The Only Pundit That Matters thinks that maybe the debt ceiling sturm und drang will convince more Serious People to admit that the Republican party has gone stark, raving mad. Don’t count on it, there’s nothing in it for Bobos and Weisbergs of the world to do anything other other than tell us that both sides are wrong. But I do think David Frum is right that this near death experience may hurt Republican fundraising in the financial community:
Isn’t it conceivable that Obama’s real end-game in these budget talks is to destroy Republican presidential fundraising for 2012 by goading congressional Republicans in 2011 into appearing maximally reckless and irresponsible? If so, you have to say: the plan’s working brilliantly.
The bad news is that, even if there is no default, the consequences of what has already happened could be bad (Felix Salmon, via Steve Benen with an excellent post title):
When you build up large stocks of mistrust and ill will, nothing can happen for a very long time. But when something does happen, it’s much quicker and much worse than anybody could have anticipated. The markets might not be punishing the US government at the moment. But the mistrust and ill will is there, believe me. And when it appears, it will appear with a vengeance.
I think the Republican party may be doomed in the long term — demographics work against them and their general craziness is further alienating younger voters, I believe. The question is how much damage they can do to the country in the meantime. Unfortunately, debts and budgets aren’t an abstract exercise in who’s up and who’s down, they have a real impact on people’s lives.
cathyx
How can you think that the republican party is doomed when they took back many seats in the last election?
The Dangerman
So, you’re saying the Republican Party wants us to Neil before them?
jwb
As the demographics change, the GOP will change or another party will appear to replace them. That presumes, of course, that the republic stands and is not short circuited by dictatorship, at which point all bets are off. I still see dictatorship as highly unlikely, but I no longer think it entirely implausible.
hildebrand
Look at the favorability ratings of the new crop of Republican governors. They are cratering. What this reveals is that the Republicans were more adept than usual in selling their talking points whilst hiding exactly what those talking points meant. Now that people see what it means for these folks to actually be at the levers of power, they are recoiling.
The extremism of Ryan’s budget plan reinforced that these are crazy people. The debt ceiling manufactured crisis is likewise reinforcing (or continuing to wake people up to) the craziness factor. People are going to realize that keeping these people in power is dangerous.
The President, on the other hand, whilst not thrilling the left, is looking like the only moderate, sober person in all of this. This is why it was so important earlier in the week for Cantor to try to paint him as losing his cool, Cantor and the Republicans and now desperate to make him look as illogical, foolish, and scatterbrained as they are. Chuck Todd tried to go down that route at the Press Conference yesterday, trying to get the President to focus on hurt feelings and emotional responses. The President told him, in effect, this isn’t a Reality TV show, the people want us to get stuff done.
The Republicans, if they continue to reinforce the loon narrative, will harm themselves over the long term. They just happen to be speeding up the process these last few months.
KCinDC
I doubt the Republican Party is doomed. If the craziness does actually drive enough people off, then it’ll just adjust its positions until there are enough people supporting them to be viable. That’s the way our system has worked for 150 years, and there’s no reason to think it’ll change unless we change our voting system to make voting for a third party rational. The Republican and Democratic Parties of today have no resemblance to those from a century ago, or even from the 1950s, yet they continue to be called Republicans and Democrats.
Woodrow/asim Jarvis Hill
@cathyx:
To be pithy, Dead Cat Bounce.
Just as climate change has an overall downward slope for temps, while also having room for rapid rises, so too do the demographic forces that are narrowing the GOP have room for massive swings. As we’re already seeing the party is most dangerous — to itself and this country — when it’s on the downward tread, overall. They’d not be this maximalist if they truly felt their star was ascending.
Trurl
The comforting fantasy of 11-dimensional chess dies hard with your ilk, doesn’t it.
What’s conceivable is that Obama is doing exactly what he has said from the beginning that he wants to do: cut Social Security and Medicare.
If you can’t deal with that much reality, that’s your own fucking problem.
Dennis SGMM
The Republican party will continue to exist as long as a significant percentage of Americans continue to be goobers, fundies, racists, chumps, or all of the preceding. To hope that some demographic time bomb is going to magically destroy the Republican party is bootless; if eight years of G.W. Bush didn’t do it then nothing can.
jheartney
That was to be expected given economic conditions.
I like this idea that they may be destroying their Citizen’s United advantage by frightening corporate money to the point that it ends up supporting Obama’s reelection. Hope it’s true.
Lolis
David Frum is psychotic. I thought last week he was whining about how weak and unmanly Obama is. This week it is Obama is so conniving and sneaky he is going to secretly destroy the Republican Party.
Steve Benen has been very good for a long time, but his debt ceiling analysis is exceptionally reasoned and measured. I have now started reading him daily.
Davis X. Machina
When you’re running a bust-out, there is no ‘long term’. You’re in the Caymans, and the firm is in chapter 11.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Somebody’s giving Karl Rove a lot of money. I’m seeing a lot of Crossroads ad, the new one has a “disappointed Obama voter” very concerned about spending.
or at least a complete moron. And a boor. I’m mildly surprised that someone who less than five years ago– post-Iraq,
post-Katrina, post-torture— published a book calling GWBush essentially the greatest presdinent ever (“The Right Man”) is taken seriously by anyone about anything.ETA- My bad, TRM was published in 2003. So Frum is a bit less fantastically stupid than I suggested.
drkrick
Assuming the Republic stands, my best guess is a split between the Tea Party/27%ers and the rest of the GOP. I have no idea who keeps the name, it will probably depend on which faction controls the formal machinery of the party at that moment. That non-TP faction will be bolstered by the Nelson/Shuler/Landrieu Dems, leaving a smaller but more ideologically coherent Dem party. While the Tea Party faction is actuarily doomed over the long term, we would be looking at an interesting period during which there would either be coalition politics like this country has never seen or institutional accomodation to a three party system.
RossInDetroit
Must have been reading Benen as well. Nice double title reference:
The ceiling and the damage done
ETA: hwere are my reading glases?
hildebrand
Trurl – you do realize that it was Frum who said that, no? You do see the difference between Republican operatives and people who support the President, no?
Oh, that’s right, you don’t. Sigh. Manichean dualists are not the best debate partners.
Linda Featheringill
I fear that the international trust in the US treasury bonds has already been shaken. A mere lifting of the debt limit would not restore that trust. The Big Deal might though, with the demonstration of getting our fiscal house in order and having an adequate income for some years to come.
West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.)
I sure hope you’re correct, Hildebrand. I’ve noted on this forum previously that I recall some NPR pundits after the ’08 election wondering if the Republican party would move to the center or double-down and veer further right. We clearly have our answer. The party does seem to be shrinking in some ways, but until the younger population and other groups (Latinos, blacks) vote in stronger numbers, things may be iffy for a while. The right are howling like injured beasts at present, doing everything they can to roll back reproductive rights, eliminate the EPA and oversight agencies. Fear and lies are their biggest weapons… well, that and the general stupidity of the American electorate. We live in interesting times.
jheartney
Demographic change doesn’t work like a bomb; it’s more like a bad case of termites. One day you wake up and your seemingly solid house collapses.
No GOP presidential candidate has won over 300 electoral votes since 1988, which is 23 years ago. They’ve managed to win two electoral squeakers, with 271 and 286 votes respectively (the first only with a clumsy SCOTUS intervention), while being pasted by the Dems three times (370 EV’s in 1992, 379 in 1996, and 365 in 2008). And if you look at the underlying demographics of these elections, it’s clear that it only gets worse for them going forward. At some point it’s going to dawn on them that they aren’t in the running for the presidency anymore.
DougJ in Damascus
A lot of his political analysis is sharp, though.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
Sadly true, and they have already done immense damage, with more to come.
And I suspect it’s already begun to dawn on them that they won’t be in the running for the presidency much longer; hence the current spate of voter suppression legislation, to keep their votes artificially inflated for as long as possible.
FlipYrWhig
@ drkick: I don’t think I would mind that spectrum at all. It’s basically what we have now, only with “Blue Dogs” organized into a party rather than being an annoying internal brake on Democratic liberalism. I guess then the big electoral fight would be over the possibility of “fusion” voting in places where the Blue Dogs decided they had more in common with either Dems Classic or GOP Classic and they came to an accommodation to team up rather than risking a plurality win for the other Classic party.
different church-lady
A psycho with sharps. How comforting.
Emerald
The Republican party isn’t doomed if they manage to win the presidency in 2012 (something I strongly doubt will happen barring highly unforeseen events, but ya never know).
The next president could have the opportunity to appoint two or even three SCOTUS justices who will serve for decades. If those justices are conservatives, be sure that they will find a way to “interpret” the Constitution to mean that all those new brown and young voters don’t really have a right to vote. Other interesting rulings will follow that will keep the Rs in power indefinitely, with no challenge allowed.
I mean, they’ve already appointed one president over the election results. Nobody stopped ’em then. Who’s gonna stop ’em in the future?
This next election decides everything. If we win, we win for decades to come. If we lose, it’s over.
IOW, what jwb #3 said.
Elisabeth
This was the key takeaway for me. How is anyone supposed to have confidence that Congress can act on anything if it cannot act on the big (although it should be small) things?
Could also be why the president isn’t interested in incremental debt ceiling raises.
Andrew
I don’t want to depress anybody, but this may provide a fascinating example of what our richer conservative friends are actually thinking at the moment. Click through and you will find the blogger is a true believer. LOL territory.
driftglass
Professional Conservative Expatriates: Getting paid to report as Amazing Revelation things that Liberals have known for 20 years:
http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2011/07/spot-error.html
Lawnguylander
David Frum has notes on Obama’s negotiating strategy again? I’m very surprised he didn’t decide to quietly observe this next stage of the fight because his like usually feels too much professional pride to pants their own week old selves. Via TPM/via Balloon Juice, he helped kick off the recent 9 day stretch of futile rage with a column about Obama’s strategy
Behold the power of the tool.
West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.)
Good call, Emerald. Losing the battle for the proverbial hearts and minds, the right has been waging a battle for the gut instead. And, yes, they are going with legal end-arounds to get their way: packing the SCOTUS with far-right ideological money-pigs and trying to erode the power of the EPA and CPA and such to protect citizens. Under Bush we saw our privacy disintegrate in the name of “homeland security”. Acknowledging that I might sound a bit prone to believing conspiracy theories here, I think our actions and thoughts are pretty-well monitored now by Big Brother. This helps the right (in particular) continue to get its way.
amorphous
And Peak Wingnut becomes the world’s worst prediction ever all over again, every single day.
driftglass
Every other “respectable” Conservative at the trough is apparently contractually obligated to link to Frum once a day; MSNBC is apparently contractually obligated to put him on teevee once a week.
There is a Club.
We are not in it.
ML
I’ve long awaited the national GOP to go the way of the republican party of California. This state’s GOP would still be in the driver’s seat but for its purity testing. And its purists are not simply comprised of the impolitic, but rather, of the clinically insane. It’s the only reason why Boxer was elected in the first place, and has been re-elected twice since.
JGabriel
DougJ @ Top:
I like the new appellation for Krugman. It’s about the most accurate so far. Your creation, or picked up somewhere else?
.
Lawnguylander
@Davis X. Machina
A better, firster, bust-out, with more trying to bang broads and Negotiation 101.
Judge Crater
Here’s a quote from Reuters:
This will get the attention of at least some of the non-certifiable Republicans, if only because their friends on K St. will be calling to say that the financial community is getting nervous.
McConnell, Boehner, et al, may even be summoned to Wall St. for a little talking to.
Judge Crater
Here’s a quote from Reuters:
This will get the attention of at least some of the non-certifiable Republicans, if only because their friends on K St. will be calling to say that the financial community is getting nervous.
McConnell, Boehner, et al, may even be summoned to Wall St. for a little talking to.
bcgister
As a left voter who, barring cataclysmic personal events [i.e., death,] will vote for the Democratic nominee for President in 2012, I’d like to point out that the mechanism in this quote works just as well in reverse.
It’s quite possible that the whole debt ceiling negotiation is gamesmanship (I think it’s irrefutably established that it was always such on the Republican side.) Obama has clearly played his hand much more skillfully than his opponents and they’re going to suffer for it. Still, the positions that he took (and that he seems to be sticking to) have created a lot of ill will on the Progressive side of the aisle. Certainly, where that (and a significant part of the country’s economic activity) goes will depend on just what’s in the final package of cuts (none of the players are talking a clean deficit reduction package at this point.)
quannlace
You knew how the reaction would pan out over Obama’s ‘walking out’ of that meeting, depending on which side people were on. Now if that had been Chris Christie dealing with a room full of Democrats, the wingnuts would be drooling over how ‘tough’ he was.
Ha, I saw that one. So, what is it now…’Oh no, Obama is giving people insomnia!”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Not only wingnuts– David Gregory and Jake Tapper would be twittering each other about how awesome a pol Christie was.
FollowtheDough
Someone should put together soundbite collage of all the pundits who have predicted the end of the republican party uttering the phrase “This will doom the republican party” It would last longer than a Emerson Lake & Palmer suite.
And I have to wonder, do pundits do this to stir up emotions for additional traffic? Only 1 political party running the country will put us in a tailspin. And as long as our electronic vote is privatized (Which the democrats probably lost hundreds of elections to) the GOP can switch to “Kaos” mode instead of “Chaos” with a c. Trust me, you don’;t want to see “Kaos” mode. :)
Davis X. Machina
@Judge Crater: Mayor Bloomberg last week told them some of the people in his city were not happy.
slag
For sure. The Arabian Horseman head of FEMA couldn’t do it. Nor could the nobody could have predicted that “Bin Laden determined to strike in US” crowd. Nor could the entire Randian class of 2000-2008. But maybe this time…
It might work for us!
RossInDetroit
I dunno if this game of Ru$$ian roul**te with the barrel pointed at Uncle Sam will hurt the GOP with voters in 2012.
Sure, they crapped the rug but good this time, but the public’s attention span is so short. ‘Debt default’ just doesn’t have the resonance or staying power of ‘Death panel’.
The effect on their contributors – the people who stand to lose big due to instability – is likely to be much more profound. People who invest for the long term have long memories.
Bob
David Brooks disagrees with Krugman. During the Brooks/Shields comedy segment on the PBS News Hour last night Brooks said, “But the Republican Party is still a normal party, and they are going to go for a normal candidate, whether it is Mitt Romney or somebody else.”
Brooks is damaged beyond repair.
drkrick
The Progressive side of the aisle doesn’t play anything like the same role for Obama and the Dems that the Wall St money folks do for the GOP. Loss of enthusiasm from the Progressives is a problem for the Dems – loss of big money support from the GOP would be fatal.
I’m not even sure Obama’s goal would be to break off the money from the GOP. It may be to break off the astroturf money from the TP caucus to allow the GOP to return to a saner, responsibility-worthy incarnation. In the absence of cash infusions from FreedomWorks and the Koch Brothers, the TP becomes a noisy bunch of cranks with about the influence the Birchers had 50 years ago. In other words, try to produce a viable partner in governing, not a one-party state.
RossInDetroit
Dammit. Moderated for spelling out Ru$$ian Roul**te.
Do these spam filters actually catch anything besides innocent use of common words?
RossInDetroit
Mitt = ‘normal’?
What dimension of reality was that broadcast from?
I don’t think he pays much attention to objective reality, current events, past events and what’s right in front of his face as long as he has something witty to write.
jwb
Bob: I didn’t see it, but it’s funny how desperate Bobo sounds in the quote you gave. On the other hand, Bobo has always struck me as the most cynical of the rightwing pundits—meaning that I doubt very much that he believes a word of what he writes when it comes to straight politics but he knows it’s his gig to be the Times’ right wing pundit and that means assembling the proper word salad de jour from the Applebee’s salad bar of conservative talking points. Not that the other Bobo, the one who writes all that fluffy sociological nonsense is any smarter, but at least I sense that he believes that shit when he writes it.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
The memory hole is one of the most frustrating (and, in the abstract, fascinating) aspects of the Broderist mentality. The Iraq War just happened, no one was responsible. The 2007 crash doesn’t matter anymore. Dick Cheney never said “Reagan taught us deficits don’t matter” and on point here: John McCain never picked Sarah Palin as his Veep, never declared that Joe the Plumber was his hero and his role model, etc.
hildebrand
I don’t think we will ever hit peak-wingnut. I simply don’t think that the lunatic right will ever finish topping themselves (the Tea Party types are now patting themselves on the back for getting everyone to take the debt seriously, sagely intoning that if not for their ‘seriousness’ the government would continue to spend like drunken sailors).
That said, I do think that folks will start to see through them a bit more as their lunacy has a real impact on their lives. When the foolishness hits their own pocketbook, then you will start to see people inch away from the crazy party. I think that this has started – see: Wisconsin recall elections. Obama knew this when he made the comments about not being certain that Social Security checks would go out – he knew that this stuff only registers when it hits personally. It is far too easy to rationalize away abstract financial pain (i.e. somebody else’s pain).
RossInDetroit
I seriously wonder if the GOP is interested in any give/take over public policy unless it’s between the right and the far right. It’s been a long time since they were a serious participant with a Dem president in governing. De-fanging the Tea Partiers might not suddenly make them cooperative.
I’d love to be proved wrong about that.
RossInDetroit
True, but he’s recently been fleeing from his moderate MA record like it was a powder magazine hit by lightning. I’d have more confidence in his normalcy if it was at least somewhat consistent.
mr. whipple
Tunch will be ok, too. Also.
jwb
RossInDetroit: It’s hard to say. My best guess is that he’d actually govern a lot like Bush I, but because he is mistrusted by the right wing, he might end up overcompensating quite badly and go full wingnut.
drkrick
Certainly an open question. You’d have to go back to something like the pre-Newt Gingrich version of the GOP, and that’s been the dominant model for a generation now. Are there old proteges of Michel and Dole out there laying low? I also wonder how much the behavior of Boehner and McConnell would change if the TP element was less of a threat to them – we’d certainly be past the debt ceiling by now.
JCT
@ Judge Crater
This has already happened on some level, note how McConnell rather abruptly yanked his fingers out of his ears (standing off to the side going “lalalalala I can’t hear you”) and all of a sudden started sounding like Chicken Little?
These guys are hearing from the bankers big-time.
JGabriel
@jwb:
Or the Democrats will continue shifting to the right, take the GOP’s place, and another party (Greens, Working Families, someone new) will come from the left to replace the Democrats.
Maybe that’s a fantasy solution, but it seems like that best route for the country. There’s no “center” party to replace the GOP. Any replacement coming from the right would be even worse.
So that pretty much leaves Democrats to become the center-right party replacing the Republicans, and someone from the left to replace them as a center-left party.
.
Yevgraf
I finally figured it out – the teatards are all Zod. They constantly want people to recognize their greatness and kneel before them, even though they’re a pathetic bunch of fuckups.
One more thing – my local community fair had a teatards recruiting booth, and nobody behind it or at it was under 60.
Sophie Amrain
Calling a prediction coupled to a speculation reality is rather presumptuous. Exactly like your name Trurl, in fact, which smells of hubris.
Yutsano
@drkrick:
At one time I had hope for Rob McKenna, until he embraced his inner teatard and challenged his Democratic governor by adding Washington to the anti-ACA lawsuit. Not a real smart move in a state that had tried to enact universal health care in the past.
Liberty60
Very true- “Spending cuts”, and “limited Government” are sure fire applause lines, for just about everyone, even many liberals.
“Cutting the funding for the freeway widening project on your way to work” or “Now you need to work an extra 5 years before you can retire”….not so much.
If there is one silver lining in all this, its that the average low-information voter will start to understand how much they personally rely on government and how an abstract idea like “spending cuts” actually hurts them personally, in ways they never imagined.
Harvey
the Crazy Right will blackmail the rest until it can’t. God knows how long. The Tea Party/Republicans have us by the balls. they “own” America. now Wall St. wants the Debt Ceiling raised. Sen McConnell jumps, does their bidding.
Democrats suck up to the Republicans, since Clinton anyway. Wall St. Gravy train.
since there are more Republican voters who vote, usually, than Democratic, this blowup within the Republicans will take time to settle. Meanwhile, the Republican party owns it all. No Democrat dares to nominate Judges who are Left of Center, if that even exists anymore.
so, it is just how Right of Center the Democrats are when they nominate Judges.
America is owned by the Right. Will take a long time or a great implosion/another Recession to scare the Dumb White Folks away from the Republicans, From state level to National level. see Voting limits passed in R states, to help keep the “other” from voting. all that Non Republican trash
Republicans rule!!! thanks to Fox, Bobo, and that wonderful Party apparatus they assembled over the last 40 years. The Heritage Foundation, Cato, American Enterprise INstitute aren’t going away, either.
so We have to wait for the Dumb White Folks to die or Cable/Fox to get too expensive to brainwash the Dumb White Folks/their ilk.
General Stuck
Things are just too crazy for me to back one scenario over another on how all this surreal bullshit plays out politically for the next election. Unless we actually do default and it reaches into the middle class to increase the burden of average people. Polls are clear on this, and with the government shutdown in the 90’s that hurt the wingers.
There is a lot of ignorance out there from voters on the details of how our government works, but most have the general knowledge that funding, or paying for shit, is the role of congress, and the wingers will pay most of that price. If it happens.
Frum is a tin plated wingnut, but he gets the limits of GOP whackadoddle when it comes from scorched earth politicking and playing games on the explosive debt ceiling battlefield. So does Mcconnell and Boehner, at this stage.
I figure they will drive this enough into the thick teatard heads to pass something with smaller cuts outside the entitlements. Though I am not sure if Obama will play, long as Mcconnell insists on three more rounds of kabucki on this issue before the election.
One reason the wingers act as zany and desperate as they do, is that losing too much of any of their main factions likely spells defeat in presidential elections, absent a presnit candidate with broad enough appeal to get all of them to stand down some individually and get them to the polls, like a George Bush or Reagan.
Frum, like Rove, knowing this full well, have warned about alienating minorities too much, like Hispanics, or putting a non protestant candidate up that will make the quirky fundies stay home in the general, or they drop much below 40 percent on traditional conservative latino voters.
The biggest thing dems have going for them now, is what seems like a stable level of dem voters sticking with Obama in the high 40 percentile, in spite of a really bad economy. And a solid favorable rating for likeability. The tea partiers might submit to passing the debt ceiling in the end, without a lot of their demands met, but they have plenty more queued up the next 18 months, and will be near impossible to control without a firm semi rational leader to control them all, top down.
Right now, the one main meme coming out of all this chaotic bullshit, is a bunch of wingnuts bouncing off the walls from top to bottom, against a cool unflappable president, who happens to be black, and a democrat. Things that will continue to drive the wingers crazy and then crazier still.
Obama is doing it right, in a completely bizarre situation, that is just about all out and out ideological warfare, at the expense of anything remotely like governing a country. Something we need, like a hole in the head. But it is what we have, and has to be dealt with as best can.
Emerald
ML #32
Ah, but despite the fact that the Republicans barely make up one-third of the voters in California, they still have firm control of the state because of the 2/3 taxes rule.
They won’t let us raise taxes at all. Even just one eensy little bit.
Ergo, we can’t do anything in California except cut state universities and parks. We are stuck. The Rs won’t even let us put a tax question on the ballot. They’re still strangling the state, and we can’t kick ’em away.
We did just have some good redistricting, so maybe in the next election we can finally get rid of ’em. Gonna take decades to repair the damage they did though, which gives ’em a chance to recuperate.
Baud
I don’t think the Republican Party will be doomed unless the factions within the Democrat Party realize that it’s usually more important to get things done than to get things perfect. In my view, that’s part of what happened in 2009-10, which helped lead to the GOP victory in the 2010 elections.
El Cid
On the bright side, there’s always another debt ceiling rise fight next year.
El Cid
I think you have a policy and ideology division within the Democratic Party, between conservative Democrats who are more or less old fashioned Northeastern Republicans [and in the most important legislative battles the ones who are barely distinct from the most right wing Republicans], the most deeply corporate tied high committee leaders, and those who aren’t in the first two groups.
It isn’t about some sort of personality or maturity division. Health care didn’t have barriers to passage and limitations on how good the policy could be because some Democrats failed to be mature and far-sighted enough — it was because those Democrats fundamentally opposed to the whole project kept throwing up every barrier they could.
Baud
@67 El Cid:
I think this goes to far. Health care happened only because all 58 Democrats + Lieberman and Sanders voted to pass the ACA. And after Scott Brown was elected, the ACA was on life support, but it survived. If there was “fundamental opposition” on the Democratic side, there was plenty of opportunity to kill the whole thing outright. That didn’t happen.
bcgister
Splitting Image
I’ve begun dating Peak Wingnut from the day Glenn Beck told his audience that they should run away from any religion that preached social justice.
Every major religious group hammered him for that, including the LDS. It’s kind of been lost in the shuffle the last few years, but the “base” of the Republican party has now moved so far to the right that the Mormon church is now consistently having to attack it from the left. In particular, note how Jon Huntsman and Mitt Romney are usually listed as the two more “moderate” candidates. This is uncharted territory here.
When people talk about “the left” and “the right”, they often seem to be assuming that the ends of the spectrum remain fundamentally the same over time. I don’t think that is the case though. I think that the major trend over the next ten years is the complete demise of the “religious right”.
For the last forty years or so, the political spectrum has been built on the assumption that the right is religious and the left is atheist. This has benefited the right wing because the majority of “non-religious” Europeans and North Americans have nostalgic attachments to the churches their families brought them up in even if they no longer practice. What is happening now is that the Randbot wing of the Republican party is abandoning the pretense that they owe fealty to that hippie from Nazareth, and that has the potential to break the alliance they have with people who are more loyal to their churches. Ayn Rand is the Messiah now, and that rant from Glenn Beck was a shot across the bow towards True Conservatives whose beliefs are still moderated by what they learned in those dusty old Bibles on their shelves all those years ago.
The upshot is that for progressives, it will no longer be true that someone identifying himself as “non-religious” will be a reliable ally, and for believers, it will no longer be true that someone identifying himself as “conservative” will be a reliable ally. I see the remaining believers forming the new political centre between two groups of atheists: one on the left talking about social justice and another on the right teaching every man for himself. It will be up to the group in the centre (who will mainly describe themselves as conservative Christians, plus sizable numbers of Muslims, Mormons, Jews, and other groups) to decide who wins.
As to who will win politically, I think the Republicans are greatly overestimating the willingness of religious “leaners” to follow a platform of hardcore Randianism. If the “left” can convince religious conservatives that it is less of a danger to them than the “right”, then the G.O.P. is doomed for twenty years.
El Cid
__
I didn’t say they voted against it. I said they were barriers. They are continually the leaders for whom the most must be yielded if extant bills are to pass or who can signal the imminent failure of a particular initiative before it’s made.
I think we’re mostly willing to either avoid or trash generations of actual political science and sociological research documenting time and time and time again the organizational and economic influences on legislation and similarly grounded explanations of the power of any particular legislator in favor of flighty explanations on the level of how this or that group seems to have this or that personal emotional outlook — pretty much the same as David Brooks’ explanations of grand developments based on his sense of the Force.
Mike G
Or, the way most Repukes of my acquaintance seem to approach politics, it’s not a damn football game where your ‘tribe’ wins or loses bragging rights.
karen marie
Trurl: If you think Obama’s goal is to cut SS and Medicare, what do you believe is his reason for doing so?
And do you actually believe that Obama is looking to cut the legs out from under those on the bottom? Again, to what end?
You seem a bit tetchy.
Chet
@ Braud (#67):
Not trying to be a petty dick here, but there is no “Democrat Party”.
Baud
@#77 Chet
Ugh! Pure typo. Mea culpa.
karen marie
efgoldman: Jane Swift cut her own throat.
TC
Per damage being done to the country, it’s a joint venture. Wall Street sleeps with both parties.
Per debts, those that are not a blessing, nor have any hope of being so, must be written off. Since these are in the majority, Glass-Steagall can only gain momentum from here on out. A Great Restructuring looms.
Per Salmon, Wall Street and the City of London simply lack the nuclear arms necessary for “the market” to threaten Treasury. Indeed, for their Ponzi scheme to be sustained Treasury’s unquestioned integrity must be sustained. Any significant lift in Treasury rates spells doom. Case closed.
OzoneR
Democrats today are much progressive than they were 20-25 years ago.
catclub
West of the Rock @ 17:
“Fear and lies are their biggest weapons… well, that and the general stupidity of the American electorate.”
Where do ruthless efficiency and a fanatical dedication to the Pope come in?
catclub
efgoldman @ 75 “cojones to fix”
fix as in fixed male dogs?
Marginalized for stating documented facts
True enough. Problem is, in the long term we are all dead, as Keynes pointed out.
Moreover, in the near term, the Republicans can still do a lot of damage to this country before they finally disappear.
Kane
Oftentimes it’s not necessary to goad crazy, it happily appears on its own without being provoked. Long before the budget talks, there were countless examples where congressional Republicans have shown that they are reckless and irresponsible. The prolonged budget talks simply highlighted the Republican behavior on center stage.
Kane
Pick an issue. Any issue. Energy, jobs, immigration reform, climate change, high-speed rail, infrastructure or any of other pressing issues of the day. Now put the debate of the issue under the daily media spotlight for months on end. In all likelihood congressional Republicans will show themselves to be maximally reckless and irresponsible on every issue.
Catsy
@jheartney:
It’s already dawned on some of them. That is part of what is driving the unhinged level of rage and scorched-earth attempts at ramming through unpopular agendas. I think a lot of them see the writing on the wall, and they’re lashing out.
Xenos
@jheartney:
And that is pretty critical – The presidency is the source of the jobs, and the jobs are the route to patronage, prestige, future sinecures at think-tanks, and so on. Tens of thousands of aspiring corrupt functionaries of the GOP had their careers derailed by Obama being elected. If he is reelected their careers are pretty much ruined. This is why we see so much of the fury and bitterness among the conservoblogger set.
Brachiator
@DougJ in Damascus:
I understand that you are committed to the idea that the Great Demographic Shift will ride to the rescue.
But what if you are wrong?
What if the Republicans manage to destroy the country before the Great Demographic Shift can take over the electorate?
And what if the Great Demographic Shift decides that you are not worth saving, because you were too lazy, fearful and undecided to make a stand and defeat the Goppers? What if the Great Demographic Shift turns its back on you because they think it is presumptious condescension to presume that they have to give a rat’s ass about you in order to pursue their own interests?
Many people in the Great Demographic shift are jobless, or stuck in low paying jobs. Their parents are losing their jobs and may be stuck in a cycle of unemployment for decades, undermining their ability to provide for their kids when they are most needy. Millions of kids will be unable to go to college or pursue careers because of their parents’ now uncertain economic futures.
The GOP is dedicated to stopping the Obama Administration and any Democratic Administration today, in the here and now.
And some Balloon Juicers want to talk about how the GOP is doomed in the long term?
Really?
Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century)
Two weeks ago, David Frum was saying Obama didn’t know how to negotiate. Now he’s saying Obama’s plan was breath takingly brilliant.
I wish Frum would just have enough class to add, “I sorry for doubting the President’s skills.” I lot of so called progressive should show similar class as well.