Throwing in the Tea Towel? 2
Shaun Mullen wonders whether the Republican Party has given up on winning the Presidency, settling instead on barricading itself in the individual states. I know it sounds crazy, since the all-horserace-all-the-time news industry seems to think that the Presidential election is the only one that matters (it isn’t–just ask the people of North Carolina, to pick one), but his argument deserves a hearing.
Here’s a nugget:
Follow the link for his full discussion, including the math.
February 8, 2014 at 4:27 pm
I suspect he’s right. The Tea Party and its paymasters, to coin a term from BDSM, can top from the bottom. They’ve figured out they don’t need a presidency; they can tie up the government and force austerity and budget cuts by controlling the House. They can double it at the state level through nullification law and unconstitutional animus legislation faster than higher courts can strike these things down.
In my thing about Roscoe Bartlett, which I assume you saw, when the weird electromagnetic pulse lobby saw it lost the ability to do anything in Congress it took its show on the road to red state Tea Party meetings. And there, along with bevies of speakers from places like the Heritage Foundation, its offered at the state level, on the menu with the rest of the personal animus legislation that gets passed in states like Kansas. The Tea Party really is a cancer but as part of the radical right, even when lacking popular support, it’s very effective at overturning democracy and progressive government. Plus, it’s a business. You’ll have noted many times that hatred of Barack Obama is a profitable business, it sells books, tv shows, movies, flyers, pamphlets, t-shirts, speaking engagements, you name it. Another Democrat in the White House, like Hillary Clinton, well, you can just imagine the opportunity for merchandising. The name alone keeps the lunatics united and energized.
February 8, 2014 at 11:24 pm
Frankly, I also suspect he’s right.
I also suspect it was not a strategic decision, but something brewed in the teapot and then used to anoint the Republican Party, which has been reduced to an unholy alliance of the New Secesh and the American Taliban in service to a Plutocracy that would astound veterans of the Gilded Age.
We are doomed.