So the insane clown posse has had their semtex vests taken away and the economy and the American people are safe for a few months, and the Teahadists got nothing:
With a deal to reopen the government apparently imminent Wednesday, it’s worth taking stock of what it was all for—the two and a half weeks without a fully functioning federal government, the nonstop chaos on Capitol Hill, the tiptoeing to the brink of default.
For Republicans, it was basically for nothing.
The GOP will actually get less out of the final deal being brokered than the party would have gotten had House conservatives never staged their revolt on Obamacare. In fact, the drama is likely to end with Republicans ceding policy concessions to Democrats.
Let’s review: Had the House passed the “clean” continuing resolution it was offered on September 30, the government would have remained open only until November 15, at the reduced funding levels determined by the “sequestration” cuts imposed by the 2011 debt-limit deal. Republicans still would have had the debt-ceiling deadline Thursday, plus another budget fight on the horizon a month later, as perceived points of leverage. (Democrats insist this leverage is illusory as the White House would refuse to negotiate, but to Republicans, that’s what these deadlines are: valuable bargaining chips.)
Instead, the House is poised to pass a measure that funds the government through January 15 and lifts the debt ceiling until February 7—taking the heat off Congress for months and eliminating three pressure points (the September 30 funding expiration, the October 17 debt-ceiling target, and the hypothetical November 15 funding expiration) in one go. The proposed deal negotiated by Senate leaders also would force the two houses to convene a budget committee, something Democrats have been demanding since the Senate passed a budget in March—and conservative Republicans have repeatedly blocked, for fear that any compromise negotiated between the two houses would mean selling out their principles.
And that’s exactly what happened. Complete and total capitulation and getting nothing for their hostage negotiations of the last month other than, well, this:
The Tea Party is less popular than ever, with even many Republicans now viewing the movement negatively. Overall, nearly half of the public (49%) has an unfavorable opinion of the Tea Party, while 30% have a favorable opinion.
The balance of opinion toward the Tea Party has turned more negative since June, when 37% viewed it favorably and 45% had an unfavorable opinion. And the Tea Party’s image is much more negative today than it was three years ago, shortly after it emerged as a conservative protest movement against Barack Obama’s policies on health care and the economy.
WINNING! Of course the Republicans won’t believe this from Pew until the lardhead from Unskewed Polls gives the numbers the ok, except sadly his website is now as defunct as the Romney inaugural committee. And while this is all a good bit of fun, let’s remember the best is yet to come, because now we get to watch the only thing that Republicans are any good at- circular firing squads:
Ted Cruz and Mike Lee may not have been able to strike a death blow to Obamacare today, but they were able to fight a fight that would have been impossible before them. They have now made it less and less possible for Republicans to collaborate with Democrats to fix or stabilize Obamacare.
So we must advance. Two Republicans in the Senate caused this fight that their colleagues would have surrendered on more quickly but for them. Imagine a Senate filled with more. We have an opportunity to replace Mitch McConnell in Kentucky with a better conservative. We should do that. We have the opportunity to send a strong conservative from North Carolina and we should do that. Same in Colorado. Kansas looks to be in play. Chris McDaniel will declare his candidacy for the Senate in Mississippi. Conservatives will rally to him quickly. Tennessee could be in play too.
The establishment has given conservatives a brilliant opportunity to advance against them and then against the Democrats. As Obamacare now goes into full swing, conservatives can show that they tried to stop it while Mitch McConnell and so many others sat and watched from a cozy booth the Capitol Hill Club leaving the fighting to others while they did everything possible to undermine the fight.
***The last time the major leaders of an American political party tried to compromise their way to power, the party broke apart giving us the Republicans. This fight too will break apart the GOP. There will not necessarily be a new party from it, but there will be a fundamentally altered party of new faces fueled by a grassroots movement now able to connect with each other and independent from Wall Street and K Street funders.
Never before have the people been less dependent on a party apparatus to play in primaries. Conservatives now have groups like Heritage Action, Senate Conservatives Fund, Madison Project, Club for Growth, FreedomWorks, For America, and others to fund and rely on.
Grassroots upset about this fight should be encouraged. We’d have never gotten this far with the GOP before 2010. Imagine now the possibilities in 2014 if we make examples of a GOP that refused to fight Obamacare.
The title of that post is “Advancing, always Advancing.”
Boy howdy. This is going to be fun.
EJ
I’m not personally a fan of ICP, but I think it’s kind of insulting to compare them to the Congressional Republican Caucus.
I mean, all ICP ever did was take a lot of terrible drugs, make terrible music, and throw poop at Tila Tequila. They never actually tried to destroy the country.
srv
These polls are skewed by the lamestream medias propaganda controlled by the White House. Real Americans will rally behind the great Ted as the Obamacare disaster cartwheels across the heartland and the drowning Obamadebt drags us into a deeper recession.
Just because you are in the majority does not make you right.
Also, too, JeffG is sad that the “older bloggers” ignore his tweets. You should reach out.
piratedan
I guess I still have problems reconciling just how the GOP has lost its ever lovin mind….
We have the professional grifter faction, served ably by Boehner and McConnell
We have the Teahadist faction, represented by folks like Lee, Cruz, Gohmert, Franks, Bachmann and their ilk
We have the Corporatists lobby, where you find guys like Johnson, Cantor, Nuegebauer and the K Street Kommandos
We have the secessionist/dixiecrat/plantation crowd – pick people with an R and from the South, pretty much all of them with assorted Birchers and closet Klansmen.
The Old Guard/NeoCons – Hatch, Graham, McCain and the oathkeeper crowd
The Luddite/God Botherers – Broun, Coburn and the other anointed
The Faux Libertarians – Paul, lesser and older and the gun lobby that loves them
Granted if you were drawing up a venn diagram, there’d be some shared subsets but I don’t feel like going all memebase and making a graph. You have various competing scams backed by everyone from Pat Robertson to Karl Rove and Grover the Nordquist and I’d like to fall back on the old truism of “follow the money” it’s just that there’s so damn much of it, where does it all go?
Will the Dems be able to siphon off some of their funding resources with the common sense approach of yes, we’ll raise your taxes and yes, we’ll demand that you pay an honest wage and deliver some healthcare, would you rather that than have your business fail with these folks that have no compunction whatsoever of destroying your economic livelihood? You heard them, they think that they’re doing YOU a favor by burning it all down.
Do the Dems reach out to their R brethren who may get tired of being in the back seat while they watch their party devolve into madness? What’s the next move? Impeachment? Dead horse redux with more Benghazi, IRS, AP, NSA and whatever other strawman that can be constructed in time for use?
Do we just put ’em in a ring, pump in some mud and charge tickets? If so, how in the hell do we deal with the winners? Nothing like some incentive to GOTV in 2014 because the true believers are really scary.
Alison
@EJ: Though I would not actually be surprised if more than a few GOPers do indeed wonder how the fuck magnets work…
BruinKid
Someone asked for movie title parodies about the GOP on Facebook. I came up with these.
Cruz Concordia
Cruz Control
Journey to the Center of the Derp
Fruitless Station
Insidious Chapter 2
Revenge of the Turds
Days of Whine and Roses
Les Miscreants
The Fuck-It List
Gullible’s Travels
World War Tea
Apocryphal Now
The Ugly Republican
12 Weeks of Shame
Cloudy with a Chance of Default 2
Don John (Boehner)
Despicable Lee 2
We’re the Grifters
John Loses at the End
The Hobbled: The Desolation of Smug
Sorry, once I start, I can’t stop.
I do like the imagery that World War Tea brings, with Cruz, Lee, Paul, et. al being mindless zombies hellbent on destruction.
bjacques
Sgt. Erickovich’s NKVD Band will be busy over the next few months. Note to GOP Congresscritters and Senators who voted “Aye” last night: If three guys show up at your door, don’t let ’em in.
[ETA]
Note to Total Ted: “And then the people will rise up” is not a viable plan.
billgerat
As I hear it, immigration reform is next on Obama’s list. Rubio tried to work it out, but the GOP dropped it like a hot potato when the Teapukes started screaming “SHAMNESTY!” Bringing it up now would only continue to put the PLA on the hotseat again.
piratedan
@billgerat: I’m all in favor of it, we have to drag these people kicking and screaming into the reality of the world and start solving these issues. Bruised fee-fees be damned, maybe the Dems can inspire part of the GOp to stop being so timid and marginalize their own rabid base long enough to get some things done that need doing.
c u n d gulag
@Alison:
American Dominionist Christian Evangelical POV:
Everybody know how magnets work, silly!
Jesus is the positive force.
Satan is the negative force.
And the good little metal filings cluster to the Jesus force.
While the Libtards adhere to Satan.
Sloane Ranger
Long time lurker and first time poster. Also British so I have been watching this with my mouth agape. I was watching CNN yesterday and they had some pundit on saying the problem was that both parties were electing extremists so there was nobody left in the centre to form bipartisan coalitions to pass things. Who are these extremist Democrats? Because from a UK perspective the Dems look pretty centrist to me.
Also on Crossfire they had some Tea partier on who said they didn’t go to conference because the difference between the two budgets were so great. He didn’ t have an answer when the Dem pointed out that this was actually why you have negotiations.
At the moment the Repubs seem to be rallying behind the Speaker but if the TP carry out their threat to primary the “traitors” there is going to be a lot of internal fighting within the party which may make them less of threat until they have completed their purge.
Do you think this is a possibility?
Villago Delenda Est
@Alison:
We know, for example, that Bill O’Reilly has no clue about tides.
That second highlighted section of the original post, however, represents teatard delusion in high form. These people are utterly convinced they have overwhelming popular support, and they speak for the whole of the American people. As someone will no doubt point out, this is based on excluding 60-70% of the population of the United States from the “American people” set that these idiots accept. No blahs, no Hispanics, no liberals, no gays, most women…all don’t count as “American people” to the teahadies.
Bill E Pilgrim
I love this part from Erick Son of Splitters:
I’m trying to think of the appropriate movie rant, it’s not Captain Queeg…
Because if there’s one clear lesson from this whole episode, it’s that Republicans aren’t fragmented into enough pieces yet. Surely they’ll gain more power if they can just attack each other even more.
As the so often brilliant TT puts it: (No the other brilliant TT)
http://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_606w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2013/10/16/Editorial-Opinion/Graphics/toles20131017.jpg
burnspbesq
Disciplined Democrats and a Republican circular firing squad?
Where the hell am I, the Backwards Parallel Universe?
Jay C
@piratedan:
Well, good luck with THAT! Unfortunately, one of the main “strengths” of contemporary right-wing politics is its astonishing ability to shut itself off from “reality”, and retreat into an epistemically-closed media bubble utterly free of doubt, debate or countervailing opinion. Yeah, it’s all good fun to point-and-laugh at the delusionary tough-talk emanating from sites like RedState, and their desperate attempts to put a positive spin on one of the biggest political defeats of the year – but the Tea Party types aren’t likely to be going away any time soon: there are too many voters and too much money “out there”. And unless and until the extremists can be politically marginalized – in both Congress and (more importantly, IMO) statehouses – they will continue to be a blight on our national politics. And I don’t see that marginalization as a viable possibility ANY time in the near future.
@Villago Delenda Est:
Of course, they do: on a “political” level,they live in a sealed system of positive reinforcement of each and every position they hold: one which, moreover, routinely frames any and every political position in terms of absolute Good Vs. Evil. Literally, for the more religious-minded on the Right: it’s not a system in which “popular support” is either relevant or necessary.
Fred
@piratedan: What you said! Twas a beautiful rant with the added advantage of having the ring of truth.
Fred
@burnspbesq: Yes but we can still count on Spock because he’s logical.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Fred: Don’t even go down that road, only because it would mean that somewhere there’s another Chuck Todd without a goatee.
Though just as stupid.
Randy P
@Sloane Ranger: Oh yes, and it gives me hope that amid the Repub wreckage, 2015 and 2016 may be extremely productive. Heck, I’m feeling so giddy that I could believe 2014 may be productive (though I doubt it, they still are good at falling in line).
The Tea Partiers will run popular insane candidates against perceived party traitors. Big Money, which now understands they were going to be shot along with the other hostages, will pump lots of money into apparently-sane candidates against the truly-insane.
There will be lots of bloody primaries.
Ramalama
Normally I do not watch tv news in the US (Canada’s news is much better, and Quebec even more so) but the Missus has a crush on Dianne Sawyer and so we watched last night as DS gave a lot of airtime to the losers. Ted Cruz and crazy eyes Michelle Bachmann. I’m trying to think of when the Democrats lost something big and representatives from their side got as much time. It’s not something I was seeking out last night, but man, I had to explain to her that ‘those are the losers’ because the way DS was covering it it seemed to my legal gal pal that the TeaParty were the good guys.
amk
@Ramalama: That’s librul lamestream media for ya. Even bbc seem enamored of these extreme wingnuts. A coupla days back, hard talk had the newsmax rw nut chief spewing the standard rethug bs points about how obama is really the dictator pushing his soshalist agenda like eewrope has, how debt is killing ‘murka, and the host, stephen sackur, just let him blabber on without any pushback.
Joey Maloney
@burnspbesq: That goatee looks extremely fetching on you.
Elizabelle
@Ramalama:
Caught a tiny bit of MSNBC early news. Some business reporter/Bartiromo wannabe:
Men of the hour were Mitch McConnell and John Boehner.
And everybody came off terribly in this, so Democrats cannot gloat.
Heroes were the GOP who voted to reopen government.
That all Democrats did was not worthy of mention.
Somebody named Kasi Hunt? Jackass.
(Hoping she is not related to Al Hunt.)
Elizabelle
@BruinKid:
Well done!
I especially like Cruz Concordia, and We’re the Grifters, and Cloudy with a Chance of Default 2.
Props for Fruitless Station.
amk
karl rover – That clueless kenyan is not a leader and yet rethugs walked into his trap.
Randy P
@Elizabelle: Since some people are apparently reporting that there is now going to be a budget conference because the Republicans had to be forced into it, I’m wondering how the continued “Democrats wouldn’t come to the table” story line is faring.
Poopyman
@Bill E Pilgrim: Not Queeg. Fred C. Dobbs.
MikeInSewickley
@Sloane Ranger: It always makes me sad to hear from people who have gotten their view of American politics from non-American sources because it reinforces the truth of how dysfunctional our government and even country has become.
Hell, when a stenographer of the House can go nuts and steal the microphone to talk about “God, A House Divided, Free Masons” before being dragged away for mental evaluation (damn true story), that just proves how batshit crazy one party has become. I’m really anxious to see if that story appears anywhere in hard core right news.
Cruz, Bachmann, etc aren’t outliers of the Repubs.
debbie
Whoever that representative was who said it, he got disrespected.
Elizabelle
@Randy P:
What makes me sad is the “oh no! What’s business going to do?” theme — if business has to admit the GOP has cracked up.
It’s pretended that supporting Democrats is beyond the pale.
Big business =/= main street and small or even mid-sized business, and main street and small business have Democrats as their advocates.
It’s not winner take all, and winner got there by crony capitalism practices coupled with no regulation.
Jamey
Well, not entirely. They did get to add debt and thwart economic growth….
“The financial ratings agency Standard & Poor’s said Wednesday the shutdown ‘to date has taken $24 billion out of the economy,’ equaling $1.5 billion dollars a day and ‘shaved at least 0.6 percent off annualized fourth-quarter 2013 GDP growth.’”
PaulW
“Advancing, always advancing”?
Isn’t that what CHE GUEVARA said?!
The far right wingnuts are openly and sincerely quoting COMMUNISTS?!
Ken
“Advancing, always Advancing.”
More like “Digging, always Digging.”
But if you can’t recognize you’re in a hole… well. Please proceed, GOP.
sherparick
Although I certainly enjoy a certain amount of Schadenfreude about the Republicans, I must admit I find the whole episode depressing, particularly the fact that in our two party system a faction which really wants to destroy the Government controls one of the parties. As Simon Johnson points out today in the Times, a large number of them were certainly looking to destroy the legitimacy of the Federal Government. http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/17/the-long-march-of-the-american-right/, and like zombies or Aliens, getting there heads blown off seems to hardly slow them down.
1. The whole shutdown, debt ceiling, wind-up to a “crisis” is great win for the Erick Ericksons, Fox News, Rush Limbaughs, etc. and all the grifters in the Conservative Grift Machine. It drives up their ratings and web site hit rates (the saddest news I heard this week was that Fox News was the 4th highest cable channel, not news cable, but cable overall (I guess behind ESPN, ESPN2, and AMC.). That means huge number of people going around with their heads filled misinformation (including “default” would not be a be deal, but if it becomes one, it would be Barack Obama’s fault).
2. The Obama administration has apparently really screwed the pooch with the software for the ACA roll out. By sometime next week the Republicans will put all the recent unpleasantness behind them and start hitting the “trainwreck” theme all the time. Unless they get it fixed, and fixed good and fast, it will be another club used to beat the legitimacy of the Administration and the Federal Government.
3. Slowing the economy and keeping growth lackluster is a feature for the Republicans, not a bug. The blame for it ultimately goes to the Administration and high unemployment means declining real wages and further distribution of wealth and income upward, which, along with the power and deference that go with it, is the prime objective of the Conservative Movement.
4. Finally, the Democrats and the Administration themselves seem as enthralled with deficit fetishism as their right-wing enemies. For the past month it has been the “only” issue in American politics, and not the issues of unemployment, increasing poverty, growing inequality, the on-going environmental catastrophe of climate change, and the blow-back of empire on the United States. And it promises to be the dominating issue for the next 4 months, in part because “The Village” and Wall Street see as an indirect threat of higher taxes for them unless Social Security and Medicare “the entitlements” are “reformed,” e. g. cut. If such a “Grand Bargain” comes out (relaxation of sequestration cuts for Social Security and Medicare cuts), then I expect Democrats to form their own circular firing squads.
NotMax
@BruinKid
Of course, there’s one title which could be repurposed with no change: Intolerance.
However, in the spirit of the game, two from the top o’ the noggin:
The Manichean Candidate
Dork Chop Hill
Keith P.
I’ve started reading RedState over the last few days just for the fun of it. Erick Erickson really does have delusions of grandeur and is starting to talk like some messiah-like character. He truly does see himself as the field commander for Ted Cruz, and watching him react to the GOP completely screwing themselves has been a joy.
Robert M.
Did Erick, Son of Erick, really just say that the new conservative GOP will be free of Wall Street and K Street because they can rely on the Club for Growth and FreedomWorks?
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Sloane Ranger: Post more often.
My take:
The Republicans are pretty good at looking at the minutia of the House and Senate rules and putting seemingly innocuous things in legislation that advance their goals. They will continue to attempt to press every advantage whenever they can.
Remember, this shutdown/debt limit fight was something that some of them had planned before the 2012 election. They may not have thought that it would blow up in their faces, but they’re not going to give up even if they modify their tactics. Maybe they’re hoping the Supreme Court will give them more power this term in some of their decisions, and that will swing things their way in 2014. Maybe they’ll try some new manufactured crisis – there are lots of opportunities coming:
– the confirmation hearings on the Federal Reserve chair and other federal appointments
– the continuing battles on the budget
– attempting to paint potential democratic presidential candidates as horrible monsters before they even announce they are running
– and of course, continuing to scream about Obamacare
But they will keep trying.
As Krugman points out on his blog this morning, the economy would be doing so much better if the Republicans had not thwarted so many sensible, centrist policies. We can’t forget that, and have to hammer away at them until we take the House back (and increase the lead in the Senate).
Eternal vigilance, and all that…
Cheers,
Scott.
Tractarian
And twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom!
NotMax
@Tractarian
Also what locusts do.
VOR
@amk: Crazy people are good TV. Good for ratings.
RobertDSC-PowerMac G5 Dual
We know that, as evidenced by your spending spree in 2002-2006 when you Rethug terrorists controlled Congress and the White House. We’re still paying for all the damage you did in that time. All of the debt we have is from then.
In other words, go fuck yourself, GOP scum.
TAPX486
While it is enjoyable watching the tea party rant and rave it still remains a fact that 2/3rds of the GOP House critters were still willing to crash the global economy last night. Over in the Senate 18 out of 46 Goppers, including the current front runners in the presidential horserace, were willing to do the same. Think on that for a moment. In order to remain a viable candidate for president in 2016 a GOPPer has to believe (or say he believes) that destroying the world economy is a viable instrument of public policy. Over the past three weeks there was a lot of talk about the 30-40 crazies in the House vs. the remaining silent/cowardly moderate wing. Well last night people had to stand up and be counted and it looks like the crazy wing has 144 members.
Cory Book, as expected won last night but tea party Ludgren still came away with 43% of the vote. If the GOP brand was that damaged and the tea party that disliked, he should have been down in single digits. I realize it was a typical off-year low turnout election but so are the 2014 mid-terms. The tea party may represent only 20% of the electorate but if they are the only ones motivated to show up[ to vote then the crazy caucus will grow not shrink. The D’s are going to have to put up good candidates next year in as many races as possible, esp. in those districts held by more the ‘moderate’ republicans. If that means electing blue dog democrats then so be it. I suspect there are a lot of these swing districts that a blue dog could win but a Barnie Frank type democrat would never have a chance. It is better to have some blue dogs with Nancy holding the gavel then the current situation. If the folks who turned out for Obama in 2008 had turned out in 2010 the tea party would have been a short lived joke.
chadwig
“Fucking budgets, how do they work?”
...now I try to be amused
@PaulW:
Sure. The right wingnuts use Leninist tactics in pursuit of power and Stalinist tactics when they get it. Steal from the best, I guess.
Jebediah, RBG
@piratedan:
The Axis of Anencephaly.
The Pale Scot
The Judaen People’s Front Suicide Squad
“Gasp.. That’ll show ’em”
fuckwit
Advancing? Looks like a rearward assault to me.
Thanks for the beautiful characterization: the teabaggers are now the “Insane Clown Posse” to me. It’s perfect.
HinTN
Tennessee is in play. hahahahahaha Lamar, the establishment, Alexander has raised $800 K and has $2 M in the bank. His TP challenger has raised a skosh over $50 K in this dead red state.
HinTN
@TAPX486: Actually, a substantial part of that 2/3 of R’s were covering their bets on a TP primary because they knew Nancy Smash had the votes to save their sorry butts.
Zaftig Amazon
@Sloane Ranger: The Mainstream Media does not believe that fact checking is in their job description. They have developed the “Both Sides Do It” lie to avoid offending any potential customers of the products they are hawking. One of my favorite bloggers (driftglass.blogspot.com) has been inveighing against this for years; he believes that it has allowed the conservatives to drag the GOP to the extreme right. A recent Rolling Stone article (Inside the Republican Suicide Machine) had the same conclusion.
The Pale Scot
@MikeInSewickley: heres the link
http://gawker.com/house-stenographer-dragged-off-floor-yelling-about-free-1446830813
TAPX486
@HinTN: That may well be true but as long as they are afraid to standup and vote against the TP agenda then they are enabling the TP to continue to hold the world economy hostage. Last night’s vote only occurred because the GOP was backed into an ever smaller corner. I suspect we will go thru the same dance next time the limit is hit. Hold the world hostage, wait till the last minute and then let Nancy ride to the rescue. Can you imagine the panic if the D’s had sat on their hands last night. Each time we do this it erodes America’s place in the world. It imposes some small amount of risk penalty on our debt and encourages the Chinese to talk about un-americanizng the world financial order. Many of these cowards spent the last two weeks showboating at the WWII memorial. Well if we can honor those who in Lincoln’s words ‘gave that last full measure of devotion’ then surely they can risk their political careers to stop the tea party madness.
The Pale Scot
@TAPX486: Cory’s base, people who do shift work, has a hard time finding time to get to polls on a week day, I don’t know if there was early voting. And I’m pretty sure Booker didn’t get much help from the NDP.
The Tea Putz’s hordes are all retirees or in rural S.Jersey and have better control of their schedule. Even if you have a car in North or Central Jersey the rush hour traffic is manic and parking can be non existent where the polls actually are.
The Pale Scot
@The Pale Scot:
If only because the traffic is lighter, also many of Cory’s suburban supporters work in NYC, and that can be a 2 hour commute.
When did Edit stop working?, it use to.
TAPX486
@The Pale Scot: What ever the specifics in each race it is still all about getting folks to the polls to vote. People stood in line for 8 hours to vote for Obama in 2012. They have to figure out a way to overcome the advantage that ‘to much anger and to much time on their hands’ gives to the TP voters. And voter-id laws do not make it any easier. And no I don’t have a magic bullet answers
slippy
Feels good. “You got NOTHING, you dishonest, inconstant, faithless sons of bitches. NOTHING. Now SUCK ON THAT.”
Oh, thank you President Obama for standing strong. Thank you Democrats for standing strong.
MCA1
@PaulW: Sounds more like something Hitl…, oh wait, Godwin! Sorry.
Anyway, the great irony in that post title by Ericks All The Way Down, as well as the content, is that he keeps using that word, “conservative.” I do not think it means what he thinks it means. He and his ilk are radicals, plain and simple. One of the ways the Republican Party, should it survive with that name, will need to rebrand itself, is to take the term “conservative” back and restore its actual meaning, because the Tea Party is making it mud.
Paul in KY
@EJ: Excellent point. ICP & Juggalos are much less destructive, and probably have a sounder grasp of reality & economic principles than any of the clown car Repubtarding teabaggers.
Paul in KY
@c u n d gulag: I would like to hear the Juggalo response, so I can compare…
rachel
@amk: This was an Obama trap built by… Republicans (with a kit they bought from ACME).
My word, but that Kenyan usurper is a cunning devil.
Anoniminous
@Sloane Ranger:
Not a possibility. It’s a certainty.
How it plays out is a Known Unknown. The TeaBaggers comprise 49% nationally of GOP primary voters, they have control of most of the state GOP parties, and their own financial support. Thus, they have the necessary basis for running and winning primary challenges against sitting Senators and Representatives. Whether they can then win the General Election is a bit of a puzzle. In some cases, I’d say they can. In most cases? I doubt it.
Anoniminous
@TAPX486:
Conservative political-economic ideology is unsuitable* as a basis for Public Policy of a modern, technological, industrial country. A big reason we’re in the mess we’re in is they cannot grasp the affects and effects of their corporate “Randian Hero Perpetual Motion Machine Inventing Job Creators!” knob-slobbing.
* I’m being nice
MCA1
@rachel: Great and apt anaology. This entire episode has been a Roadrunner cartoon, including the part where the House Republican caucus rode those jet-powered roller skates right off the edge of the cliff and had no idea they were in freefall until right before “SPLAT.” Immigration reform will hopefully be the anvil dropped on them when they look up to see what just happened.
MCA1
@TAPX486: One countering force to this will be the GOP establishment, however. If they pump a bunch of money into challenging Tea Party incumbents, and succeed in primarying them from the left [/heads explode], then they will open the door for Democrats of all stripes. Because their internecine warfare will leave TP moron voters dismayed, disgruntled, and at home nursing their grudges against the party and planning their couch revolutions, not voting for what they think is a RINO. In that event, R+5 or 6 districts actually become winnable. So, in some instances, we should actually be rooting for the Wall Street Republicans to fight back to regain control of their party. It would be the best of both worlds – Tea Party candidates replicating the Richard Murdoch scenario in moderate R areas, and moderates trying to win by attrition and money wasting in the Teabag Paradises.
BruinKid
@NotMax: Heh, I didn’t change anything from Insidious Chapter 2 either. ;-)