12 October 2013

The Republican civil war

So.  The Republican establishment and its big-business backers are finally starting to begin to commence to make some sort of effort to get the teabagger vandals and maniacs under control.  After these ignorant fools took the nation and the world to the edge of a default which Business Week said would be "a financial apocalypse" and "catastrophic", after their antics crashed the party's favorable rating to a record low and then even lower than that while Obama and the ACA actually saw gains, after every hope of winning has been dashed, after some Republican insiders have grown fearful that the party itself could be sliding toward oblivion -- now, it's finally time to do something.

Unfortunately the Republican establishment doesn't quite have standing to assert a narrative of itself and the teabaggers as distinct rival factions fighting for control of the party, even if that's emerging as the de facto situation.  Who led the bull into the china shop in the first place?  Who put doofuses like Ted Cruz and Rand Paul and Ted Yoho into positions of power?  Who enabled and facilitated their destructive behavior?  Without the imprimatur and support of the Republican party, they could not have been elected.  Without the collaboration of mainstream figures like John Boehner (who is still blocking a House vote on clean CR and debt-limit bills which could pass with a few sane Republicans voting with the Democrats), they could not have held the country hostage.

After Obama took office, when the Tea Party first arose in all its paranoid race-baiting spelling-challenged glory, the Republican establishment was happy to exploit its rabid energy and ride the tiger to victory in the low-turnout 2010 election.  Even when primary-spawned nutbars cost the party Senate seats in Delaware and Nevada, criticism was muted.  The tiger was dangerous, but it was useful to the agenda the establishment has successfully pursued for decades -- tax cuts, deregulation, and attacks on the welfare state, which have exploded the deficit, held the bottom 99% in economic stagnation, and concentrated wealth more and more in the hands of a tiny, obscenely-wealthy minority (not such a "moderate" agenda, in fact).

Nor is this the first time the Republican establishment has joined forces with a movement of dangerous fanatics in order to profit from their zeal.  In the late 1970s the party embraced the rising new Christian Right, unfazed by its anti-gay, anti-female equality, anti-science, anti-modernity fervor, or by the theocratic totalitarian implications of its ambitions.  The fundies helped get Reagan elected, and the alliance has been tightening ever since.  It was only after forced ultrasounds and gay-baiting and slut-shaming and "legitimate rape" started losing elections that the establishment started gingerly trying to dissociate itself from the crazies.

And now that the latest bunch of nuts has come within an inch of wrecking the global economy that the financial parasite class depends on almost as much as the rest of us do, the establishment wants to disown them and go back to being a sane party and accepted as such.

Sorry, but after a premeditated criminal fuck-up of this magnitude, you don't get to bounce back.  You can't just say "sorry," hit the reset button, and wipe the slate clean.  You enabled this.  You put the Christian Right and then the Tea Party into positions of power, knowing full well what they were and what they wanted to do.  You don't deserve the chance to redeem the Republican party.  It needs to be smashed and destroyed and flushed out of our country's political system forever.  The nuts are fighting back and I hope they and you obliterate each other.  You knowingly and willfully tried to sacrifice the prosperity and freedom and human rights of millions of Americans for the sake of your own political power and greed.  If this is the end, it's the end you wrote for yourselves.

To hell with you.

8 Comments:

Blogger Kay Dennison said...

Well said. No "do overs"!!!!

12 October, 2013 06:31  
Anonymous Marc McKenzie said...

Well put. The cold, blunt truth is that they did this to themselves. They have no one to blame, no one to point the finger to, except the person they see in the mirror.

My greatest fear is that by the time this civil war is over, the casualties will include many who are not in the GOP--the innocents who have been subjected to being hurt because a political party is in its death throes (one hopes) and is striking out everywhere in a vain attempt to take as many down with them.

12 October, 2013 10:07  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's past time to smash them as an institution. It can happen if democrats get ruthless. For some dumbass reason they're supporting Chris Christie and letting his rival fight uphill. The sorry assedness that we've seen from the party over the years is very real. Fuck the GOP. I don't care if some of them don't masturbate in public. They chose to ride the sinking ship. Let them drown.

I support this post 100%.

Vic78

12 October, 2013 10:15  
Blogger Infidel753 said...

Kay: Thanks!

Marc: They're already hurting plenty of innocent people -- but that's all the more reason for Obama to stick to his guns and force them to capitulate now, so they don't put the country through the same crap over and over in hopes of concessions.

Vic78: It could happen, Parties have disappeared before -- there were the Whigs.

Christie is moderate compared to most republicans, but that's not saying much.

12 October, 2013 12:36  
Blogger Robert the Skeptic said...

Years ago a buddy of mine registered Republican so he could vote for the most nut-case candidate in the primaries. Well unless a bunch of people do that it isn't really all that effective.

But... the Tea Party is not an actual political party. It would be cool if a bunch of Libs in sheep's clothing were to actually establish a third party, the Tea Party, to siphon off even more Republican votes. I rub my hands with glee at such a prospect.

12 October, 2013 13:00  
Blogger Shaw Kenawe said...

Great post. The TeaPublicans screw up the country then want to run away from what they've done? Na ga happen. Evah!

12 October, 2013 17:18  
Blogger Ahab said...

I loved your last paragraph ... and the picture of monster rats!

12 October, 2013 19:24  
Blogger Infidel753 said...

Shaw: Thanks! It's poetic justice -- their base of insane people is now going to hold them accountable for failing to do things that only insane people would consider possible.

Ahab: Creepy pic, isn't it? Wish I could remember where I found it.

13 October, 2013 01:43  

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