Expanding on the conversation in ABL’s thread from yesterday, I’m honestly wondering if we do understand that the larger, more salient point of crazy, clearly unconstitutional insanity like Arizona’s “right to fire people for using birth control” bill is to assure the Republican base that the coalition of “others” that elected Barack Obama to the White House: all “those” people who “don’t know their proper place” like African-Americans, Latinos, young people, women, the LGBT community, and “traitor” liberals in general, are going to be punished in 2013 and only they will be punished, right?
Look, Republicans are basically saying “Hey, look, we know you’re scared. When push came to shove, the America you thought you knew sided with the black guy and for a lot of you that was pretty much the last straw. So here’s the deal: we promise to make laws that will assure that, demographic shift be damned, they’re never going to have that kind of financial or political power again for a long, long time. We’re going to force the reckoning that you know has to be coming soon and we’ll make sure the bill goes to them, not you. And here’s the best part. We’ll design the laws to be guilt-free code-word stuff. We’ll give you the power to make the decisions on winners and losers and keep the losers losing for a long time to come. We’ve got all kinds of experience with that. Don’t worry about the courts, we’ve got those covered. If you side with us now they’ll be backing us for decades, that’s where there real long game is and then the control at the local and state level really pays off. But we need you with us, because anyone against us, well…you don’t want to be them when this train leaves the station, because it’s going to run over everyone else, got it? What do you say?”
And yes, that means that a healthy chunk of our political process in this country is motivated by the “plot” of GCB. It’s all about vengeance, both petty and fever-bright. Never mind the GOP’s real aim is to screw over the people who support them in the end, but they need the political support for now. They figure once they get back into power, they won’t make the same mistakes of the Dubya era as far as allowing that power to slip through their fingers again. It’s time to reboot America, they believe. They’re not too far away from being able to pull it off, either. Demographic tides and all be damned if they can lock down power at the state level to simply ignore federal laws they don’t like and simply treat the unwashed “others” unlucky enough to live in a red state as untouchable lepers who need to be driven off to the urban hellholes and liberal enclaves.
Something to keep in the back of your mind when you hear the GOP make their pitches this campaign season.
James
I’m curious to hear why you think it is “clearly unconstitutional.” What constitutional right is the state violating?
LittlePig
That sums it up pretty well, Z.
Jado
This is the best explanation I have heard for GOP lunacy. Thanks.
LittlePig
@James: The right to privacy, as enumerated in Roe v. Wade, although there’s a fair chain of jurisprudence in back of that.
If you don’t believe in a right to privacy, how’s about we install a GPS device in your car and mail you a speeding ticket each time you exceed the local speed limit? It’s the law, you know.
RalfW
I was just talking with a couple colleagues the other day about why it seems the Minnesota GOP is pushing a bunch of stuff that seems well to the right of how this state really is.
This analysis gives all that a new spin. My take as been that the GOP is going for broke this term because they know that in less than a year in many cases, or in a few years at best, they’ll be out of the game for a generation except as minority-party assholes, so they’re passing as much of this sh*t as possible and saying “you guys clean all this up … if you can.”
May be a mix of that and major signaling to the base about why turnout for their side is so important in ’12.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
At my job, there is a poster up for a voting drive. The state, Texas, passed a law preventing this kind of thing at colleges. Your college ID doesn’t count as a picture ID either, but your concealed handgun license does.
moonbat
To me it still just looks like they all just jumped on the train to Crazy Town, though. The demographic ship has already sailed. Pissing off a demographic that makes up more than half the population can in no way be considered a winning strategy. I think they are trying to get all this culture war junk passed while they still enjoy majorities but the people who are pushing this stuff are the equivalent of cultural suicide bombers. They want to make some sort of “statement” as their last hoorah.
Not surprising that Arizona leads in the crazy department but even there there is hope after the recall of Mr. Brown People Evil earlier this year.
RalfW
@LittlePig:
Via commerce, we’re not far from that. Progressive is offering to lower your rates if you accept a GPS box. Uh huh. Lower until you clock 80 in a 70 zone on some Interstate.
And give Progressive and the other majors a few years, and the GPS box will be a requirement of coverage, not an option.
And once that box is in there for commercial reasons, all it’ll take is a few subpoenas from D.A.s in criminal vehicular cases, and the box becomes fair game for simple speeding or rolling a stopsign.
Just wait…it’s coming.
paradox
Again, I’m perfectly aware of how regressive Republicans are. Dangerously so, yes. I’m not voting for them, I never have.
That still won’t put bankers in jail or people to work in well-paying jobs. We simply cannot endlessly show what we’re not while delivering, on, well, the Lilly Ledbetter Act. On spending cuts because we allowed ourselves to be bullied by these very same Republicans we’re so vastly superior to. Heh.
Republicans are part of the problem. The more vociferously you insist they are all of the problem the more the country is fucked, and the the act is real old. It’s not my fault for pointing out the obvious, either.
Stillwater
I always have a willing ear to listen to rational theories about the irrational GOP and conservatives. I haven’t heard one yet that seems to capture the dynamic entirely tho, and I think that’s because the GOP exhibits multiple personalities. The GOP old guard want to win elections – period. The crazies that dominate the base don’t understand politics, tho, and don’t understand the long-game being played by their RINO GOP leaders. So they demand legislation rolling back liberal progress, obstructing liberal initiatives, and implementing reactionary draconian policies that they believe in when the can, but which kill them electorally. Because it makes them look like deranged lunatics some of them really are.
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
Yes, I do think this is central to their long term plans for living wingnut in a country over run, by ‘the others’. It is why the manic court stuffing with fellow wingnuts, not just conservatives, but movement types not afraid to be hyper activist toward meeting right wing goals.
All it will take is an earthquake SCOTUS ruling, or two, deep6ing long established precedent, opening the door to greater to great federalist state autonomy, ie tamping down the commerce clause, increasing religious autonomy, 10th amendment tests, and anything else they can think of to create a number of state enclaves shielded from federal primacy as much as possible.
If Obama wins a second term, especially if it becomes a tectonic pol shift toward the progressive, look for the SCOTUS as the last bulwark to defend and promote conservative
confederateideology.Heady times we live in.
LGRooney
@James: Any frigging right that I say I have that does no harm to anyone else that the state says it doesn’t want me to have. It may have a name now or not but whatever it is, it is mine.
Yes, I am a ninther!
redshirt
There’s a war on. Are you ready, willing, and able to fight? Then you must.
Schlemizel
@LittlePig: @moonbat:
I think you guys are correct about the “last hurrah” part of this. It is going to be so easy for them to play defense when they are the minor party and it is up to the majority to try and undo the evil they have woven into the laws & in many cases the constitutions.
The other piece, particularly in
frozen FloridaMinnesota is that these ballot measures the are pushing have been good for them in the past, driving nutbags to the polls to help them win even if the measure lost.I’m hoping (despite past history) that these ‘bridge too far’ proposals will actually work against them this time & their losses will be greater than if they had just shut the hell up but that remains to be seen.
LGRooney
Now, Zandar, I came here looking for someone to pull me out of the cave I just retreated to after seeing the quick flash at TPM on the presidential polling averages that show Romney over Obama 47-42. I’ll dig in a little deeper, however, and send in my passport renewal because the farm in Eastern Europe is looking much more palatable these days.
Napoleon
@James:
Constitutional right to birth control. Something like 40 years ago the SCOTUS found laws banning conception control unconstitutional. A law like the AZ law clearly falls within the type of thing the SCOTUS has found is an end around way to achieve the same goal, and therefore unconstitutional.
Do a mind game, it is unconstitutional for the government to discriminate on the basis of race. What do you think they would do if a law, which of course would be enforced by the courts (ie, the government), was passed that allowed private employers to discriminate on the basis of race?
Schlemizel
@redshirt:
and a war it has been. It has taken too long for our side to realize the GOP is at war against this nation and that dealing with them as honest brokers with good intent is a winner for them.
It occurs to me that after 40 years in the trenches ( well, now more than 50 if you count all the kid things I did on campaigns) every two years & additional in between times as precinct capt, low level functionary etc I may be suffering from PSTD. Not to make light of the actual sufferers but that would explain my feelings. 8-{D
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@paradox: Once again, it’s the battered wife’s problem for not getting out sooner, huh?
The Republicans come in two flavors:
1. Those who want to push the country back to when a few people owned and ran everything, and everyone else knew their place.
2. Those who enable the first group by voting for them.
You’re not arguing the same thing that Zandar is.
Tone In DC
The Gallup poll says 50-46 in favor of Romney. I hope that 4% is the margin for error.
Seebach
Why did you link to that whiny article?
Shorter link:
Sure, all Christians are hypocrites, but you can’t call us on it because Christianity is haaaaaaaaard.
samara morgan
good summation. its a strike against the RAE.
by 2020 the RAE will comprise 53% of the electorate, and the GOP will be doomed to rump status forevah, unless they can jigger the mechanics of democracy.
Schlemizel
Its still way too early to worry about specific polls. Wait until the shit storm of ads drown us for a month. Against the backdrop of the clown parade Willard is going to look like the phony, plastic, desperate POS he is when placed head-to-head with President Obama.
We are going to have to work hard but it would be hard to imagine a better set of potential opponents that the God Owful Party has to provide.
samara morgan
@Tone In DC: partly. its partly landline polling bias.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Tone In DC: As other people have pointed out, Mondale led Reagan in some polls this early in 1984. TPM also has an article showing that other polls have Obama up by 12.
samara morgan
@Schlemizel: all we have to do is GOTV.
occupy the electorate!
gene108
@Schlemizel:
You guys underestimate “tribal” loyalty. If someone looks, sounds and acts like “you”(or close enough, you’d want to have a beer with him), such as Bush, Jr. in 2000, you will get people to vote for him or Scott Brown in MA, with his “everyman” pick-up truck driving persona.
It’s not something you can defeat with well thought out arguments and rational analysis, because it just isn’t rational. People aren’t rational and there’s a segment of the political class in this country that plays to the irrational side of people, with great success.
I see the irrational factor trumping the demographic shift, with regards to Republicans/conservatives being a dying political force for short-term political issues and with regards to winning elections.
In a broader sense, they have lost the fight over social issues, but can still cling to pushing their economic agenda through on the back of social outrage and identity politics.
Bago
Re:GPS boxes. You already own them, they are called cellphones. With the passage of the patriot act your location is already track able, and with NSA sigint databases exabytes in size, yeah.
It must be said, that effectively doing queries against that data set would be a fun programming challenge. Managing execution entities vs storage on that scale, in a single datacenter so that latency is low… My god.
BruceFromOhio
Zander, I’ve been on board with “keep it in the back of your mind” since 1994 and the Newtie posse elevating hypocrisy to heights beyond measure. Today’s madness is an unchecked political virus that will have to kill the host to be eradicated. As the host is currently what passes for the Klown Kar Kavalkade, aka “Republican Party,” this suits me just fine.
From the WaPo link,
And there, in a nutshell, is why rich conservatives have no fucking business whatsoever being anywhere near the levers of power.
I’m totally cool with Son of God. Good message, good delivery, dude went all the way to the cross for what he believed. I don’t happen to believe all of it, so I’ll never make it into the club, but it’s still worthy.
It’s the two bit soulless ratfuck criminals cramming politics into every bedroom, vagina and classroom that seals the deal for the remainder of this life.
PurpleGirl
@Napoleon: There are three important cases in the reproductive area which were decided on an idea pertaining to privacy: Griswold v. Connecticut was decided in 1969 and it gave married couples the right to have and use birth control. It hung on a right to privacy that was implied in the Constitution, although not specifically stated.
Roe v. Wade (1972) also hung on privacy and involved a right to have an abortion.
Eisenstadt v. Baird, also 1972, extended the right to have and use birth control to non-married couples. Again the case hung on a right to privacy.
The right has not accepted the concept of privacy used to decide these cases.
Rita R.
@Seebach:
Seconded. I was just about to bitch about that link, but you got here first. Not only did it make that dumb we’re all hypocrites argument so “wayward priests” ain’t that bad, but it was badly written — disjointed and the use of language was just, off, somehow. On the other hand, Kristin Chenoweth look faabulous.
Petorado
But, but … David Brooks says we are facing the looming crisis of not having enough babies. If we allow the womenfolk to use birth control, we’ll all die in the coming “grey tsunami.” He thus builds the case that firing sluts for not using their sluttiness to procreative ends actually does us all a favor.
shortstop
@gene108: Dead on.
Knockabout
Unalloyed rubbish. The only tribalism garbage here is being pushed by Zandar in his race with ABL to the bottom of the race pandering barrel.
gene108
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
In 1983, when the economy was struggling and unemployment was still around 10%, Mondale or any possible Democratic contender was crushing Reagan.
Then Mondale had his convention, where he said he’s going to raise taxes and things just unraveled from there.
Obama’s very similar to Reagan in some respects. Both are(were) well liked as people, but the struggling economy took a toll on their poll numbers. If the economy continues to rebound, I think people will come back around to Obama.
The bigger issue is can Obama lead to improved Democratic chances down ticket.
For example, Jesse Helms edged out former NC Governor Jim Hunt, in his 1984 re-election bid because of Reagan’s coattails.
Can Obama’s coattails lift Elizabeth Warren over Scott Brown in MA?
That’s going to be just as critical as Obama’s individual success as a candidate.
Montysano
While I think Zandar’s analysis is good, there’s another aspect. Much of the GOP’s crazy-train antics have the goal of shifting the Overton Window. For example: you propose something completely nutty (and unconstitutional) like the Blunt Amendment. Suddenly, an alternative that is slightly to the left of Blunt seems reasonable, whereas before Blunt, said compromise would have seemed like far-right lunacy.
Such tactics require the abandonment of all ethics and intellectual honesty, of course. Sadly, they’re quite good at it.
Linnaeus
I’d say yes. Corey Robin has a good article about “outsourcing conservatism” and uses the Arizona bill as an example. This is the cultural edge of neofeudalism; we won’t just shift economic power more and more in the hands of employers, but we’ll also make them cultural enforcers as well.
RossInDetroit
@RalfW:
I’d go for that lower auto rate with a GPS box. I have talked to a cop through the window of a car once in 440,000 miles of driving. I have nothing to hide because I obey all the laws.
But I’d go to the mat to prevent them putting one on YOUR car under duress.
Regarding firing people for using birth control, there’s actually upheld precedent for that. Some companies can fire you for ever using tobacco products, and can compel a blood test to prove you’re nicotine free. This has been upheld by the courts, if you can believe it.
BruceFromOhio
@PurpleGirl: Fought a pitched battle with a former friend over the legal “zones” interpreted from the Constitution. His shtick was, nothing in the Bill of Rights guarantees your privacy. My response was, Artcle I and IV make it pretty clear to keep your Gaia-damned nose out of my business.
We parted company on those notes, sadly.
I wholly agree with your conclusion, “The right has not accepted the concept of privacy used to decide these cases.”
The concept of privacy seems only acceptable if you do as I say, not as I do.
Montysano
@Knockabout:
Rather than barfing up a word salad, the tradition here at BJ is to arrange words into a sequence that has an actual, coherent meaning. FYI.
samara morgan
@gene108: well…. if you read Chris Mooney’s article, roughly half the population has conservative (irrational) tendency, and half has liberal (rational) tendency.
the reason the demographic shift terrifies conservatives, is that biological conservatives that are darkskinned and/or younger females are not ever going to vote GOP because of racism and sexism.
RossInDetroit
@Petorado:
bemused
@RalfW:
Mnprogressive site had a post yesterday, Ballot measure open season, with a list of what the R legislature has been so very busy with instead of jobs bills.
That got me curious about all the whacko bills introduced in 2011 and Mnprogressive was on the job May 24, 32 bills republicans worked on instead of the budget. That’s not a total list either.
4tehlulz
OT: Texas says “Fuck it, I’m going deep” and challenges Section V of the Voting Rights Act.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
That’s were reality smacks the GoP in the face; the REAL American Red States economically need the other far more than the liberal big cities. That lettuce doesn’t pick itself.
cmorenc
@Zandar:
EXACTLY THIS. The other part you mentioned about how the moneyed elites of the GOP need and will stroke and pander to the rubes whose support they need now, but will screw them over like the sociopaths they are once they’ve erected an impregnable control bunker…is also spot on.
Even aside from the substance of the policies and vision Romney, Santorum, and Gingrich are proposing, look at how they behave toward each other and their own base electorate; they are viciously sociopathic liars when dealing among their own kind, with no scruples about facts or truth. They make even Dubya look like a straight-shooting mature man of responsibility and integrity by comparison.
BruceFromOhio
@Bago: That sounds like FUN! Terabytes of warehoused data? Hook me up!
Not the same thing, but on a daunting scale was a dataset comprised of foreclosure data, updated monthly with county and financial institution feeds. Users post information requests, and the programmers put it together and run in batches, much like old mainframe processing. The key is the schema – set it up correctly, and its very powerful. Kludge it up with too many dependencies and repetitive rows, and its icky.
With GPS, its time between snapshots, coordinates of location and a unique id from the device. The icky dependency is relating a device to a person or object – its imperfect at best until we start putting chips in skulls. Apple aps for its iPads and phones worked that out, since the relationship is established at the time the device is purchased – the cops can probably find your stolen Apple item without much sweat.
samara morgan
uh oh!
dcdl
When I was working as a Medical Assistant one of my duties was lab and coding for insurance. I always checked to make sure a patient’s lab was covered. If it wasn’t I went to the doctor and got a ‘diagnosis’ that was covered by the insurance.
I can tell you if any doctor is worth anything they will find a ‘medical’ reason for someone to take birth control if this law passes. Of course, one shouldn’t count on that and then it’s not to far off from whatever medical condition that someone has that the employer gets to fire them.
Then before you know it you’ll be asked to sign an affidavit that you go to church, because only moral, ethical people go to church. It’s a downward spiral.
Linda Featheringill
Must agree with you on one point: It was the fact that so many people in this country voted for and continue to support a black man that drives them crazy. And that fact that they all know people who voted for him probably makes them feel they’ve been betrayed.
Most of these folks would say that a black person has a perfect right to run for president [or any other office]. A black person just doesn’t have the right to be president.
And if they can just point out that Obama isn’t as wonderful as we apparently think he is, we’ll come to our senses and correct our mistake in this election.
Remember the broad on Fox who was amazed that 48% or so of people actually thought that Obama could be reelected?
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
@gene108:
Agree fully, on an individual basis. But I also think ‘last hurrah’ is also true, as I understand it to mean. I usually say something like ‘dying party’ referring to the GOP, which should be evident per their current untethered behavior. More specifically, as a coherent cogent political movement in the works for 40 or 50 years.
I think the vaunted ‘conservative movement’ as manifested by the GOP, reached its zenith under GWB, likely between the years 2002 to 2004, when the wheels began to come off.
And ended with Hank Paulson going hat in hand to the taxpayers to bail out their failed policies, in the making for at least 30 years.
Until we have the hydra headed monster that is the GOP of today. The individual tribalists are still with us, and they are still crazy as ever, but the political vehicle they need to project their views into real power, is a mess, and likely dying as it currently is.
It will at some point revitalize itself in some other wrapping, called the GOP, or not. But as of now, as a half away organized party practicing competent national politics, it is something like “a last hurrah”. What comes after is anyone’s guess. But they will still be wingnuts and may or may not be an electoral threat.
Zifnab
Can I just take a moment to say that WP’s Gayle Trotter is a terrible writer. Just flat out painful to read. Not even considering the content, the flow of the article was jumpy and confusing. It lacked any sense of refinement. If her editor took more than three seconds to scan it, I’d be shocked.
The Pope stroking certainly didn’t help things, either. But I were a serious Catholic reading this rant, I’d be embarrassed and horrified to associate with it.
RossInDetroit
@Zifnab:
It reads like a deadline page-filler. Anyone remotely familiar with popular culture knows The Fonz wore his leather jacket while water skiing over the shark.
shortstop
@Linda Featheringill:
They are all convinced he’s going to lose in a landslide, and say so frequently. It’s going to be a terrible shock when they wake up November 7 to discover that ACORN has risen from the dead, assisted by the two-man New Black Panthers, to steal another election from them.
Martin
@4tehlulz: They have to. They’re on the precipice of becoming a blue state ruled by Latinos. A Mitt Romney candidacy pushes them dangerously close to going over.
Tone In DC
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Thanks for the info, Belafon.
Obama akbar!
PeakVT
@Stillwater: A unified theory is: the GOP moneybags have lost control of the base. After decades of feeding crap to the base, the base has finally elected too many politicians that actually believe the crap.
presquevu
@Schlemizel:
Re sassafras wood chunks –
BruceFromOhio
@shortstop:
..convinced that voter fraud was rampant, a self-fulfilling prophecy of delusion. Think Teh Crazy is amped up now? Watch what happens next.
PurpleGirl
@dcdl:
I live in a non-profit, tax-abated co-operative. I had to provide a number of economic documents but I don’t know what other checking was done about me. (Getting an apartment/shares depends on your income and family size.) Shortly after I moved in I began hearing various stories about some current residents. One older lady in particular felt that a couple of people “weren’t moral enough” to live in the development. It seemed she didn’t approve of the lifestyle of one particular firefighter. The idea of being “moral enough to live in” the development took me aback. What criteria did you have to meet to be “moral enough”? I never asked her because I didn’t want to get into a fight. But it did stun me. (I probably wouldn’t have passed her criteria.)
Horrendo Slapp (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)
I don’t think a word you wrote was wrong. People in the U.S. need to wake up and see what the Republicans are doing. Not only that, they have to say as much. No matter how much a lot of liberals would like to believe otherwise, both sides are not to blame here. I don’t know why this is so hard to acknowledge, but I have friends who are almost as liberal as I am who won’t–or can’t–bring themselves to come out and say the truth: The Democrats might not be flawless, but they are not the problem here, the Republicans are.
I will warn you, though, that since you’ve “played the race card” here, you risk that the assholes who wail about ABL might dump all kinds of unwarranted shit on your head, too. Get a strong umbrella.
samara morgan
@Stillwater:
the answer to your prayers.
the unified field theory of biological conservatism, or red/blue genetics.
samara morgan
@Horrendo Slapp (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.): i think hes used to it by now.
;)
Ruckus
@PurpleGirl:
The right has not accepted the concept of privacy used to decide these cases.
This is a huge part of the problem. Liberals take privacy for granted, it’s basic, it’s logical, it’s even been decided by the supreme court. Conservatives are exactly the opposite. All the crap laws they are trying to pass or are passing hinge on there being no privacy. It’s why they take the constitution literally (and the bible!). Without that interpretation none of their crap is possible.
Dick Move
I wish I had written this.