For all the No Labels wanking about non-extremist Republicans forming a “centrist” third-party, the truth is Joe Scarborough and Lindsey Graham will leave the Republican party in a wooden box. Ted Cruz and Sarah Palin, though….they’ve got the moxie to strike off on their own.
David Frum (correctly) gives a good argument to this effect and then (incorrectly) claims that a Palinista exodus would be good news for conservatives. You can guess why: it will free up Burkean moderates to appeal to the radical center. Nah. Guh. Happen. There may be all kinds of great reasons to vote for Republicans 2.0 or whatever the Teabagless GOP decides to call itself, but Republicans spent the last 40 years aiming their sales pitch at Neoconfederate nut jobs. Karl Rove (et al.) is a certain kind of girl, and Joe the Plumber is his ideal boyfriend.
Most Republicans, no matter how much they think the shutdown is a shit show, know this, that the Tea Party could (and would) secede from the GOP, and that this secession would completely destroy the Republican party.
And that’s why they’ll do whatever the Palinese Liberation Army wants them to do.
PsiFighter37
The ‘radical’ center is a nice little term for the ‘moderates’ of this country who don’t care to have enough of an opinion to do their civic duty and pay attention to what is going on and who they are voting for.
But I welcome the Tea Party to split from the GOP and form their own party. Become a nice little rump party based in the South, and hand (at the least) plurality control of the government to the Democratic Party for the foreseeable future. Not that I see this happening; the moneymen behind the Astroturfers know that they can’t kill the host quite yet.
JenJen
Is Palinese Liberation Army a category already? Begs it.
Redshirt
The Freepers seem like they’re down with a real 3rd Party. They are all Cruz/Palin disciples though, so of course they are all insane.
Eric U.
the dems are the moderate center. I don’t think that there are any republican pols left that would be tempted by any “moderate” party that wasn’t dedicated to shrinking governement at whatever human cost. So no, there will be no republican split. What are they going to do, become the party of 10 percent?
schrodinger's cat
There is no difference between moderate and Tea-Party Republicans, except for manners. Limbaugh and Brooks agree on almost everything one throws out insults, while the other name drops dead English philosophers.
FlyingToaster
@PsiFighter37:
.
Actually, I think that Koch/Frees/Adelson/etc. may have miscalculated. One of the hardest things to do is to time the beginning of a riot, and it’s damn near impossible to stop one once started.
The normal routes of control (CREAM) seem to have been short-circuited by the Citizens United decision. It doesn’t matter how much money the usual suspects have; the Teahadis have their own sources of crazy money and good luck threatening them with a primary — they don’t believe you. They’re not being funded by FreedomWorks/HeritageAction, they’re being funded by Joe’s Coal Mine and Grifters For Christ emporium from their district and the calls to their office are 80 saying “Shut ‘er down” to 20 saying “Are You FUCKING NUTS?!?!”.
The next couple of decades are going to suck beyond belief.
At this point, I think the FEMA camps are useless. There aren’t enough trained psycological treatment experts on the planet to fix this shit. Time to figure out how to get a divorce before the shooting starts.
SatanicPanic
Some of the dummies might leave, but they’ll just end up like Glenn Beck- shouting at people from some internet show that only crazy people watch.
rikyrah
Let them burn. Tired of their nonsense.
Sly
It’s the basic difference between conservatives and reactionaries; conservatives value institutional preservation as a means of attaining and maintaining power, but reactionaries don’t. Reactionaries want to burn things to the ground and start fresh with institutions that conform to their ahistorical ideals.
But there won’t be a third party. The more likely result of this, however, is that more of the few Republicans left among the sane become Democrats, because various rules and institutions within the electoral system incentives a party duopoly to the extent that its always going to be the path of least resistance. Moderate Republicans becoming Democrats has already been the trend for the last decade or two, and its how the Republicans broke the back of the generation-long Democratic majority starting in the late 60s.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Given his state, Lindsey Graham is trapped in the Republican party, I don’t think Scarborough has any constituency outside the Village, but I think his ego would make him susceptible to some kind of Bloomberg-financed (and utterly doomed) ego run, but I don’t think Napoleon Bloomaparte would ever finance any ego but his own to that degree. I suspect there are a lot of Scarborough types– Evan Bayh comes to mind, that sad delusional little Milquetoast from CT whose name escapes me– who would love to attempt what Perot did, but none of them have anything like Perot’s personality and I don’t think they could ever scare up the signatures for a national run. If McCain were ten years younger and had lost the ’08 nomination instead of losing the general to That One, I could see him feeding his TR delusions with a Bull Moose Party, more likely one with a self-agrandizingly romantic name. The Something Larger Than Ourselves Party is too wordy.
Snarki, child of Loki
It’s the Palinese Front for Liberation!
Splitters
That said, expect something like the TeaTards: initially claiming to be “independent” of the GOP, getting a lot of media ferment, then returning to their true home in the GOP.
It’s a rebranding, when the GOP brand gets too toxic.
Redshirt
The Wingularity will happen when the Tea Baggers become Democrats and take over the party, instituting a thousand years of darkness.
srv
The Tea Party and the DFH’s will join to create a majority, elect Cruz/Nader, and the trade will be secession for single-payer, no drones, and a unicorn.
Chew on that, cudlips.
Spaghetti Lee
@FlyingToaster:
I don’t think anyone should assume this will last for decades. Shit can change in a hurry. Compare 2004 (“Permanent Republican Majority”) to 2008. Yes, gerrymandering. Yes, Citizens United. Yes, insane apocalyptic death cult in charge of the GOP. But giving up is for suckers.
NotMax
The name ‘Whig” is in the public domain…
So too is “Know-Nothings.”
Suffern ACE
Obama, so I’ve been told, is the moderate center and would be recognized as such if certain folk wouldn’t see a crack smoking black panther party pimp under every rock.
Suffern ACE
Saw on the news hour that Tim Pawlenty is now posing as a GOP elder statesman. Man, can I be one of the elder statesmen on this blog? I would like to be considered the highest ranking commenter never to have been offered a front page gig. Please pretend that my inability to get attention in this jackal den as proof that I am one of the stable ones. One of the “good” ones.
the Conster
@Suffern ACE:
What is it about that mild mannered, endlessly polite, thoughtful Eisenhower Republican that makes das volk crazy?
NotMax
Rep. Robert Pittenger (R-NC):
Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha.
Tim C.
can we just draw up articles of expulsion? As in we just kick the confederacy out?
pseudonymous in nc
American parties are loose baggy collectives to begin with: they are large, they contain multitudes.
I could honestly see something evolving like the CDU-CSU in Germany, or perhaps better, the Liberal-National thing in Australia, where you have a more or less permanent coalition of wingnuts with different bases, so states without a teabagger presence are just GOP, and Full Teabagger states are Full Teabag. (In Australia, the Liberals are the urban wingnuts, and the Nationals are the rural hyperwingnuts.)
Different labels, different leadership, but common wingnutty goals.
jl
” And that’s why they’ll do whatever the Palinese Liberation Army wants them to do. ”
But, unless they capture the Senate and WH, they will have the House, and the House GOP has demonstrated that it can do nothing. Unless the teabaggers can somehow make significant electoral gains.
BTW, which is why Cole’s post about how they are really gonna do it, was kind of like a category error. If they are gonna do it, they are gonna do it by being incapable of doing anything at all, and not do anything all, all on their own.
So, the point is, what a mess, I guess.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Suffern ACE: This. There hasn’t been a functional left wing in this country since LBJ and the Great Society. That was 45 years ago. I’m always ready to welcome the socialist workers paradise, but what we’ll see is the continued growth of neo-feudalism. I’m afraid that all we can do for now is fight the long defeat.
amk
@Eric U.:
Cue collective meltdown of firebaggers.
NotMax
@amk
The center ain’t what it used to be, and that’s a major portion of the problem.
the Conster
David Frum should do a radio show and challenge Limbaugh. If he wants to be a non-neanderthal Republican Thought Leader for the plutocrats in the new milleniam, he should step up and be the new Jay Severin.
PsiFighter37
Hitting the sack. Tomorrow should be interesting, moreso in a bad way if a fucker like Cruz pulls some stunt in the Senate, or if the House decides to be a bag of salted dicks, as usual.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@jl: I’m probably channeling fuckwit here, but that’s kinda the point: the House does nothing because that’s what the Teatards went there to not do. So to speak.
pseudonymous in nc
@Comrade Scrutinizer:
Think about that silly Esquire survey, and how narrowly it’s drawn on the left. Basically, if you don’t hate teh ghey or value zygotes more than people, you’re a bleeding heart. In Eurocommiestan, that makes you a centrist.
pseudonymous in nc
@FlyingToaster:
Also too, teahadist House GOPers whose districts include 750,000 people get 500 rabid supporters egging them on on the twitters during the day and think that it’s a tsunami of support.
Just Some Fuckhead
Lindsey Graham wishes Joe Scarborough would leave in his box.
FlipYrWhig
@NotMax: the center ain’t what it used to be because Republicans convinced too many white people that black people were taking their stuff and the schools were turning their kids gay.
fuckwit
@Comrade Scrutinizer: What? Not really. The nation is getting sick to death (literally!) of wingnut and corporate policies. There’s a very loud, very violent rump of teabaggers fighting the inevitable demise of the right wing. Demographics, social change, technology, etc. More Americans are approving of traditionally liberal policies now than before St. Reagan’s time at the teleprompter. The general trend, since the dark days of the Shrub era, have been UP, towards progressive ideals. Slowly, but we’re recovering from a miserable period of Reaganomics. That’s why this teabagger suicide bombing is so scary and so dramatic, it’s coming at at time when things otherwise would be heading inexorably (tho very slowly) in the left direction.
I think this is the last stand for the right-wing, christian fundamentalist, Reagan-worshipping, gun-fetishizing, white-supremacist, patriarchal old order. This is it. This is their last gasp, and they’re trying to die with their boots on.
The future is multi-gender, multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-sexual-orientation, community-oriented, environmentally-conscious, unreligious, scientifically curious, globally-knowledgeable, locally-oriented, and sees a role for government as a positive force in society. The future belongs to Democrats.
If we get to HAVE a future. And that’s what I think this teabagger tantrum is about. They’re trying to burn down the house so we can’t live in it, to scuttle the ship so we can’t sail it.
Chris T.
Over the cliff and down the slope
To debt-default house we go
The House knows the way to clobber the sleigh …
NotMax
@fuckwit
Your use of the phrase reminded me of a favorite humorous apocryphal bit.
Sign on a movie theater marquee:
THEY DIED WITH THEIR BOOTS ON
AND SELECTED SHORTS
Hill Dweller
Face
@NotMax: Wow. There’s some industrial-grade WATB going on in that link. Lost count how many times the article said “he was against the shutdown, but voted for it anyways”. What a bunch of fuckin clowns.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@pseudonymous in nc: I liked the political compass approach–seems like I was -8,-5 on their grid. Way off the page as far as Esquire is concerned.
fuckwit
@amk: Wat? I think they’ve known that for a long time, that’s why they are so upset with the Democrats.
The Democratic Party right now is a center-right party. The Republican Party right now is a far-right party. At least that’s what they’d be called in for example Europe. There’s no real left here.
But, as I said earlier, the trends in the Democratic Party (and demographically, and economically, and environmentally and politically due to us activists) are pushing it gradually to the left. What’s keeping it so stubbornly on the right is the Overton Window being shoved continually by the far-right Republicans: perfect example being the compromises that were required to get ACA passed. If the Republican Party implodes, then you’ll see the Democratic Party have at last the freedom to move to eventually be a center-left party, slowly.
To really have representative government here, though, we have to undo corporate personhod, and Citizens United, and have some kind of better public or otherwise non-profit alternatives to our wretched corporate media. I’d say that’s a generation-long project.
Bill E Pilgrim
@NotMax: Makes sense to me. As every Jewish mother has long said, always wear clean underwear in case you’re hit by a truck.
Anoniminous
GOP antics aren’t doing them any favors.
NotMax
@Face
Yes indeedy.
They need to form a Stop Me Before I Vote Again caucus.
yam
Driftglass has a great post covering this very idea.
gwangung
@Anoniminous: Meh. Aggregated numbers mean little. It’s the votes in the Congressional Districts that count.
Ash Can
It would, of course, make sense for the Grand And Glorious Teahad to go spinning off aimlessly from the GOP and for the more realistic elements in the GOP to watch them fly off and say “good riddance,” especially after this latest fiscal shitshow. Instead, the Republicans who still have some relationship with reality look at the Teahadis running around and just shrug and say, “Oh well, I guess that’s where our party is now; I’ll go along with it.” Or they look at their constituents, who, thanks to Fox “News,” RW hate radio, and a family of those people living in the White House, are speaking in tongues and wearing underpants on their heads, and they think, “Geez, I’d better get with the program if I want to keep my job.” Nobody in the party has said boo about where the party was headed or who was taking it there, with very rare and isolated exceptions. And this is what has made the most recent public infighting so remarkable. Uncharacteristically, vituperation has been flying, even though much of it was directed at an “approved” target (viz. Ted Cruz).
Nevertheless, when the actual votes were taken, the Republicans all voted in lockstep, whether Teahadis or critics, and regardless of expressed personal desires to vote differently (e.g., Mark Kirk, who unhesitatingly blew his moderate/independent cred all to shit and back through this whole sorry episode). So, ultimately, why should the Teahadis want to leave the GOP, when they’re allowed to run the asylum? And why would the “moderates” want them to leave, when being buddy-buddy with them and adopting their aura of bat guano ingratiates them with their voting base? Throw in a big dollop of gerrymandering to prevent too many sane voters from befouling the GOP districts and forcing the reps who are still on their meds to think twice, and you end up with a static loop of whack. Nobody’s going anywhere.
Spaghetti Lee
@fuckwit:
Honestly, I’d question the idea that the Democrats used to be leftie central. Most 20th century dixiecrats would absolutely be Republicans today and they used to have a lot more pull in the party. The LBJ era happened I think in part because 1) LBJ just knew how to put the screws to people and 2) he had such a massive congressional majority that he could afford to slough off a few degenerates. I think 1964-66 was a great era in terms of legislation passed, but also kind of fluky in the amount of things that went right, and Dems shouldn’t just try to relive that era.
And on the flipside, I’d put the leftism of Bernie Sanders or Emerson or Grayson and I’m sure there are more I’m not thinking of up against the Dems’ left flank of any era.
Bill E Pilgrim
@fuckwit:
Agree with your assessment in general, especially that we have no real left, in the global sense, and Democrats are for the most part center-right. However even the far right in most of Europe would find the US Taliban to be extreme, particularly the lunatic religious extremist aspect. Marine le Pen in France for example is making scary gains, but it’s all about racism and xenophobia, she and her father follow the basic French idea that religion has no place in politics.
The US extremists really are more a match for the most extreme religious factions in the world, thus the nickname above which is well-deserved. This is one thing I’m not sure everyone understands, how the magical thinking of religious extremists like Bachmann is driving this insanity, though “we sang Amazing Grace at our meeting about whether to cause global apocalyptic meltdown” is a pretty big clue, so I think more people are getting it.
Mandalay
@fuckwit:
Maybe google is listening to you…I have noticed this week that Google News now includes social categories under its “US” menu entry.
For example, right now they have menu entries for “Bullying”, “Same-sex marriage” and “Strike action”. Yesterday I saw one for “Climate change”. That may not seem like a big deal, but it’s spoon feeding visitor eyeballs with information on topics that the right would mostly prefer to ignore.
Anoniminous
@gwangung:
Aggregated numbers quantify the political environment (Fitness Landscape) and eventually turn into voting numbers. This, and the other polling results, i.e., the 65+ demographic’s support for the GOP dropping by 15 points, are the same kind of early indications we got before the 2010 GOP Wave election.
Bob's Had Enough
@Comrade Scrutinizer: Does that mean that your goals were not represented or that you are more impatient than most people?
eemom
All of this, while interesting, has a certain Titanic deck chairs quality to it…..or maybe it’s all the king’s horses and all the king’s men…..by which I mean that, political ramifications aside, this tiny little minority of deranged fucktards ARE looking good to, like, wreck the whole world like, tomorrow.
Bob's Had Enough
@Spaghetti Lee:
of rock and roll.
Don’t sell the emerging youth culture and flower power/hippies short. We were pushing very hard for change and communicating with each other as had never happened before. We changed ourselves and while some have slipped back we moved the center firmly to the left.
Another Holocene Human
@PsiFighter37:
More like rich white men who want their taxes like Goldilock’s porridge and have no fear of ever, personally, suffering due to GOP/Teahadi policies being enacted.
RaflW
@Suffern ACE:
Oh, man, can I get my donation to PBS back? What a useless putz.
Another Holocene Human
@efgoldman:
Collins could go indy, but why bother? The GOP has all the money and Maine’s suburbanites (such as they are) are finally flipping parties which has actually gotten far right radicals (LePage) into office* in fact could do again. She can probably do one more term as a GOPer before the state flips blue.
*much like the Canada they’re practically a part of, hur hur rural northern Maine
Eric U.
@Spaghetti Lee: there used to be communists and socialists in the U.S. I assume there still are, but in incredibly small numbers. The efforts that were gone through to get rid of those ideologies were somewhat reprehensible, but it would be nice if the 27% teahadis would shrink to similar numbers.
Another Holocene Human
@fuckwit:
Many of them are the same asshats that burned their own houses because Black families were moving in and they wanted the insurance money, and have schemed ever since to crash the finances of the municipalities they fled.
They HATE HATE HATE that the younger generation is flooding to cities, making them vibrant, that Black professionals are succeeding and majority-minority areas are thriving. DC and Atlanta fill them with rage. NYC too. Even more so after Bloomie’s gone. They hate that guy but they’ll miss him pretty quickly.
Another Holocene Human
@Chris T.:
Over the cliff and down the slope
To debt-default house we go
The House knows the way to clobber the sleigh …
Through the stunned and drifting bo-zos!
the Conster
Imagine being John Boehner tonight – your choices are you’ll either be solely responsible for the first default in the entire history of the US and the cratering of the domestic and world economy, or, Nancy Pelosi can parade around displaying your nuts as her coup. Couldn’t happen to a better guy.
xenos
@Another Holocene Human: They are like abusive spouses, ready to kill the wife and kids rather than let them move out and onwards with their lives.
The rest of us need some sort of restraining order on these people. We have a constitution with many choke-points that allow for this sort of sabotage. Maybe it is just anachronistic and needs a radical overhaul.
Having sworn, sincerely, an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States, I am not sure what to do about such a realization. Then again, I swore to uphold the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and that does not seem to cause the same sort of moral crisis.
amk
@xenos:
Yup.
Another Holocene Human
The time will come when constitutional amendments don’t seem ridiculous any more.
If we survive this.
Goddamn, it’s like 1936 redux–the recession within the depression. Same. Damn. Scenario. (But substitute cash flush money men for god botherers and millenialists.)
fuckwit
@Bob’s Had Enough: That’s for damn sure. The original hippies were some Overton-Window-moving motherfuckers. Have to give them that, and we have many things today to thank them for (politically, but also including lots of great music). But, sadly, they flamed out in 1968 Chicago, just as the teabaggers are doing now. Rage is not a sustainable fuel.
GregB
It is a little freakish watching some of these real time meltdowns of people I know. They are putting their pathological fears and hatreds out on the internets via FaceBook for everyone to cheer or jeer.
They are scared mofos. Chickenshit bitter and angry about everything.
My good friend is doing a painting job and his employers son is so depressed about Obamacare that he said watching football was a worthless endeavor.
Bob's Had Enough
@GregB: I just can’t comprehend what these people think Obamacare is. It’s basically – you gotta buy health insurance and if it would be expensive for you we’ll help you pay for it.
They must simply be afraid because they’ve been told to be afraid. It’s like Y2K and the Mayan calender crap.
Elie
@eemom:
I don’t think that they will …really. question is what will they do after this crisis. they are lost no matter what happens. In an odd way, their extremity I think will fuel a more prominent activism on the left… there is a lot more interest in working class issues, etc.
These folks have a lot of passion and energy, but not a lot of brains .. Somewhere, their means and ends got separated and that is why they are in this position today… they are not rallying flocks o supporters to their cause and gaining momentum in polls. they are trying to figure out how to get out of it even though they look like they are still trying to work out a deal.
sure, we are still in some danger cause they are not in control of themselves — but a successful end to this for them is getting more and more remote by the minute..
jc
What kills me is the Tea party is like GWBush on steroids. And after eight years of that assclown at the helm, it’s just too much. I didn’t think anyone could be … less intelligent than GWB.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@fuckwit: yes this – in 2000 we would have all thought it ridiculous if some one told us after 2010 the president would be black, a notable percentage of the population would be openly atheist, there would be a national health care system of sorts and gays would be getting married. The whole conservative rage is just a primal scream against all the social change that is happening that their reptilian brains can’t handle.
This isn’t some cunning plan for some Right Wing Dr Evil, this is just pure pants shitting panic from them.
Bob's Had Enough
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: And it’s paralleled by the Islamic fundamentalists. They’re not all that much about living a holy life (the Qur’an forbids much of what they do), it’s about older religious males losing control over society. Them losing their privileged status.
priscianus jr
Either way, they are finished as a national party.
hells littlest angel
… Joe Scarborough and Lindsey Graham will leave the Republican party in a wooden box.
Thank you for brightening my day.
brantl
@Eric U.: 13.5%, actually.
gvg
It’s happened in several stages but the most noticable time was 2006. Alot of voters who cared about evidence and results left off voting Republican, and that left the stubborn stupid ones less diluted by sense. This ignorance of how things work is what is producing the current trainwreck.
It seemed to me the trend started with the fall of communism and the “peace dividend”which meant lower taxes and cutting government actually made some sense and for awhile worked well. A lot of would be polititians jumped on the GOP bandwagon and the older policy oriented guys welcomed them even though more and more of them were stupid. The GOP running on slogans was easy money and wins and I watched them win more and more elections. The older policy guys ran the heard and came up with the ideas but they needed more GOP legislators to vote so they welcomed the useful idiots. Then their idea didn’t work any more and a lot of them were older themselves and retired. After 2006 there was nobody with brains left. It wasn’t just the war going bad, there were also some scandals that drove out some of their remaining (corrupt) brains.
Now that I think about it I wonder if people like Delay drove out potential rivals with brains before their own crash and burn because they sure seemed to run out of brain people suddenly.
VOR
@Suffern ACE: As Governor of Minnesota, Pawlenty once, and only once, raised taxes to deal with the 2002 recession. He later claimed it was a “user fee” but the local branch of Grover Norquist wanna-bees never forgave that apostasy. They are called the Taxpayer’s League, which always struck me as an ironic name for a group devoted to not paying taxes. After that experience Pawlenty spent the rest of his term draining reserve accounts and relying on budget gimmicks to avoid anything remotely reminiscent of taxes.
After the 2007 collapse of the I-35W bridge into the Mississippi River, at least partially caused by lack of maintenance to save money, Pawlenty seemed open to new revenue for transportation. Once the national media left town the idea was shoved down the memory hole and he began his failed run for McCain’s VP slot.
In short, I think Pawlenty is smart enough to not be a full ideologue but he also learned not to deviate from orthodoxy. And he is now well paid for toeing the line.
Jockey Full of Malbec
@VOR:
“Taxpayer” is the closet thing to an honest job title that Grover Norquist has ever had.