairly successful it keeping these people in the fold due to their overarching hatred of brown people and progressive ideas. the GOP derailed the 2000 Perot election effort getting Buchanan to split their party. It seemed like they went away but I think Rove and Cheney just kept them mollified with waterboarding and border fences for a few years. Now they are back and have only gotten more rabid. Really, don’t these guys fundamentally remind you of Perot?
MaryRC
I clicked the link to RedState and was amused to see this comment from Erickson:
As if Erickson didn’t spend the past week claiming that Folks was being paid by another campaign to pursue this and then walking it back. But hey, let’s not get into that.
FlipYrWhig
@artem1s: Not really, because IMHO Perot’s big issue was trade. But they remind me a lot of Buchanan, whose big issue is and always has been white resentment at the changing face of America.
Hob
@artem1s: Perot was a nut, but not the same kind. He did have a lot of that “politicians are all crooks, let’s just get things done” generic populist thing going on, but he didn’t lean so much on the culture-war paranoia that’s the bread & butter of the tea-heads. And he was way, way too nerdy for them– he actually wanted to talk about ideas for making things work, maybe not particularly good ideas, but still more in the realm of “ideas for how to do things” rather than the currently popular mix of gunfire and fart noises.
allium
@Hob
Vitals – Good Ganesha yes it’s disturbing.
Finding [[NAMEWITHHELD]] still alive under the [[NAMEWITHHELD]] in Manhattan in a [[CLASSIFIED]] was one of the least disturbing parts.
Joel
@artem1s: disagree completely.
Perot pulled mostly from the “center” by the modern political definition. Some of the Perot supporters that I knew later became John Edwards supporters, for example.
Adam Collyer
@Davis X. Machina:
The Tea Party is already nominating Republicans. Does that count?
T
Perot voters drew from both sides. Teabaggers are overwhelmingly right-wing. Biiiiig difference, and one we will not get internalized by the press.
Batocchio
They’re almost entirely tribal, and some of their ire is aimed at Republicans, but they hate Obama and anyone they view as liberal far, far more. How many teabaggers voted for McCain in the end? How many will vote third party this November, or 2012? Hardcore social conservatives have been strung along by the GOP for over 40 years, but most of them have still voted for the GOP in the end.