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OpEdNews Op Eds    H3'ed 10/16/13

Letter to European Friends: Understanding "The Stupid" in U.S. Politics

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Message Bernard Weiner

TAILS AND DOG-EAT-DOG

But in recent years, with the election of dozens in the mad-dog Tea Party faction, who are rightwing ideological zealots terrorizing their Republican Party hosts into joining them in the realm of "the stupid," the rules have changed. The focus has become less on helping everyone ("capitalism with a human face") and more on greed and selfishness: "I've got mine, Jack; you're on your own." The energized, if politically insane, Teahadist tail now wags the Republican dog. In a move to weaken the Democrats in Congress, the GOP leadership (and the wealthy, manipulative Koch Brothers) helped create this scary Tea Party monster and now don't know how to rein it in as it turns on them.

These self-described Tea Party patriots didn't come to Washington to govern; they came to destroy traditional small-d democratic government and anything even slightly to the left of 1890s laissez faire capitalism; i.e., no rules or regulations on business, low to non-existent taxes, no safety net for the less fortunate, no supervision of the polluters, no strong unions, etc., giving virtually all power over to the wealthy. In short, dog-eat-dog capitalism at its extreme. 

Some traditional conservatives in the GOP (somewhat more pragmatic types who sometimes are labeled "moderate" right-wingers) think their party has gone too far into this extreme philosophy, but by and large they bow to the Teahadists. And these Tea Party types, anywhere from 40 to 80 members of Congress, can't be disciplined by the GOP leadership. They don't have to worry a fig about whether they can hang onto their congressional seats, because the Republicans in the various state houses gerrymandered their districts (by re-drawing the boundaries) into Republican safe zones for re-election. How do the Tea extremists frighten more moderate Republicans? By threatening to "primary" those who are not judged pure enough in their hard-right zealotry; to "primary" is to run somebody to the right of the current Republican candidate and get their energized Tea Party electoral base to the polls to elect the new extremist.

For the Teahadists -- largely the old right-wing Birchers, Southern Klan members, militia nuts and others who emerged from the shadows under their new name in the 2010-2012 elections -- chaos and anarchy and a non-functioning government are the goals to work for. They are ecstatic that they've been able to have thrown a monkey-wrench into the gears and ground the big, bad government machine to a halt. 

And there's such a deficiency in intelligent, courageous leadership elsewhere in the Republican Establishment that it's likely none of this warped power-structure will change anytime soon. 

THE SEEDS ARE SOWN

Where did all this start? One could go back to the aftermath of the Civil War, when an entire section of the country -- the Southern Confederacy, whose economic/social/political system rested on the institution of slavery -- felt victimized and humiliated. Their resentment simmered for decades and decades beneath the surface; it would re-appear in Jim Crow social customs and in laws designed to dilute the economic, social and voting power of the African-American population. And the Old South states continue to be the poorest, least-educated, most fundamentalist, ideologically blinkered part of the union in terms of fairness for minorities, women, immigrants, homosexuals. More and more, pro-slavery Confederate flags are flown at GOP rallies, and discredited Confederate concepts -- such as state "nullification" of federal law, secession from the United States, calls for impeachment of the first African-American President -- are discussed as if they were possible solutions to what ails them. 

But, much of that post-Civil War behavior appeared as covert discrimination, disguised in legal jargon. To see how the U.S. moved from that more subtle discrimination and backwardness to today's loud, unsubtle politics of hate and destruction and voluntary ignorance, one can point to some more recent examples:

** During the Cold War, the bogeyman label was "communist." Even though there were relatively few actual party members capable of doing any damage, the McCarthyite witch-hunt began to root out "com-symps" ("communist sympathizers") domestically and to go to war abroad whenever something called "worldwide communism" reared its head. The U.S. taking over France's imperial, anti-communist role in Southeast Asia made its invasion of Vietnam almost inevitable. If you didn't support this authoritarian lurch to the right, you were regarded in authoritarian Republican circles as a "pinko" and/or "traitor."

**Around this same time, the Republican Party's presidential nominee in 1964, Barry Goldwater, uttered the magic words to the party's radicals and militias: "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice"And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." In short, one of the two major political parties in the United States was on record as providing moral cover for those willing to take extreme actions to get their party's way, and moderation was regarded as wimpy surrender.

** Fast forward to the mid-1980s and early-1990s, when Newt Gingrich of Georgia, the new radical Speaker of the House, carried the extremist banner into Congress and proudly closed down the government by not funding the appropriations to keep things running. The GOP got a political black eye in that shutdown and lost the next election, but they refused to learn the lesson of their embarrassing overreach. The Republicans continue to pretend to be a viable national party, but the demographics have shifted and most Americans simply aren't interested in buying what they are selling. 

Because of the gerrymandering and illegal disenfranchising of tens of thousands of voters, it's possible for the Republicans to maintain their hold on the House of Representatives for a long time. But the GOP simply can't take back the presidency at least as long as they continue to insult and demean minorities, women, young people, gays, etc.

And, if the Republicans can't capture the White House, nobody else can be allowed to be effective in the presidency. Thus the impeachment of President Clinton, the attempt to destroy President Obama, the thoroughgoing obstructionism of all halfway-liberal policies. The goal has been to bog down the Democrats in constant regressive fights -- made-up scandals, serial disruptions of government every few months, impeachment threats (and, in Clinton's case, actually putting him on trial), so that nothing major can get done under a Democratic administration.

Unless there are major shifts in the body politic, this is a recipe for ongoing nasty gridlock and recklessness, with none of the big issues and problems (global warming, radiation cataclysms, immigration reform, economic failures, jobs creation, etc.) having a chance for solution. 

HOPE ON THE HORIZON?

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Bernard Weiner, Ph.D. in government & international relations, has taught at universities in California and Washington, worked for two decades as a writer-editor at the San Francisco Chronicle, and currently serves as co-editor of The Crisis Papers (more...)
 
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