I agree with ED about ACA and Republican opposition to it:
When ideology becomes so important that people no longer realize the limits of their own ideas, good ideas are drowned in favor of purity, the perfect becomes the enemy of the good, the abstract becomes the enemy of the tangible. The ACA may be weak tea – Wyden/Bennett would have been better, single-payer would have been better, both would have been cheaper and more effective – but the ACA is certainly a step up from the status quo. Anyone with a pre-existing condition could tell you that.
But I think there is more to it than ideological purity. ACA is fairly similar to legislation proposed by Republicans in the early ’90s. Yes, it’s true that today’s Republicans are much farther to the right than they were in the ’90s, but it’s also true that Republican opposition to Clinton’s plan in the 90s was in part openly based on the idea that health care reform would be a boon for Democrats. It wasn’t purity but cynical politicking that did it in.
I think there’s an attitude among today’s Republicans that is, essentially, fuck it, who cares if health care is fucked for now as long as Democrats get blamed for it, and when the Glorious People’s Conservative Revolution comes, the magic of the free market will fix everything, in the meantime chaos and dysfunction are our allies. It’s the domestic analogue of the J Curve.
I don’t claim all conservative think like this — I doubt that Mitch Daniels or Mitt Romney do, for example — but conservative punditry generally does.
Bob
Well, sure. There is a Kenyan in the Oval Office.
Xecky Gilchrist
It is ideological purity – the ideology is “fuck the Democrats.”
aimai
Here’s the thing about that reasoning: if putting forward health care reform would have/will “produce Democrats as far as the eye can see” (which is what my brother hoped would happen) why doesn’t that appeal to the Republican party as a way to get votes? Why not have a full on Republican plan that would make their voters happy and peel off Democratic voters?
Either because the Republican party doesn’t think it needs those voters, believes it would lose its base by offering “something for nothing” to city people and poor people and non white people or because corporate powers that be pay more upfront for politicians than they really need to get re-elected individually.
In other words the Republican party doesn’t really think that we are all Americans, and all in this together. They simply don’t care about doing great things for the entire country. They are simply content to look at the demographics of the country and the voters and give up on attracting large numbers of voters as long as they think they can stay in power, reap the benefits of power (graft) and keep the spigot flowing. The actual governing part of governing and the pleasing voters part of pleasing voters has dropped out.
aimai
A Writer At Balloon-Juice
@Xecky Gilchrist:
If that qualifies as an ideology, then I agree.
cleek
see, also: employment / un-
gnomedad
Reposting from earlier thread:
Republicans Vote To Repeal Obama-Backed Bill That Would Destroy Asteroid Headed For Earth
Redshirt
Nihilists generally don’t give a shit.
Poopyman
@Xecky Gilchrist: … and Permanent Republican Majority — no matter what the effect is on the country.
Alesis
..and by “fix everything” they mean that the “free market” will make sure that those worthless looters who can afford quality healthcare won’t presume to demand to fruits of true excellence like regular check-ups and higher life expectancy.
Even more that political gamesmanship I think it’s important to remember that most Republicans are strongly opposed to the idea of equality. The poor are lesser beings and deserve less reward from their labor. Period.
Linda Featheringill
Beautiful.
Can we do something with this phrase?
maye
As someone who is about to begin $1000+ per month COBRA payments, may I just say I hope they all eat shit and die.
burnspbesq
One is continually reminded of the headline in one of the London tabloids on the day after the 2004 election:
“How could 63,xxx,xxx people be so stupid?”
matoko_chan
They all think like this.
EDK thinks that too. Otherwise he would switch sides.
There are no good ideas left in conservatism, and no honest conservatives.
Conservatism is an anti-empirical phailosophy.
HCR + the demographic timer + Salam-Douthat stratification on cognitive ability + youth flight from the GOP == forever defeat for republicans.
QED
General Stuck
Republicans don’t have an agenda. They have every man and woman for themselves. It’s why they oppose governance in general, but really can’t come right out and say that.
RossInDetroit
Going somewhat meta, I think the GOP has lost their long range vision and is flailing. They used to excel at political planning that took a decade or a generation to bear fruit. The Southern Strategy, for instance. The Democrats were much more focused on short term goals and the GOP was the tortoise that often beat them over the line. Now the Republicans can no longer express what they’re about, much less what they would do if given power. They’re reduced to negativism, accepting the agendas that the Democrats define and opposing them.
To me this trend is much more important than the 2010 House win. GOP in disarray and their most important strategy is ineffective.
ETA: Looks like Stuck types faster than me. Passed on the intertubes.
Joey Maloney
>I don’t claim all conservative think like this—I doubt that Mitch Daniels or Mitt Romney do, for example—but conservative punditry generally does.
I don’t think these stupid fuckers can think at all. I really have very little other explanation. We’ve been complaining about how American schools don’t teach critical thinking skills for a couple generations now. Well, here’s the results of that, all growed up.
BGinCHI
Oh, Sex Pistols. That was bugging me.
Suck It Up!
Mitt and Mitch will certainly tell you that they think that way even if they really don’t. Not a sane, brave one in site.
A Writer At Balloon-Juice
@BGinCHI:
That song is a rich source of titles. I’m still waiting for the perfect time to do a post on American exceptionalism titled Or Just Another Country.
trollhattan
@BGinCHI:
Also, too, they changed the lyric to “Anarchy in the USA” when they toured here–which clearly applies in this instance.
DougJA Writer at Balloon Juice FTW.Did the Brooks Brothers riot ever end?
BGinCHI
I hope the crop of Presidential candidates on offer in the last go-round and the upcoming one is truly an indication of the GOP. Because if so, that’s a fucked up operation.
Just look at them. Mitt is the best they got? Or the Average White Band composed of T-Paw, Santorum, Daniels, Gingrich?
You can’t even read that with a straight face, can you?
Cris
The other day Amanda pointed out that Boehner called the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act” a “top priority.” She ascribed that to ideology:
But I just can’t see this as anything other than cynicism as well. You push through a bill imposing further restrictions on abortion, you get Democrats to vote against it, and BAM you have a concrete campaign item. “My opponent voted for taxpayer funding of abortions.” I doubt it goes much further than that.
BGinCHI
@A Writer At Balloon-Juice: Or, In a Big Country, Dreams Stay With You.
OK, now I got that song in my head.
Snowing in Upstate?
A Writer At Balloon-Juice
@BGinCHI:
I’ve been working on that title too.
Yeah, we didn’t get as much as expected but a fair amount of snow, yes.
Jager
My Wingnut neighbor who loves Medical Savings Accounts:
WN: “Medical savings accounts are the perfect way to provide healthcare. Tax free savings with an insurance plan for medical disasters”.
Me: “What about the people who don’t make enough money to set aside cash in a savings plan”?
WN: Blank stare
trollhattan
I suppose Republicans are against this as well.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/health/2014103566_apusrocketfueldrinkingwater.html
“Perchlorate equals ‘Freedom!'”
matoko_chan
@RossInDetroit: they only have tactics.
they chose race baiting and anti-intellectualism 50 years ago to win. Now the hammergun of the demographic timer is staring them in the face and they cant turn the racism off. they cant turn the anti-intellectualism off either, resulting in elite student flight and Salam-Douthat stratification on cognitive ability.
they are using tactics and dirty tricks to sneak in one last win before 2021 when the kids from the 2008 event start aging into the electorate.
After that most of them will be dead anyways, so they dont care if they fuck America on their way down.
Games Theory 101– strategy beats tactics in the long game.
BGinCHI
@A Writer At Balloon-Juice: 20 inches.
Snow, I mean.
A Writer At Balloon-Juice
@BGinCHI:
only 7 or 8 here
RossInDetroit
The weather in Detroit:
High winds, lightning and thunder and a bit less than a foot over night. Calm now and still coming down. I hauled 700 lbs of salt into the building at work and they’ve already gone through that by now just in the doorways.
I shoveled my way out to the bird feeders to gift the critters with seed and suet. It’s a chore for me, but it’s life/death to them.
BGinCHI
@RossInDetroit: We had amazing lightning and thunder last night, and the wind never got below 35-55 MPH here by the lake. Rattled the windows all night.
Snow is really fluffy and if we had any hills it would be fun sledding.
Also, too, still blowing hard and snowing.
joe from Lowell
That was never a serious proposal; it was just something they put out when they were working to derail Clinton’s health care plan. The Republicans controlled the Congress for over a decade after “proposing” their health care plan, six years of which featured a President Bill Clinton who was eager to sign bipartisan bills, and six years of which feature a Republican president. Did you see any Republicans sponsoring bills based on “their” plan during that time?
dollared
Gang, it isn’t about ‘fuck the Democrats.” It’s about getting and keeping power. It’s about maximizing the distinction between the top 1% (and the next 19% who can feed off them), and the bottom 80%. And making that distinction permanent.
It’s not an accident that Texas is the center of this wave. In their best days, these people want Singapore. But clearly they are willing to have Mexico, as long has they have all the privileges and distinctions enjoyed by the Mexican upper class.
dollared
@matoko_chan: Matako, if demography is destiny, why is it that the rich have ruled Latin America for 200 years?
Why are we any different? Not because idiots like you sit around and say “let them take over. We’ll get ’em when our numbers are bigger.”
Mnemosyne
@dollared:
Here’s my question for them: what country do they picture being to the “new” US what the current US is to Mexico? IOW, what country are the rich people going to send their children to school in or buy their luxury goods in? Canada?
Those oligarchs can’t survive without prosperous countries to spend their money in. They’re shooting themselves in the foot in more ways than one, because there’s not going to be anyplace they can escape to if the US becomes the shithole they want it to be.
BrYan
I would agree, but I don’t think the Republicans believe in the free market anymore than we do. It’s more akin to Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny to lead the kids on and get them into Church without asking too many questions.
Billy K
@A Writer At Balloon-Juice:
I was sure it was a “Gene Loves Jezebel” reference.
Zak44
How did the the Republicans succeed in making “liberal” such a dirty word? By defining a liberal Democratic party in terms of its most radical elements. By convincing people to look at a Hubert Humphrey and see an Abbie Hoffman. By making a vote for Nixon not just a vote against George McGovern, but a stand against “acid, amnesty, and abortion.”
But they didn’t do it alone. For whatever reason–a belief that the party should have as big a tent as possible, a need to be liked, a wish to appear cool, hip, and countercultural–the Dems played right into the GOP’s hands.
Now, it seems, we’ve come full circle. Today’s radicals may wave the flag instead of burning it, but they’re just as far out of the mainstream. And the failure of whatever passes for establishment Republicanism to distance itself from its lunatic fringe gives Dems a chance to make “conservative Republican” just as dirty a word as they made “liberal.”
Democratic leaders (is that an oxymoron?) should be seizing upon every batshit crazy notion that pops out of a Teatard’s head and challenging Boner, McConnell, Cantor, and all the rest to disavow it. (“Mister Speaker, do you think it’s a good idea to bring back child labor?”)
I mean, it’s not that we’re lacking for material; it’s laying all about us. All we have to do is pick it up and throw it back in their faces. And what we fling is their own words, they can’t even claim we’re being partisan.
Davis X. Machina
@Mnemosyne: It’s a big country. The worst places can be very bad, and the best places be very good, for a long time, before anyone gets his throat slit in the night by the rising peasants. And, come to that, just before the peasants come, life is very, very good.
El Cid
@joe from Lowell:
I agree. Probably most people who mention that agree. I would guess.
In fact, a bigger problem for the comparison is that Dole’s bill in 1994 wasn’t an official party program. It should be seen as having been Republican-backed, but given how much of simple brute reality Republicans deny, such a subtle point is as weighty as a thimble full of smoke.
By the ’96 Dole/Kemp campaign, the GOP kept up rhetoric about how they had a better reform plan which could happen if only Democrats would sign up.
Thankfully, instead Gramm just helped Wall Street to evacuate its bowels all over the rest of us.
matoko_chan
@dollared: the rich always rule.
we dont actually have an enlightenment democracy in America. We have an oligarchy where the rich scam the white evangelical protest vote by pretending to share their religious values.
when non-hispanic cauc drops below 50% of the electorate in america, we will finally get a representative democracy.
until then, the rich rule.
Elvis Elvisberg
Yeah, it’s not about ideology. Republicans don’t have an ideology. They have partisanship, resentment, and ancestor worship. Nothing else.
They support an omnipotent executive, unless it’s a Democrat, in which case they care a whole lot about out-of-context passages from the Federalist Papers about the necessity of a weak federal government. They care about the deficit, unless the president’s a Republican, in which case their ancestor-deity is invoked to have proven that there’s no such thing as a deficit.
On the individual mandate, the EITC, Keynesian stimulus, cap and trade, etc., etc., etc., they have no policy views. See: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_06/024459.php
Ruckus
@Davis X. Machina:
Unfortunately you are very, very correct.
Triassic Sands
Well, not quite anyone. At this point, doesn’t the pre-existing condition protection only apply to children under 19? Adults don’t get protected until 2014.
So, unless you’re under 19, the bill won’t help you with a pre-existing condition for another 3 years. That’s plenty of time to go from diagnosed to dead.
Mnemosyne
@Davis X. Machina:
It’s a big country but … they’ll be stuck here. A lot of foreign oligarchs spend a lot of time in the US, but if we really do turn into a third-world country, they’re not coming back, because they can get that shit at home.
All I’m saying is that if they’re watching the oligarchs in Mexico and thinking they’re going to be able to live like that, they are very mistaken, because those oligarchs can only live that way thanks to the goods and services in the US.
jl
@Suck It Up!: Agreed. Daniels and Multiple Choice will talk 100 per cent that way as long until the GOP presidential primaries are over. Cole gave them too much credit. Multiple Choice is already talking like a Teabagger.
dollared
@Elvis Elvisberg: I really don’t agree, and posted by you in Swampland. The Republicans have an ideology: winning.
They are social darwinists, and their core ideology is ancient Rome’s: winners do anything it takes to win, and winners get all the spoils. It’s that simple – but it is coherent, powerful and explains everything from Mr. Potter’s attitude to GWB’s smirk to Rick Santelli’s moment of fame.
Don’t underestimate it. It is powerful, self-justifying, and attractive to immoral careerists and insecure losers. The Democrats have no counter for this.
dollared
@Mnemosyne: I agree – for many of them. However, if you’ve ever been to Brazil and see how the rich live there, you would understand that there is a calculation where living in a failed society is acceptable. You see, if you make $1million/year, would you rather pay 40% taxes or would you rather pay 5% taxes and pay a chauffer, gardener, maid and armed guard a grand total of $25,000/year to make you feel safe and comfortable in your walled compound? A lot of traditional Republicans (e.g. midwestern bankers and doctors) might not like that outcome, but aren’t the Wall Street guys, the Texas oil guys and the Orange County gated community folks already there?
WereBear
Republican Irony #8547: They hate Darwin, but believe in Social Darwinism.
dollared
@WereBear: Yeah. It’s the bookend to #1: they love Jesus but hate what he taught.
Mnemosyne
@dollared:
Oh, I’m not saying they won’t do it. I’m saying it ain’t gonna turn out the way they think it will.
The top 5% think they’re going to be living like the rich do in Brazil, but it’s going to be more like the top 1% or 1/2% and the other 4% are going to be middle class at best. But you can’t explain that to people when they have dollar signs in their eyes.
dollared
Totally agreed. I have never in my life met people more desperate and insecure than some of the people Imet who are just barely into the upper middle class in LatAm. They don’t have enough money to just buy their way out of trouble or park some reserve funds in Miami. They are stuck kissing up to their betters, and their betters treat them like shit.
And they spend every spare penny they have educating their kids in private schools in part to give them a quality education they can’t get in the private schools, and in part to make sure that if they have a little Catholic accident at age 18, at least it’s with a marriageable boy/girl.
Because there’s no steeper or higher cliff then from where they live, to where the common people live. One drastic currency devaluation, one collapse of some local industry, and they are selling their little cars and getting back on the bus.
Elvis Elvisberg
@dollared:
That’s interesting. I see that point. I guess that would mean that the people running the GOP have actual goals in mind, and it’s the rank and file Tea People who don’t believe in anything but Team Red.
I used to wonder if the people who anointed Bush Jr. the GOP candidate in 1999 by sending him truckloads of money had regrets as his series of affronts to decency, sanity, and conservatism built up. Maybe they were perfectly happy. They got richer.
This too bolsters your theory: http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/01/heritage-asks-issa-to-attack-decades-of-worker-consumer-and-environmental-protections.php
dollared
@Elvis Elvisberg: Yeah. Nice find. You’d think that some Democrat would grab this list, and go through it and point out how 73% of Americans support every single one of these things, and point out how the Republicans are objectively against the well being of Americans.
Nah……that might offend someone.
timb
I’m a Hoosier and I remain pretty unconvinced that Mitch would do anything of the sort. He instituted a health plan from the tobacco settlement, but that was because he had no choice (it was part of the settlement). This is a guy whose three major claims are 1) balanced budget, 2) no tax increases, 3) good governance and all three are a lie.
He balanced the budget by borrowing money from the feds and selling public assets at a one third of the price to foreigners.
He championed a Prop 13 property tax which caused my taxes to go up twice (once my property taxes, once my sales tax) and a new Colts stadium, which leads me to pay more taxes for a stadium I cannot afford to go to (how exciting).
He has slashed education spending including over 250 million from higher education, in a state where everyone (except me) is an uneducated dunderhead and other essential services. He was cool enough to “privatize” the welfare system which failed so miserably he was forced to scrap it less than two years in while refusing to admit failure.
Mitch is just like the other Republican candidates, except he knows how to look like a non-wingnut. He is, however, a plutocrat who refused to live in the Governor’s mansion because it wasn’t fancy enough and his every policy is designed to aid the plutocrats.
drkrick
@Zak44: Small correction that reinforces your point: “Acid, Amnesty and Abortion” didn’t come from the Republicans. Robert Novak popularized it during the primary season, claiming it came from an anonymous Democratic Senator. He refused to name the source for 35 years, but said it was Thomas Eagleton after Eagleton’s death in 2007. So I guess that makes Eagleton the Joe Lieberman of the ’70’s
Dollared
@Elvis Elvisberg: Regarding whether the Big Money was happy with Bush: Elvis, I am a fan of yours. Really. I look for your comments on swampland. Smart, accurate, on point. But do you really think any of what happened with Bush was about anything else but the tax cuts? The Republican Party is always, forevermore, all about the money. The rest is just a bunch of BS designed to put together the Mexican coalition (Church, military, rich, redneck)just exactly big enough to get in control and steal.
At the top, it is always about the money. In the middle, it’s careerists and Daddy’s boys and Daddy’s girls who believe that money = righteousness. At the bottom, there’s all that religious stuff, and redneck stuff. But the top and middle are about the money. And they are very, very pleased with GWB. He did good.
You want proof? What do you think that insane war of the last two years was all about? Health care? It was about weakening Obama so he would extend the tax cuts and lower the estate tax.