We’ve reached a point in Republican politics in this country where Grover “Drown the Federal Government in a bathtub” Norquist is representing the moderate, Establishment-wing of the party. Norquist supports the newest continuing resolution (now rebranded as a stopgap measure) while pretty much all the other activist groups are opposed to keeping the government open.
On Friday, three conservative groups — the Family Research Council, Club for Growth and Heritage Action — announced they were against the new stopgap. They were joined Monday by the Susan B. Anthony List, the American Family Association, the Tea Party Nation and the National Taxpayers Union.
Other conservatives support the stopgap. Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist argued that the GOP is moving at a pace at which it could meet its goal of reducing spending this year by $61 billion through a series of short-term measures.
These fucking goons were unhinged when they shut down the government the first time and impeached the president for his extramarital dalliances. After years of listening to George Bush’s babble, Dick Cheney’s doomsaying, and Bill O’Reilly’s nonsense, this group is now officially beyond nuts. They’re just dangerous.
It’s not just the party that has moved far to the right, but the individual members. Lindsey Graham used to pass for somewhat normal. Now he wants the Director of National Intelligence fired for telling him in advance that Gaddafi had the upper-hand in Libya. John McCain used to make progressive legislation with Russ Feingold. Now he’s accumulating one of the most right-wing voting records in Washington. Bob Bennett used to be a bagman for Howard Hughes. Now he’s too moderate to serve in public office for the GOP. Dick Lugar and Olympia Snowe are next.
At this rate, these bastards are going to nominate Caligula to run against Obama in 2012. You can’t have a decent government in a two-party system when one party is this dysfunctional. I am beginning to think that we should all register as Republicans and try to save the country by putting a stop to the insanity.
Or, another approach would be to follow Ronald Reagan’s example and sell them some TOW missiles so that they will set our government free. We can divert the money to fund public broadcasting and Planned Parenthood.
It really is insane. The mislabeling of “conservative” “moderate” “centrist” “liberal” is maddening. Who used to keep track of this stuff-how is it supposed to work?
How did these labels become so meaningless?
“Centrist” always has been meaningless. It means standing at the focal point of the Overton window. I don’t think Grover Norquist is there. He just looks like he’s there because the rest of his party have run off the cliff.
The center of opinion in the country is to the left of Grover Norquist’s drowned government.
Barack Obama enabled it by deciding that we should do battle with these imbeciles on the spending front by giving up on tax policy. The Deal was an abominable mistake on both policy and political terms, and he’s still offering them more cuts.
Right. This is Obama’s fault.
Did he say it was Obama’s fault? No, he didn’t.
He “enabled it” but it is not his fault?
That’s a stretch.
Define: enable:
“To give strength or ability to; to make firm and strong; To make able (to do, or to be, something); to confer sufficient power upon; to furnish with means, opportunities, and the like; to render competent for; to empower; to endow; To allow a way out or excuse for an action”
He encouraged it; he made it easier for them; he “enabled” them. Happy? He has yet to make a case for liberalism, and continues to do battle on THEIR turf. You can’t beat Republicans at their own game, and he keeps ceding more ground.
It’s not just Obama’s fault, but he is the leader of the party who abandoned raising taxes before the election. It’s not his fault that his party sucks, but he has sucked at leading the party.
Actually, when people use “enable” in this way, they are (whether they know it or not) employing (although usually metaphorically) a specific usage from the field of psychology:
“An enabler in most definitions is a person who through his or her actions allows someone else to achieve something. Most often the term enabler is associated with people who allow loved ones to behave in ways that are destructive. For example, an enabler wife of an alcoholic might continue to provide the husband with alcohol. A person might be an enabler of a gambler or compulsive spender by lending them money to get out of debt.
” … the enabler … is actually making a chronic problem like an addiction worse. By continuing to lend money to the gambler, for example, the gambler doesn’t have to face the consequences of his actions. Someone is there to bail him out of trouble and continue to enable his behavior.
“The term enabler is also part of the larger definition of codependency. Codependency at first arose as a definition of adaptive behaviors a person might make if he or she lives with someone with substance abuse or severe emotional problems. A codependent tends to remain so, because he or she adapts to or ignores the behaviors of the ill person. In fact, the codependent often becomes an enabler because it allows one to be involved in fewer conflicts.
“For example, one spouse is an alcoholic, while the other is not. Perhaps the spouse who doesn’t have a problem with drinking has stated that she/he will no longer allow alcohol to be consumed in the house. Then the fights ensue. The alcoholic spouse violates the rules again and again.
“Eventually, the non-drinking spouse may simply decide that the fights are worse than the person being drunk. He or she caves in on this issue, perhaps even purchasing alcohol for the spouse. In this way, the spouse is the enabler of the alcoholic, and is codependent, acting in unusual ways that continue to allow the spouse to behave in a destructive manner.
“Enabler can be a more broad-based term for other forms of abusive and destructive behavior. The wife who refuses to fill out police reports after being abused by her husband enables his continuing to beat her. Thus the enabler often suffers almost as much as the mentally unbalanced or addicted person.
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-an-enabler.htm
well, to be fair, one of the reasons every liberal I know was upset about the tax cut deal was that it told the republicans that holding programs hostage worked. and as a number of us predicted at the time, the GOP is now going after the debt ceiling.
you weren’t at DL that night, but I watched as a number of people we both know, all very strong Obama supporters, jeered and booed at the screen when he gave in.
so no, I can’t say it’s Obama’s fault… but giving them their tax cut didn’t help anything.
While its easy to fire back at people who make comments like the one above pointing the finger at Obama for something that, on the surface, is not Obama’s fault, I think there’s more to it than that.
Generations from now will judge Obama on how he handled the politics of the economic depression in place when he took office (or great recession, whatever you want to say). I think history will be kind with respect to his policies, but it may not be kind with respect to his politics, ie, how he played the game of politics. The absurdity that is our current political arena can’t of course be blamed on Obama, but he’s a significant player in it. I’m not a hater and neither is the above commenter. Much like a fan watching the team he roots for get creamed, there’s a real frustration that we’re getting beat. Badly. And our guys don’t really care.
The remedy for this is conceptually simple: get new guys and gals on the team.
Look at the Democratic members of Congress. I would love to see the age Demographics of the Democrats in Congress. Most are older than I am, and I go on Medicare this year.
Where are some energetic 30-somethings for the House and 40-somethings for the Senate?
This political environment is no country for Brett Favres.
Don’t think its that easy. Our political candidates will only be as good as our electoral and political institutions will support. There are real and not insignificant institutional obstacles in place that need to be reformed before progressive candidates can both win and have a real seat at that table. The bad news is, I think Obama missed his chance to make institutional reform a top part of the agenda. The (barely) good news is I think what’s going on in WI might start to change the dynamic a bit by giving unions some momentum to start mattering again.
You just stated the Catch-22. Which side of the critter do you want to tackle. Reform is difficult or impossible because of the people in office; getting different people in office is difficult because of the institutional defenses the jerks have put in place.
Which is why people jump to the conclusion that we have to wipe the slate clean and start all over again, or starve the beast. The problem with starving the beast is the same one that we had with sanctions on Saddam Hussein. He starved the people and let the beast remain in power.
I’m enjoying some milder weather and patio blogging, but my Twitter feed indicates that we have a bad problem in Japan.
It looks like “bad problem” is a serious understatement.
Now that my fellow Ohioans have gotten a glimpse of the reality of Republican politics they seem to have a severe case of buyers remorse. Seems to have happened in a lot the country, eh?
I have a feeling that even at the anemic 40% level, he might have already hit his high water mark.
God I hope so. Nothing would please me more than to see his approval rating plummet to 27% – crazification factor territory.
I would have thought that 40% was his floor given the demographics of Ohio, but then he decided to piss on the cops and the firefighters. I mean seriously – what kind of moron of a Republican goes after cops? Cops are reliable Republican voters in this state, but if a Republican decides to fuck with them they will take their votes and their endorsements elsewhere. And a whole lot of Republicans (including the governor) decided to fuck with the cops.
My mind still boggles that they thought they could fuck with the cops and it wouldn’t have repercussions. It’s convinced me that Kasich has always intended to be a single term governor – he’s going to drive the state into the ground, sell off as many assets as he can to his cronies from Wall Street, and then get out of dodge and move back to DC. And he’s being aided and abetted by the Republicans in the Assembly who don’t give a rat’s ass about their jobs because of term limits.
(Term limits have fucking ruined this state. Any state that is considering term limits to “hold their politicians accountable” should visit Ohio and see just how fucking stupid that idea is.)
I think that might really be the plan nationally. And I don’t think it’s an accident. Look at how many freshly elected Republican officials have gone all-in for what is essentially a total annihilation of the public sector work force and destruction of the middle class after making nary a mention of anything like it during their campaigns. They were all trojan horses who rode the anti-Obama hysteria into office with a fake campaign and now their real intentions are finally coming to light. Voters are easy to fool. And no one knows that better than Republicans. They will make hay while the sun shines and dismantle and destroy as much as possible in the time they are given. We are such idiots, aren’t we?
I’d also note that there is a certain logic to Norquist being labeled a “moderate”. He believes in using the government to further the interests of the wealthy. Sometimes that requires “compromising” with conservate democrats, because if you don’t “compromise” nothing gets done- its just how our madisonian institutions were designed.
Conservatives now don’t believe in compromising, ever. They want to blow the whole thing up. They really, really do. and everyone’s in denial about it because facing that reality means realizing that constitutional crises aren’t just something that happens to third world countries. If one of our 2 parties refuses to accept the underlying premises of our democratic institutions, we will, at some point, find our way into a constitutional crisis.
“You can’t have a decent government in a two-party system when one party is this dysfunctional.”
I don’t think registering as republicans would do it. We need a complete and total overhaul of our system of government, and transition to a parliamentary system with multiple parties and proportional representation.
Just as importantly, we need to get money out of politics.