A wise man once asked “How far is all the way, and then if it stops, what’s stopping it, and what’s behind what’s stopping it?” Politically, debt default is all the way, House Republicans are what’s stopping the government, and the GOP base is what’s behind what’s stopping it.
For all the inane punditocratic discussions of how weak John Boehner is or how Obama needs to go golfing with Ted Cruz lies a central, simple reality: the GOP base is insane. I still don’t fully grasp what unites evangelicals and Randoids, but this is a pretty description of the basic dynamic:
[T]he kamikaze caucus, by seeking to block the president by any means necessary, is reflecting the back-to-the wall desperation evident among grassroots Republicans convinced that Obama and his urbanized, racially diverse supporters are transforming America into something unrecognizable. Although those voters are split over whether the current tactics will work, they are united in resisting any accommodation with Obama.Veteran Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg, who has studied the two parties’ coalitions since the 1980s, recently conducted several focus groups with GOP voters that probed this passion. He concluded that the roaring sense of embattlement among the almost all-white tea party and evangelical Christian voters central to the GOP base draws on intertwined ideological, electoral, and racial fears.
These core conservative voters, Greenberg wrote recently, fear “that big government is meant to create rights and dependency and electoral support from mostly minorities who will reward the Democratic Party with their votes.” Much like Mitt Romney’s musings about the 47 percent, these voters see an ominous cycle of Democrats promising benefits “to increase dependency” among mostly minority voters who empower them to win elections and then provide yet more benefits (like a path to citizenship for immigrants here illegally). Obama’s health care law looms to them as the tipping point toward a permanent Democratic advantage built on dependency and demographic change.
I understand that the Republican party rose to power by playing on southern white opposition to civil rights. It was a disgusting tactic, but it was the smart move, Nixon was always smarter. Doubling down on it with all the anti-gay marriage stuff in 2004 was stupid, and tripling down on it in 2010 was dumber still.
dubo
It’s racism
schrodinger's cat
If they succeed in creating an apartheid state where only the votes of Republican voters count, then it works for them, and that is what they are trying to do. We cannot let them succeed.
ETA: Isn’t that what voter suppression and even the current drama is all about.
Comrade Jake
Yes, I think we all appreciate that the juggernaut of history/demographics is largely against these folks, and that it is just a matter of time before they’re largely irrelevant.
Still, their tenacity on holding on is something to behold, and while the juggernaut does move, it’s a bit too slow for my tastes.
Belafon
If whites would go back to their side of the room, and the others to their side, these people would calm down.
I would have loved to hear what the focus groups think about all the whites that don’t act like they do. I’m pretty sure I know the answer – they’re traitors to the country by not keeping it white and Christian – but I would like to see it on paper (or technically in electrons).
RaflW
I gotta say, this dependency thing is still bunk. Or at least it dances around the real issue:
These entitled white people deeply fear that when they are no longer in the majority, they might just get treated as shitty as they treated everyone else for, ohhh, say, the past 400 years.
I hope that the polyglot nation will prove their fears wrong. But I also hope that as the multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-sexual-orientation-n-gendered coalition builds power, that we do dismantle the worst excesses of white, privilege based corporate bullshit exploitation.
Which is another way of saying, hey entitled white assholes. We are coming for you (to make you pay a sane marginal tax rate. Horrors!)
Belafon
@Comrade Jake: South Africa held on for a really long time.
Linda Featheringill
Racism doesn’t explain the support of all the Republican crazies but it certainly is a significant factor.
Yes, I agree with dubo in #1.
ericblair
@dubo:
Yup, got it in one, we’re done here.
Glocksman
After reading Nixonland, I came away with the impression that Nixon was more of a pragmatist interested in power than a true believer.
In other words, he’d abandon the ‘Southern Strategy’ the second it was clear that it was no longer viable.
Though his paranoia would probably lead him to sic the Plumbers on the tea partiers after abandoning the SS.
It couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of folks. :)
Shakezula
So basically you have a bunch of people who are afraid of change, which is a natural part of any healthy system. And they’re calling the shots for the GOP. Yeah. The party is screwed.
However, I disagree with calling them the Kamikaze Caucus. That would mean the teabagghist understand and are willing to suffer harm for their beliefs. Ha ha ha ha ha! They’re willing that everyone else should be harmed, but when they realize that cutting food stamps and other benefits means they don’t eat, they’ll be yelling the loudest.
It is also not accurate to paint this as an old white vs. young brown issue. This is a small group of radicalized whites, goaded by a smaller group of white grifters and some rich SOBs (who are experiencing buyer’s remorse) vs. everyone else, issue.
ChrisNYC
“urbanized and racially diverse” will “transform America into something unrecognizable”? Ahem. 80% of Americans live in cities and the country is racially diverse. The media/analyst tendency to cede this baseline to folks like the TPers is part of the problem.
Gex
I hate hate HATE that the refusal to give in to their terroristic threats is presented as being just as extreme as making the terroristic threats. For fuck’s sake! It is not reasonable, nor moderate to constantly cave to the extreme right.
Glocksman
@ChrisNYC:
To paraphrase Karl Rove: ‘we make our own reality’.
IOW, they perceive the country to be conservative, Christian, and majority white.
Never mind the slow change that’s been coming for decades now.
kindness
I think if we are handing out crowns of stupidity it is readily apparent that the TeaHaddists will always be King. All hail the…uhh..where is that guillotine anyhow?
muricafukyea
You and your “Nixon was always smarter” crap. So smart he got caught trying to ratfuck the Democrats. Yea so smart.
Deep thoughts with Ball-Juice Doug.
Elizabelle
Ron Brownstein. Reading it now.
The GOP base needs to be defeated. They’re John C Calhoun for the 21st century, and a threat to the United States body politic.
What do you do, though, when you have Fox News, propaganda for the right wing, broadcasting 24/7? They’re more effective than 19th century subversion.
We would not have as many politicians and their constituents living in a bubble if we did not have Fox News misinforming them and reinforcing those beliefs.
Josie
The problem with their logic (or lack of it) is the the ACA does not empower only minorities. It is a boon to all working poor and middle class, which will include many whites as well. As this becomes more clear in the months ahead, the ones who fought it will become even more unpopular than they are now. They would have been so much better off to embrace it and then try to change it a little at a time. This current tactic could literally cost them their house majority permanently.
WereBear
Yup. After all, they’ve been treating people shitty and they are ~wonderful~!
Elizabelle
@Josie:
I think you are correct. Agree with your logic, and it explains why we are seeing literal craziness at this time.
eg. George Will equating Obamacare with the Fugitive Slave Act.
I hope that voters will remember this in 2014.
MattF
What used to unite Evangelicals and Randoids were the Commies. Ayn Rand herself was a blood-and-guts anti-communist, and Evangelicals always took it for granted that the Antichrist would be a middle-european socialist Jew. It’s been pretty easy to transfer this mythology to Democrats generally and to Obama in particular.
Gordon, the Big Express Engine
@DougJ – extra bonus points for the Godfather reference. So if Nixon is Tessio, who is Michael Corleone?
C.V. Danes
I don’t know that they are “insane,” but they do definitely believe, in the autocratic sense, that government is not working for them.
The real culprits in all of this are those on the authoritarian right who thought they could control this monster once it had nothing more to fear from them.
TheWilyOne
The crazy goes to eleven.
C.V. Danes
@MattF:
Actually, what used to unite them was the anti-Commie propaganda :-)
Comrade Dread
Fear: Objectivists see governments as constantly sliding towards communism. Evangelicals see the world as
constantly sliding towards Gomorrah. If the world is changing, it’s getting worse. We must fight to hold on until either John Galt or Jesus shows up to take us to Libertarian paradise.
Also, society is doomed. It’s so corrupt that we can’t really fight to make it better for everyone, and our only hope of salvation lays in a utopia paradise that someone else built for us.
Individualism: Objectivists reject collective actions taken under the State because they are coercive. Evangelicals see collective action taken by our government as illegitimate because often it’s coerced. “Welfare isn’t charity because I’m forced to pay taxes to take care of those lazy folks over there, it should be up to the individual to decide where his money goes.”
Persecution complex: Objectivist: Taxation is theft! Evangelical: “Mandating that insurance companies pay for contraceptives so that my business can’t buy insurance that doesn’t is just like sending me off to the Colosseum to fight lions bare-handed.”
Higgs Boson's Mate (Crystal Set)
But, but, but, if just anyone, and by that I mean people of color, can get healthcare, or vote, or breathe clean air, or eat uncontaminated food, or be elected president, how will the White people feel special?
RaflW
@Josie: ACA would be a boon to working poor people, but for the 26 states that didn’t opt for Medicaid expansion.
Oh, and Indiana is suing to block ACA subsidies to moderate income and middle class individuals.
“Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”
Mark S.
I mostly agree with that analysis, but it leaves out the important contributions of Burke and Russell Kirk in forming the teabagger psyche.
ericblair
@RaflW:
This is exactly what they think. Most of them have no ability to understand another point of view, and view their enemies as a Bizarro world versions of themselves. They can’t understand non-authoritarians, and believe that if they just managed to discredit some perceived authority figure of the other side they win. Since much of their work is trying to grab power for their side while disempowering others, their enemies must want the same thing against themselves.
TAPX486
While the poll numbers look bad for the GOP today, November 2014 is a long way off and the American attention span is very short. 70% of the public thinks the deficit is rising, 44% think breaching the debt limit is just peachy keen. A majority is opposed to Obamacare but a lot of people like the provisions of the affordable Care Act.
A 30% turnout in an off-year is good. Will the people angry AT the GOP turnout or just turn off. We know the people angry at everything Obama will turn out. These are people if Obama offered them a lifetime retirement in the Garden of Eden or the dying from the black death would pick the plague
barry
Nixon was weird — he empowered the white southerners, he employed Pat Buchannan to start using racial codewords, he was probably an anti-Semite. But he did nothing to gut the voting rights act. His chose as Chief Justice, Warren Burger, did his best to continue the Warren Court traditions.
It was his Attorney General, John MItchell, watch what we do not what we say.
C.V. Danes
@schrodinger’s cat:
I think what you are describing is an autocracy, where the goal is the acquisition of absolute political power and outlawing of the opposition. That “apartheid” would a consequence of this is merely a bonus in their book.
Tractarian
You know, I’d love to believe this, I really would. But I just read an article by some gay wizard saying that there is virtually no chance of the GOP losing control of the House next year.
And I can’t help but feel that, if the Republican nominee for president has a vowel or a “z” at the end of his or her name, then the media will be telling us all about how the party has turned the corner and is embracing diversity blah blah blah.
In short, I have a feeling that not a whole lot is gonna change in the near future. And if I’m a backwards-looking, 1950s-loving, nostalgic conservative, I wouldn’t say that’s such a bad outcome.
Anybodybuther2016
@RaflW: Proverbs 28:1
The wicked flee when no man pursueth: but the righteous are bold as a lion.
A clear conscience is a glorious and wonderful possession. Hear the Preacher! Its value cannot be measured on earth. Without one, your soul nervously looks around to see who is watching or coming to get you. With one, you fear no evil. You can take on any opponent. Why be afraid? You know you are righteous; you know the Lord is with you!
What a huge difference! Sin makes men cowards! The wicked fear mere shadows and run away. They dread judgment in this world and the next, much like the damned angels (Matt 8:29). The terrible God torments their souls with doubt and fear (Job 15:20-25).
They imagine enemies and hide. They are easily intimidated. Their hearts fear this is the time they will be caught and exposed, punished and judged. For courage, they drown their conscience – with noise, man’s praise, activity, false religion, alcohol, or drugs.
fourmorewars
Can’t you just picture Nixon saying, ‘Can you get me off the hook, Tom? For old times’ sake?’ ?
MattF
@Tractarian: Somewhat OT, but I predict Jeb! will get the R nomination in 2016. He’s decided, apparently, to lie low for now, and that’s turning out to be pretty smart.
Josie
@RaflW: I know. I live in Texas and my youngest son is one who falls through the cracks. Lucky for him, he has a mom to help. I feel sorry for all those others out there who are screwed. I hope that, at some point, the dems can fix the law to help them.
Belafon
@Anybodybuther2016:
Apply that to the current standoff. “We didn’t cause the shutdown.” “It wasn’t me, it was him.” “We had to because they just won’t listen to us.” Sounds an awful lot like Adam after the apple.
rec
props for the double Tap reference
sort of a Mach piece
Belafon
@Tractarian: He’s probably right, but they will pay, and the longer they think their holding on because of people backing them, rather than the way they have rigged the system, means it will take even longer before they are relevant again.
And, once again, why Obama cannot give in.
aimai
@schrodinger’s cat: Yes. I agree. I don’t think this is a stupid thing for the Republicans to be doing (Or allowing to have happen). I think its the natural consequence of the fact that their low-tax/low government service/all white utopia is, in fact, not giving voters in general what they want. So if you can’t appeal to a larger and larger voting population you have to push back and destroy the other guy’s voter base by any means necessary. The GOP has as much as admitted it, over and over again. The only “leverage” they have at the national level is the leverage of the hostage and the ransom because they know they will never win a national election again. They may say its because of blacks, or hispanics, or giveaways, or healthcare or whatever but its really because an increasingly large portion of the country wants a fucking working, modern, civilized, country in which people don’t go bare naked, starving, and jobless and they see a perfectly good role for group action (i.e. government) in getting it. The rubes, suckers, and greedheads on the other side just don’t have a good argument for why this isn’t so. Reality is against them. And all that is left is fantasy and spite.
gogol's wife
OT, but those NewsMax headlines can be hilarious. “Actor James Woods: Career Over for Opposing Obama.”
Turner Hedenkoff
>it was the smart move, Nixon was always smarter.
Then it sounds like it’s time to settle the family business. The GOP leadership is practically begging for a way out of this: What’s the highest price Obama & co. can extract?
Mullah DougJ
@Gordon, the Big Express Engine:
Maybe Obama
RaflW
@Tractarian:
I don’t see the situation getting much better by 2014. But rank and file Goldwaterites most likely didn’t see their situation getting better right away. But, as the American Conservative Union says
That wave, the period from Goldwater, to Nixon, Reagan and to Dubya, I’d posit, is ending. We’re seeing the death throws of the Movement Conservative era that has gripped our country and had its peak in St. Ronaldus, and it’s coda with the brush-clearer.
Obama’s election signals a new wave, potentially a new paradigm. We’re in it, so it can be hard to see the contours, but all this thrashing by Cruz, Heritage Action, all of it, is the old frame collapsing and the new frame of politics being built. But it won’t be quick and it certainly won’t be a straight line upwards for what is next.
The Pale Scot
Tbog linked to this, I try not to go to HuffPo, but this is great.
Read the Whole Thing
gogol's wife
Again OT — Alice Munro got the Nobel Prize for Literature! Has this been discussed? Did I miss it overnight? The Canadians must be overjoyed, as am I.
virginia
A large part of what needs to happen now is that liberals, progressives, centrists, whatever-elses, and the marginally sane need to stand up and say enough with the analysis of why these rabid crazies are unhappy, confused, unable to look after their own best interests. We need to stop being so damn polite and concerned and getting into yet more reading and writing about how it is that we got to this point. All of this why why why has been out there for years on end now. Brownstein’s piece is good. I know I’ve read it a few thousand times before.
It’s high time to just put it out there — You TeaParty people are ignorant and irresponsible. You OBVIOUSLY represent the very worst that the USA has to offer. We’ve made room for you because that’s the way the country works but you do NOT get to lead this country from your shed of stupid. You are not equipped for it and we have had enough. Agitate and propagandize and vote by all means. Who the hell are we to tell you not to? But when you lose, fools, you lose. And when you further lose by acting like thugs at the carny, it’s going to sting and you’re going to lose deeper broader and more.
And, oh yeah, the Koch Brothers need to be investigated, along with the Heritage cabal, and Edwin Meese III. Clarence and Ginni Thomas also have some explaining to do. The former needs to be removed from the bench. Give these rabid dog a new person of color to go after.
amk
Too much verbiage. apartheid america. That’s what they want.
Southern Beale
If anyone missed that awesome Daily Show bit where Jason Jones had an ex-FBI hostage negotiator help him try to talk to a wingnut GOP “strategist” who was spouting insane BS, it’s a classic. I posted it at the bottom of the Good News Friday thread, it’s really a must-see. What he says about why crazy people take hostages in the first place? It’s the GOP base in a nutshell.
RaflW
@gogol’s wife:
That’s awesome. I’m sure it has nothing to do with his abilities. No sirree.
shelly
I know. First Rob Schneider, and now Woods? Oh, the humanity!
FlipYrWhig
“Dependency” isn’t their primary concern. Their primary concern is that they think Democrats take their stuff. Then they’ve built this idea of what Democrats _do_ with their stuff once they’ve taken it: they give it to Negroes and illegals and surly slackers at the DMV so that they all vote for Democrats, infinity, no backsies. That’s how they can take their “But it’s mine!” complaint and make it seem morally upright rather than just a bunch of whining.
_Every time_ I have talked to a committed Republican, what comes up is that _they_ work hard and play by the rules, but _Those People_ just want a handout. Then, eventually, Those People get described more fully, and it’s always something like “women with fancy nails who use food stamps at the grocery store checkout.”
FlipYrWhig
@shelly: I smell buddy comedy!
virginia
@virginia: Sorry got my Brownsteins and my Greenbergs mixed up. It’s a good piece. There should be a nickname for this particular sort of essay. No matter how great they are, they say the same things at the same moment in time after each and every one of these Fun Moments in American Dysfunction. Could be part of the problem right there. Too much reading and writing.
Jeremy
@MattF: I don’t think Jeb is running. I still believe that a far right candidate will get the nomination this time. Ted Cruz may be unpopular among the rest of the population, but the base of the party loves him more now than ever. And if you look at the polls Jeb Bush is not even in the top three in the list of candidates.
sherparick
A couple of good articles at Salon (see http://www.salon.com/2013/10/09/tea_partys_shutdown_lunacy_avenging_the_surrender_of_the_south/) and Brad DeLong referenced Michael Lind’s piece a few days ago on the “Confederate Party.” This has been a on-going theme on this blog for sometime. I would be cautious about ascribing motives to a large class of people. Some are motivated by outright racism, I am sure. Many feel economically compromised and express this pressure in racial resentments. And they do get fed a tremendous amount of propaganda, and some of it just sticks. Rick Perlstein’s popular histories of the rise of the Movement Conservatives, and its violent and revanchist passions have been around for a decade now with “Before the Storm” and “Nixonland.” http://www.thenation.com/blog/176585/thinking-conservative-part-four-goalpost-moving
I really recommend reading Perlstein’s blog. It is almost as essential as the daily Krugman.
dmsilev
@gogol’s wife:
You know, I hate to tell Obama how to run his business, but you’d think that on the list of “people to destroy for having the temerity to oppose Obama”, James Woods would be fairly low-priority.
schrodinger's cat
@C.V. Danes: I meant apartheid, or if you prefer a domestic analogy they want the entire country to be like the Jim Crow South. Where there are tremendous barriers to vote if you don’t look like you are a part of the Republican base.
Jeremy
@Tractarian: Nate Silver is somewhat overrated. The guy is good but he called some of the senate elections wrong in 2010 and 2012, and he only showed the President winning by an electoral landslide near the end of the election. People like Sam Wang and a few others were more accurate than him.
So I think it’s ridiculous that people are saying their is no chance of the republicans losing when they could lose the house with the numbers they currently have. Gerrymandering can provide some security but they can still lose the house.
Joel
Why couldn’t these fuckers do something productive, like join a cult?
Napoleon
Wang is a joke. He has issued predictions in every cycle so out of line with reality as to call into question everything about his method.
Elie
There is one part missing to your description of their ideology:in order to have contempt for the benefits of government, such as ACA or whatever, they MUST reject all the benefits that it provides AND belittle those who receive its assistance. That is why the contempt for the poor or those who require any kind of assistance — even themselves. They cannot — will not — be united to “those people”. The benefits of government remain a wedge — not because of the benefits per se, but because receiving them means you accept your fellow brown, black, gay, women citizens and that you and they have similar needs and aspirations. They just cannot accept that and government services will remain the identifiable wedge that they can point out to highlight how special and strong they are as opposed to the other weak dependents who are not fit to be REAL US citizens. They will tolerate any meanness, degradation and suffering from their rich WHITE overlords to help eximplify how strong and different they are from “those people”.
They HAD to find something that would set them apart, even as everyone else was being made equal…they just could not allow themselves to be made equal to the rest of us..
Amir Khalid
@dmsilev:
Almost as low-priority as Rob Schneider, who blames Jerry Brown for the job offers starting to dry up when Arnold Schwarzenegger was still governor of California, and to whom Roger Ebert addressed the deadly words “your movie sucks.”
flukebucket
I know I am probably misunderstanding something but didn’t they do pretty good in the 2010 election cycle?
Joel
Part of the teabagger rage has to do with the fact that their guy – the one that they consider ONE OF US – is widely considered to be the shittiest president since the Civil War, if not all of US history.
Ripley
For a while now: he’s been babbling crazy atavistic shit for decades. Look for his take on Once Upon A Time In America, a film he was in – apparently, it’s about the degrading feminization of the United States, not Jewish gangsters. Um, yeah, okay James.
The Admiral
@dubo:
Yes, and ignorance. But I also think a lot of it is boredom. These are mostly privileged and/or rural older white people. They’ve got a lot of time and on their hands and really nothing to be afeared of. So they’ve created an alternate universe that offers the illusion of threat which positions them as the hero saving America. The reality of course is there is no threat and the things they do aren’t brave. But tune in to their narratives and you’ll get hip to what is at work. It is all just a circle jerk.
scav
Need a slightly bigger one-word answer than racism because the attacks on women and gays have been right up there too — the one on women actually making the most concrete progress. If Hillary were president, all three hatreds of theirs would still be present, active and toxic, although the anti-women stuff would likely be in the foreground.
hatred of immigrants and union / govt workers are high second tier targets I think. They’re really just greedy, selfish and scared and hating anyone making economic gains while they’re not. Why they except the superrich so often is a mystery, except they’ve always been aroud so maybe that doesn’t count as a gain?
Fred
Yeah there’s the crazy but mostly it’s just the stoopid.
Mark S.
@FlipYrWhig:
“Smell” is the proper verb there.
schrodinger's cat
@scav: They fear anyone who is not like them or does not believe in their orthodoxy. This includes all the categories you mention.
Fair Economist
Nate Silver and everybody else are basically saying “anything like normal politics predicts the Republicans are very likely to retain the House.” And that’s true. But we’re not in normal politics. Come next November the Republicans will be facing three gale-force headwinds:
1) Having taken the country hostage for political gain
2) Claiming a milquetoast reform is country-ending socialism – and getting caught, because that will be obviously false in a year.
3) An internal civil war because the Tea Partiers still won’t accept 1) and 2)
Analogies to 1995/96 aren’t appropriate, because the Republicans only faced 1), and it wasn’t as bad. Gingrich never threatened the debt limit, and his budgetary goals were definable and not insane (just bad).
The American electorate does have a short memory, but 2) and 3) are going to be front-and-center for years to come, and that’s going to bring 1) up in people’s minds. They won’t forget by next year. In addition, if the Republicans don’t back down soon 1) is going to become very memorable, because the Republicans will become the Grinch that stole Christmas. If this isn’t done by Thanksgiving it will never be forgotten.
Tractarian
@Turner Hedenkoff:
It does seem like Obama is in the position to make demands now, doesn’t it? Regardless of how negotiations play out over the coming weeks, it’s becoming solid conventional wisdom that, the longer the shutdown lasts, the worse the GOP will fare (in 2014 and beyond).
So what should he try to extract? Of course they’ve got to re-open the government. Long term. And the McConnell Rule on the debt limit (i.e., president can raise it unilaterally, congress can override but president can veto the override) would be nice. In exchange Obama can agree to start discussions over repealing the medical device tax or some other such BS.
Elizabelle
OT: It is pouring, pouring, pouring in Northern Virginia.
Have a screen door open because it’s so lovely to hear.
So it is pouring, pouring, pouring on those misguided truckers on protest and the other poor drivers stuck in Beltway traffic with them.
I would bet traffic is crawling at 20-25 mph in some places.
I’m happy. Our trees and leaves need this. Maybe we’ll get a picturesque fall after all.
Maybe our National Parks and Skyline Drive will open up soon so Americans can use the parks they pay for.
Seanly
There’s a great deal of paranoia and contradictory impulses.in the Republican base. Much of it is racism, but I think another big part is a huge lack of empathy. And not just empathy, but even the basic ability to see a situation from another angle (I’m sure the Germans have a good word for it).
Maybe a lack of empathy isn’t quite right – just that there’s huge fence around their empathy. They have the care and compassion to help, say, fellow farmers devestated by a tornado, but dance with glee about New Orleans drowning.
I’m a 45-year old white collar white male making decent money – I am solidly in the demographic to be a Republican, but everything I see makes me Democratic. I try to have empathy and compassion for those less fortunate than me. I know that whatever circumstances have befallen someone, there go I but by the grace of God (I don’t think it wierd for an atheist to think that). We inhabit a society that has set many of our advantages and disadvantages long before we’re born. I know that whatever meager programs or preferences are in place to help minorities or women pale in comparison to the baked-in advantages that I have soley by virtue of being a white male. The world is unfair and a hard place – I see one role of our democracy is to give everyone an opportunity to realize their potential. Even if we enshrine equal opportunity there will still be great advantages for some people due to where & to whom they are born plus the ability for people to not take those opportunities.
Tractarian
@RaflW:
@Fair Economist:
Wish I was as optimistic!
scav
@schrodinger’s cat: Pretty exactly that, although working it out in my mind like that made me think that the most hated others are exactly those that have made gains recently.
schrodinger's cat
@Elizabelle: What happened to those Constitution Truckers?
JPL
@Tractarian: So is the blog that I come to out of fear that Obama is gonna make a deal with the terrorists?
schrodinger's cat
@Fair Economist: Too soon to make predictions about the elections that are over a year away. Besides the hostage crisis is far from over.
schrodinger's cat
Actually at this point any one who is not in the .1% economically and is still a Republican is not doing it out of rational self interest.
piratedan
@Southern Beale: ty SB, that was worth the watch. If these people hate the government so much that they feel the need to destroy it for the rest of it, it’s obvious that constructs like majority rule and representative government simply don’t apply. They believe themselves to be righteous and correct and as such, they must deliver and impose their will upon us for what they deem to be their greater good. Ideological jihad, death to the unbelievers.
lol
@Tractarian:
I think one of the things Silver is missing is that no one really thinks the tea party types are in trouble. It’s all the “moderates” in swing districts.
And just to point out – gerrymandering gets you more seats in exchange for making other seats less safe. The tea party types are from states where the GOP doesn’t need to bother so they’re not going to be touched… but the blue states where the GOP has gerrymandered in majorities of seats are the ones where they stand to get wiped out once they go over the line.
Cassidy
This ends with bullets. I see no evidence that they won’t go down this path. Once they start losing power in elections, the “sanctity” of democracy and it’s process will mean nothing to them. What they can’t keep through legality they will try to take by force.
Fred
@Josie: ACA is a boon to everybody as it stops the insane practices of insurance companies: pre-existing condittions, lifetime limits, non tranferable insurance and gosh I could go on and on and I don’t know dick about it. To get this mess untangled we must accept the individual mandate.
It would have been so much simpler to open up Madicare to everybody and say screw the insurance companies but at least now we get some kind of regulation of the monster so there is that. Maybe pulling the rug out from under insurance cos would have crashed the economy. My brain is too puney to figure that out.
JPL
@lol: You are describing a situation where the repub party will become more extreme. There is no peak wingnut.
Villago Delenda Est
These people (I use that term loosely) are living in the mortal fear that they will be treated by the new majority minorities the way THEY treated the minorities.
So it’s yet another form of projection.
They can’t imagine all those darkies not seeking revenge for the way they were treated. All the paranoid concern about “reparations” for slavery, for example.
This fear has consumed them. Most of them have gone out of their way to avoid seeing the browns, blacks, etc as people just like them who MIGHT not hold a grudge.
But these people do. Because they hold grudges, big time.
Jeffro
@Joel: YES – this exactly. They thought they were on a roll with their compassionate conservative good ol’ boy until Iraq went south, OBL never did get found, Katrina hit, and W jumped on the social-security-grabbin’ train.
schrodinger's cat
@Cassidy: They tried it once before, they did not succeed.
catclub
@Elie: “They cannot — will not — be united to “those people”. The benefits of government remain a wedge — not because of the benefits per se, but because receiving them means you accept your fellow brown, black, gay, women citizens and that you and they have similar needs and aspirations.”
In other words, that message in the Gospels about loving your neighbor, did not quite get through.
catclub
@Villago Delenda Est: “This fear has consumed them. Most of them have gone out of their way to avoid seeing the browns, blacks, etc as people just like them who MIGHT not hold a grudge.”
and my point again.
Cassidy
@schrodinger’s cat: They are 1) not students of history, 2) believe they are better armed, 3) and deluded enough to think that the majority of citizens and military will join them. While anecdotal, the various conservative forums and FB gatherings I read are fairly consistent in these beliefs.
RaflW
@sherparick: This from Perlstein is f’in brilliant
Villago Delenda Est
Oh, I see someone else made my point in 88 earlier than I did. Well, great minds, etc.
Villago Delenda Est
@catclub:
The message of the Gospels is irrelevant to Mammon worshiping slime. And that’s what these people are. Jesus is not their savior, Jeebus, son of Mammon, is.
They are wretched people who believe charity towards others is a sin…nearly as sinful as enjoying sex.
Elizabelle
Howard Schultz of Starbucks has another naive-o-gram up.
No one is listening to the American public. All our government leadership is bad! All of it, I tell you.
I’m sick of this false equivalence shit.
Bitter brew.
Roger Moore
@RaflW:
It’s a dogwhistle for providing services to Those People. When white folk get Medicare, Social Security, etc., it’s doing its job. When Those People get anything, it’s creating dependency.
Villago Delenda Est
@Elizabelle:
Yup, I’m sick of it too.
Obama and Reid and the Dems are not at fault here. Don’t imply they share any blame for this disaster. Which is precisely what this fuckhead is doing.
TAPX486
AP is reporting that in exchange for MORE spending cuts the GOP will reopen the government and not blow up the world economy. No details on the amounts or time periods. I’m sitting on a number of fund raising requests for the democrats. If they give in to this blackmail/terrorism then they hit the trash can, since it is obvious that the D’s and Obama are totally useless. Just hand the government over to the tea party and the GOP, repeal the 20th century and be done with it. Rather than give the money to the D’s, I’ll just give it to some of the local panhandlers. At least they will put it to some good use, even if it’s only to support the local moonshiner
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@Fair Economist: Exactly this. Nate’s last point is the biggest takeaway: We may very well be headed into ‘Here There Be Dragons’ territory. His math right at this moment may be about as clairvoyant as a magic 8-ball given the circumstances.
WereBear
@gogol’s wife: MegaGREAT
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@TAPX486: doooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom
liberal
@Elizabelle: Krugman had a good blog post on this guy a week or two ago.
catclub
@Fair Economist: “If this isn’t done by Thanksgiving it will never be forgotten. ” My first thought on the six-week extension.
Posters at LGM were pointing out that a one year extension of the debt ceiling will put this same shitstorm right before the 2014 elections. But who can think that far in advance?
Ms. D. Ranged in AZ
The irony is that there is a kernal of truth in their paranoia–the country is becoming more diverse and that is leading to their loss of power to dominate our culture but also the business markets. IMHO, loss of cultural control will occur long before loss of market control….But once the “diverse” have the majority, the almighty dollar (and greed) will bend businesses to accept the buyers they have over the buyers they want.
catclub
@Elizabelle: Starbucks Letter:
First, reopen our government to serve the people
Second, pay our debts on time to avoid another financial crisis
Third, pass a bipartisan and comprehensive long-term budget deal by the end of the year.
“I’m sick of this false equivalence shit.”
If we get the first 2 from it, it is still a win.
Elizabelle
@Villago Delenda Est:
I’m wondering if Starbucks’ Schultz wants to see a “long-term budget deal” this year because he realizes there will be less Republicans in Congress later.
@liberal: Missed that. Hunting for the K-Thug post now.
ericblair
@Elizabelle:
(Deep evil voice)
“Fools. Your puny deliberate attempt to stop traffic on the Beltway is no match for the immense power of weather, volume, and stupid on the Friday before a long weekend, that will break your spirit and crush your soul. Sure, try to slow traffic to 15 mph, and watch in impotent despair as you are stuck doing 0 mph behind a delivery truck that rear-ended a late-90s Camry. Then break your teeth in rage as you try to leave and are left to rot in a 3-hour backup on I95 south.
“You do not stop traffic around here. Traffic stops YOU.”
fuckwit
OH STOP IT, this is so fucking simple.
What unites the Randroids and the American Taliban is that they have a common enemy: secular, democratic government.
They both want a power vacuum created by the destruction of government.
Now, what fills that vacuum, they most certainly won’t agree on. The Taliban wants a Christian Nation conceived in god-bothering and Christian Sharia Law, ruled by radical mullahs like Pat Robertson. The Randroids want manly Rourke and John Galt supermen types who are brilliant and rich to rise to the top and rule us all with an iron fist because they’re so much more perfect than us.
This is not hard people. They both want government to go away, even though they both want to replace it with different things.
TAPX486
Seems to me Obama should have given the GOP leaders two short documents.
1. debt limit will be raised till Feb 1, 2015 which is past the mid-terms and gives the new Congress time to act.
2. CR, at the disgusting sequester levels, to reopen the gov’t till Feb. 2014 so as not to damage the economy during the big Christmas season.
Then tells them, when you sign these and pass them into legislation, THEN we will talk.
after which he shows them the door.
Not really complicated
Fair Economist
@Villago Delenda Est:
This. A significant fraction of the Republican coalition remembers when lynchings were not too uncommon and generally not punished. They know their side is profoundly evil when ascendant and fear the other side will be too.
fuckwit
@Elizabelle: No fucking way I’m spending a penny there. Ever.
Omnes Omnibus
@TAPX486:
I think telling them that he expects them to do their job as a co-equal branch of government is the right thing to do.
Another Holocene Human
@schrodinger’s cat:
The history of the state of South Africa is very instructive here.
South Africa attempted a progressive constitution early in the 20th century and the Boers blew it up before it even had a chance to get started. Their church promulgated a Boer supremacist ideology. A lot of scary parallels to Christian white supremacist dead-enders.
Patrick
@Elizabelle:
Why is this so difficult for some people? What exactly does he want the White House to do??? Obama is not a fault. I never go to Starbucks, but if I did there is no chance in hell I would sign such a naive petition.
fuckwit
@Seanly:
Naw, that’s perfectly atheistic, because “there go I but for the grace of random chance” makes even more sense, and is absolutely true.
I have what I have largely because my parents fucked.
Elizabelle
@liberal:
RE Starbucks and Howard Schultz’s (possible) naivete:
voila the Paul Krugman column, Brewing Up Confusion, from December 28, 2012.
Want some Deja Vu with that latte?
fuckwit
@Anybodybuther2016: Wow… I’m impressed. The bible has… some good knowledge of psychology.
This is, almost perfectly, a description of projection. Guilt projected outside and experienced as fear.
Like closeted fundamentalists seeing gays hiding under their beds, out of guilt for their own homosexual desires.
Like authoritarian “libertarians” terrified of government authoriatarianism that isnt’ there, out of guilt for their own authoritarian desires.
Like white people terrified of black people out of guilt for what we did with slavery and segregation.
Like Rethugs terrified of Democrats just WANTING to do the nasty anti-democratic and autocratic things Rethugs have actually been doing, out of guilt for doing them.
Like the “masters of the universe” condeming those “takers” out of GUILT FOR BEING THE ACTUAL TAKERS!!
The last one irritates me the most. To have the IDLE FUCKING RICH AND KLEPTOCRATS, and bankers who are parasites living large off of other people’s productive work, or actively theiving from people, accusing workers of being lazy parasites. Pure guilt and projection: they are the parasites.
Projection. Who knew the writers of the bible were well aware of it and its effects and dangers.
fuckwit
@Omnes Omnibus: And that’s what he’s been saying all along so far. And I hope he keeps saying it.
Patrick
@Elizabelle:
By blaming both sides equally, Mr Schultz wants Obama to either delay or defund the ACA. I wonder if his customers at Starbucks are aware of this…
schrodinger's cat
BTW Andrew Sullivan’s brief moment of sanity may be over, he is back bashing Sebelius for the least than perfect rollout of online insurance exchange.
ETA: He also thinks that Obama might be getting “cocky”.
Bob In Portland
My sister, who lives in Florida and belongs to The Daughters of the Confederacy, is so totally inundated with right-wing propaganda that it’s impossible to communicate. Maybe “communicate”, because it’s so close to that other word, is not allowed in her world. Yesterday she was barking that George W. Bush was a progressive and Teddy Roosevelt was responsible for going too far with institutional racism.
I’ve got a brief family reunion in a month and it depresses me.
Bob In Portland
My sister, who lives in Florida and belongs to The Daughters of the Confederacy, is so totally inundated with right-wing propaganda that it’s impossible to communicate. Maybe “communicate”, because it’s so close to that other word, is not allowed in her world. Yesterday she was barking that George W. Bush was a progressive and Teddy Roosevelt was responsible for going too far with institutional racism.
I’ve got a brief family reunion in a month and it depresses me.
catclub
@fuckwit: “Who knew the writers of the bible were well aware of it”
The people who actually read it.
Patrick
@Bob In Portland:
I take it she was against Bush’s tax cuts…
Jeffro
@Seanly: @Seanly: I’m a 45-year old white collar white male making decent money – I am solidly in the demographic to be a Republican, but everything I see makes me Democratic. I try to have empathy and compassion for those less fortunate than me. I know that whatever circumstances have befallen someone, there go I but by the grace of God (I don’t think it wierd for an atheist to think that). We inhabit a society that has set many of our advantages and disadvantages long before we’re born. I know that whatever meager programs or preferences are in place to help minorities or women pale in comparison to the baked-in advantages that I have soley by virtue of being a white male. The world is unfair and a hard place – I see one role of our democracy is to give everyone an opportunity to realize their potential. Even if we enshrine equal opportunity there will still be great advantages for some people due to where & to whom they are born plus the ability for people to not take those opportunities.
Well said indeed.
SiubhanDuinne
@Higgs Boson’s Mate (Crystal Set): Apparently Elizabeth Hassleback or whatever her name is, is saying on Faux “News” News that owning cell phones and having air conditioning represents the “dark side” of welfare.
Uh huh.
dogwood
In general people who are attracted to the Republican Party are people from every socio-economic class who have a deep need to have power over others. The article on the “Punishers” that was discussed here a few days ago is right on the money. Some friends and I run the Salvation Army soup kitchen twice a month. The reactions I get when people find this out are always interesting. Some lay on the praise like I’m Mother Theresa or something. I’m quick to disabuse them of that notion. We cook some food, serve it, and clean up. We aren’t saints. The most common reaction is “Oh, the people you serve must be so grateful.” I’m quick to tell them that some are and some aren’t. I like some of the regulars and can’t stand others. What I’m clear about is that I’m not there to exert petty power over anyone. They don’t have to be grateful, that’s on them.
Elizabelle
@SiubhanDuinne:
Owning cell phones and having air conditioning.
Is Elizabeth Hasselbeck aware of the 1995 heat wave in Chicago back that killed dozens of elderly?
Wouldn’t it be nice for them to have A/C to cool them and cell phones on their person if they fall?
Of course, Elizabeth Hasselbeck may not believe in climate change either.
And — Chicago style! Thugs!
schrodinger's cat
@dogwood:
Also the fearful and paranoid.
schrodinger's cat
I encourage wingnuts to test the theory of gravity, after all it is just a theory.
Narcissus
@Elizabelle:
Yeah, she just doesn’t care.