I’d like to add something to Noam Scheiber’s analysis of recent Tea Party behavior. Mr. Scheiber interprets their collapse on the debt ceiling and their willingness to allow a Farm Bill to pass, as well as some other signs of softening, as indications that the Tea Party is less irrational than delusional. Their brain infection is bacterial, not viral, and can be treated with the right mix of confrontation. It’s not that they are indifferent to public opinion, they just have to be forcibly disabused of the notion that the public agrees with them.
There’s something to this, but I think the real explanation lies elsewhere. I think John Boehner and other Establishment mouthpieces have finally found a winning argument that is persuasive with the mouth-breathers. They think that their house majority is safe, and they’ve convinced themselves that they can win control of the Senate if they can just refrain from shooting themselves in the foot. They have been able to take positive polling numbers to the wingnut faction of the party and argue convincingly that they are on a glide path to victory in the midterms, and the idea is that they will win if they can just avoid rocking the boat too much.
That means that there can be no more government shutdowns or downgrading of the country’s credit rating. They don’t have to pass immigration reform. They don’t have to extend unemployment insurance. They really don’t have to do anything other than keep the government open and they will be rewarded by the public despite their role in making the government utterly dysfunctional. In fact, the dysfunction of government is the best argument for Republican governance, because the Democrats insist on behaving as if the government can do things effectively.
So, elected Tea Partiers (as opposed to the unelected kind) are willing to sit back and wait for their reward, and then they can really attack this president and his health care law.
As we saw after the 2010 midterms, even if the Republicans are correct about their prospects in November, it means nothing for their prospects in the next presidential election. In fact, I’d argue that the worst thing that can happen for the next Republican presidential nominee is for the Republicans to have a good election night next November. When the whole country votes, they show a clear preference for the Democrats. The sharper the contrast, the easier it is for the country to choose. Offer them a choice between Dick Cheney and Joe Lieberman, and they might become indecisive. But offer them a choice between Hillary Clinton and Ted Cruz and the results will be catastrophic for the GOP.
In any case, the Republican Establishment has convinced the party base that they can do best by sitting pat. By sitting pat, they can prove that the government is horrible and should not be trusted to solve any problem, and then will be put in charge to prove that theory beyond any doubt. Again.
So, some more nose-cutting to spite faces, before 2016, when more rational people show up, and try to glue the noses back on.
We have more than 8 months until the mid-terms.
Do what you can to help GOTV!
I think you’ve put your finger on the Republican leadership’s strategy. I’m not entirely clear they’ve convinced the tp’ers. Perhaps they’ve convinced them to stand down on lesser issues such as the farm bill. But they’re angry as hell about what they see as surrender on the debt ceiling and failing to fight Obamacare to the gates of hell.
I am trying to make a distinction between the Tea Party base and the Tea Party’s elected officials.
I’d guess that part of Boehner’s pitch to the teabaggers is something like this:
“If we take the Senate and hold the House, then you can impeach the Kenyan Usurper – cross my heart and hope to die. All we need you to do is button your lips and cross your legs and 2014 can be the Year When We Finally Take Back Our Country. Happy now?”
Trouble is that requires strategy. Teahaddists don’t need no stinking stratergy. They just know what they know and that’s good enough for them.
Boo, yes I get your distinction between tea party base and tea party leadership. Trouble is the base is fit to be tied and views those leaders who speak with even a thimble’s worth of sense as sell outs. They’ll turn right around and primary the guys they previously supported as primary challengers. This movement has no logical limit (other than the demographic reality that the flat earthers are dying off and the possibility of a candidate so totally nuts they rip off their mask in a way that even the media cannot ignore).
They’ve been doing the bare minimum in the way of legislation for years now. I’m not clear on how this strategy is significantly different than what they’ve been doing.
I personally think Norm Schieber’s analysis to be primarily bullshit brought on by too much exposure to the Beltway Logic Machine.
Michigan, Kansas, Colorado, Tennessee, Georgia, Florida and many, many more.
There is enough crazy to go around. And these crazies (as opposed to the ones who already won) have no honor, no empathy, and no shame at all.
Mr. Gilroy will be along momentarily to explain that there’s no difference, or none worth worrying about, between Hillary Clinton and Ted Cruz….
And at such great length as well.
Bet on it.
….”and their willingness to allow a Farm Bill to pass.”
Or they might just say “Don’t tax me, subsidize my farm”
To the extent there has been a change in the behavior of the tea party caucus, it certainly must have something to do with the advent of the midterms. And Team Repub coaches certainly are relying on the American boob to be unable (as always) to see the forest for the trees. The gub’mint has been essentially dysfunctional since the election of Boner’s Boneheads in 2010. Not too many have noticed.
So do Boner’s Boneheads actually think they can lose their majority, or are they as certain as ever of their 2010 gerrymander fix? You posit that Boner has told them they can win the senate as the reward for their bold decision to extend the debt ceiling. I suppose this gets them the ability to REALLY hold the gub’mint and the executive hostage on every single issue and ends any more Obama judges. As for impeachment, the Boneheads could/can do that any time they like, and they aren’t any more likely to get the necessary votes for conviction if they hold the senate or not.
These are some pretty minor moves to not rock the boat—the TPers won on cutting food stamps and got even more subsidies for their Agribiz masters to boot. And retreating on the debt ceiling is as minimal a step toward “rationality” as could be imagined IMO. But it does make me wonder whether some of the Team Repub coaches have concluded that the Cryin’ Boner could conceivably lose his majority if the turds hold firm on every insane position they have taken to date. The Teaturds prior out-of-control actions had convinced me that such a loss was beyond their calculation. Could they actually be worried?
Since the American boob can’t remember last week, let alone last year, and has been conditioned by 30 years of corporate/”conservative” propaganda to believe that the gub’mint is both incompetent and an implacable enemy, it’s easy to believe that Boner and his sidekick have advocated a Lay-(even)Lower strategy for this inconceivable Do-Nothing Repub Congress, and it seems this is being accepted by their elected imbeciles. We’ll see how this strategy is now communicated to the braindead base, what the base is told they will “get” out of it, and whether this will be seen as complicity or cleverness by the turds at home.
I sure hope they believe that not-lift-a-finger story as the voter registration wave takes shape around them. Some complacency on their part would be advantageous right now.
Boehner wouldn’t have played this card unless he was willing to lose this hand.
It will be fascinating to watch not just Rep leadership on this but the private sector deep pockets. First they realize they have Chris Christie out in front for the Gov’s and now they have Boehner throwing sand.
So much money, so little leadership.