Guest Editorial by Frank Schaeffer
With the Senate having now passed the final reconciliation changes to the health care reform bill, the Republicans from their “Tea Party” wing to their high priest of hallucinatory fantasy; Glenn Beck, are about to pay a historic price for the biggest miscalculation in American political history since Charles Lindbergh sided with the Germans. The pundits all have it wrong. Obama’s victory on health care reform will result in the Democratic Party retaining the majority in both houses of Congress as well as Obama winning a second term.
Disclosure: As a former Republican and Religious Right leader who quit the movement in the mid 80s (for reasons I explain in my book Crazy For God) let me tell my progressive friends and all reality-based people why and how the Republican Party just consigned themselves to defeat by (amongst other things) opposing health care reform…
Why would the Republicans go down in flames siding with the insurance industry against the American people? Because they (like all political-religiously-inspired fanatics) are in the grip of their own propaganda. They have committed the ultimate act of political folly: they believe their own BS.
The Republicans have drunk deep at the well of their version of bad back woods moonshine. And their tainted moonshine of misinformation has blinded them. But when the facts are in the Republicans will pay a price. That’s because most Americans are not watching Fox News and still live on planet Earth with their eyes open.
So this — contrary to the pundits — is going to be a great year for Democrats.
Right Wing America lives in an isolation bubble. And now — like the American “patriotic” pro-fascists of the 1930s and 40s — they will pay the price for swilling willful disinformation and believing it.
Consider the fate of the reputation of Charles Lindbergh (the fly-the-Atlantic-solo hero). When Germany invaded Poland (in 1939) Lindbergh became the German’s most prominent public American spokesman. Speaking to crowds in New York City, Chicago and all over America, he was popular with the equivalent of his generation’s “Tea Party Movement” then called the “America Firsters.” Like the Tea Party these folks did not trust their government and thought that they alone had the “facts” about what was “really going on,” in their case over in Germany and what to do about the rise to power of the fascists in Europe.
The “Firsters” or the America First Committee, was against the American entry into World War II. They had about 850,000 members. After the attack upon Pearl Harbor in 1941 their movement collapsed because everything they had claimed about Germany and Japan (that they were no threat to America) proved to be a lie.
That day’s xenophobic and utterly ignorant Firster “patriots” lapped up the Lindbergh moonshine alternative reality. They also (like the Tea Party today) accused their President (Roosevelt) of “communism” because he opposed far right Germany. They too had their hate fed by the likes of Rush Limbaugh; in their day, radio personality and fascist sympathizer Father Charles Coughlin.
Fast forward to last Sunday’s Tea Party rally in Columbus, Ohio when a man with Parkinson’s disease was bullied by the Tea Party protesters who shouted: “If you’re looking for a handout, you’re in the wrong end of town!” and to Washington (Saturday) where Tea Party “patriots” reportedly spit on a black congressman and taunted Barney Frank because he’s gay. Fast forward to right wing anti-Obama forces smashing the windows on Democratic Party regional HQs in 5 states.
Congressional Democrats report threats linked to the passage of health care reform legislation this week. Maryland Democrat Steny Hoyer said that he and Republican congressional leaders have discussed implementing new security precautions for lawmakers after an increase in threats following Sunday’s health care reform vote and accompanying anti-reform protests outside the Capitol over the weekend.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is investigating cut gas lines at the Virginia home of Democratic Representative Tom Perriello’s brother, whose address was posted online by a right-wing blogger who said it was the lawmaker’s address. He later excused his posting of the wrong address as “collateral damage”.
The anti-health care reform window-smashing intimidation specialists are the same sorts of folks who, on the fringe of the “pro-life” movement, have been waving signs wherein Obama’s name is plastered on the picture of a dead fetus, and the word “murderer” is scrawled in bloody letters over our President’s picture adorned with a Hitler mustache. These people are represented by the likes of the congressman who yelled “Baby Killer!” on the floor of Congress and other Republican “leaders” who told America that health care reform meant unplugging grandma.
The leaderless Republican Party — or should I say the dwindling rabble of reactionaries who still identify themselves as Republicans — is not just politically leaderless, they’re also morally leaderless.
This, speaking metaphorically, is a lynch mob in the making. And they have just lost a big fight in our congress. What will they do next?
Why do the Republican leadership allow this mob to rule? Because they now have no choice.
The Republican leadership have literally gotten into bed with hate. And, like all such bargains with the devil, it was easier to begin their relationship with rube America than to end it.
Like Lindbergh who lived out the rest of his life in ignominy — once we went to war with Japan and Germany — the Republicans will find little room to maneuver as the reality of the good that the health care reform bill will do sinks in with ordinary Americans. And if one of the Tea Party-type loons flies another plane into some federal building again — as recently happened to the IRS in Texas — and there is a huge tragedy, the Republican/Tea Party game will be over.
Either way: be it the next right wing act of domestic terror or the realization by the American public that the Republicans are just plain wrong on the facts; the Republicans are on their way down.
They have made a historic miscalculation on health care reform. They have embraced a group of potentially violent and always embarrassing fellow travelers. The American people may have been confused about the facts but they soon won’t be. And most Americans are not hate-filled people who applaud other Americans spitting on congressmen or throwing bricks through office windows — or worse to come.
Count on the Democratic Party doing well in November and beyond.
Frank Schaeffer is the author of Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back
His previous articles at The BRAD BLOG can be read here…
Don’t count on the Democrats doing better in November, Frank. While the Republicans are trying to make the bill seem worse than it is, the Democrats have been trying to make it seem better than it is.
I remember going to one of Obama’s “town meetings” on health care. The room was packed with health care professionals and ordinary citizens, and we were all, every single one of us, outraged that Obama had taken single payer off the table and wouldn’t allow it to be mentioned. We wanted health care, not slight improvements in health insurance that won’t kick in until Congress, the Supreme Court, and a new administration have time to gut them.
Don’t count on the millions of first-time voters registered by ACORN turning out–not after they watched the Democrats they’d elected vote for an unconstitutional bill of attainder against ACORN.
Don’t count on the anti-war and anti-bailout crowd turning out–not after Obama has expanded the wars of aggression and given more to the crooked banksters than Bush had dared dream of.
And don’t count on anyone who isn’t paid (see the Kentucky elections officials’ corruption story on today’s BradBlog) turning out–people are really tired of their votes not being counted, vanishing inside central tabulators, the corporate media announcing winners before the results are in, and Congress swearing in officials before all the votes are counted.
If the Democrats didn’t always pull a bait-and-switch, letting popular candidates draw in the voters but then nominating unpopular candidates who can raise more corporate money, if the Supreme Court hadn’t decided to allow unlimited corporate money in politics, and if the Democrats weren’t too busy pandering or caving to the Republicans to care about what voters want, there would have been a good chance for a second Obama term.
He may get it anyway, but if so, the corporations will have to manufacture the votes. He has betrayed every promise he ever made. Sure, the political party operatives and aspiring candidates on both sides will vote, but they’re a very small percentage of the electorate.
How long do you really think that people will keep voting in faith-based, unverifiable elections, for candidates they cannot hold accountable?
You’ve been wrong before, Frank, and it was, as I understand you, a question of belief. A lot of people lost faith in the Republicans and switched to the Democrats. A lot of Democrats lost faith in their party and switched to third parties. But as long as we have a Constitutional oligarchy instead of a democracy, sooner or later people are going to realize that a symbolic vote is no substitute for a real democracy and a real voice in government.
The violence on the right is usually perpetrated with impunity because it is condoned, if not actually ordered, by the highest levels of government, which is not the elected or appointed officials but the corporations that own them. But even the most peaceful demonstrations by the left bring out the full strength of law enforcement because they are opposed to the corporate status quo, opposed to the torture and wars of aggression, opposed to environmental degradation, opposed to globalization, and opposed to multi-trillion-dollar crony bailouts.
What you think of as government is just a bureaucracy that our real rulers set up to shield themselves from our wrath.
There will be a huge turnout here in California because marijuana legalization will be on the ballot. Some other states may get large turnouts by putting other self-centered hot-button issues on the ballot. But hardly anyone at all would vote if there were only Democrats and Republicans on the ballot. According to recent polls by Rasmussen Reports, only 21% of American voters say that the US government has the consent of the governed, and nearly half of all voters believe that people randomly selected from the phone book could do as good a job as the current Congress.
In George Washington’s day, marijuana was cheap and legal, so they bribed people to go to the polls with whiskey. Now that booze is cheap and legal and pot is not, they’re using marijuana to get out the vote. Nothing at all has changed. If you want to get poor people to vote for rich people who will not represent them and cannot be held accountable during their terms of office, you have to bribe them or threaten them. Not even Americans vote against their own interests because they want to.
When you vote for the lesser of two evils, you’ve made a deal with the devil just as if you had voted for the greater evil. Faced with two evil choices, people of conscience don’t run out to vote for one of them because they like evil. And when you don’t have any choice but evil, you are not a free person and it isn’t a free election.
Violent? Ha, take a look at this. http://www.zombietime.com/zomblog/?p=621
Since their inception the Teaparty crowd (not a movement since they do have the numbers or clout) have been “haters not debaters”. In my opinion this is what the small portions of the republican party of “birthers, baggers and blowhards” have brought you. They are good at “Follow the Leader” of their dullard leaders, they listen to Beck, Hedgecock, Hannity, O’Reilly, Rush and Savage and the rest of the Blowhards. Are you surprise at what they do when you know what they think? The world is complicated and most republicans (Hamiliton, Lincoln, Roosevelt) believe that we should use government a little to increase social mobility, now its about dancing around the claim of government is the problem. The sainted Reagan passed the biggest tax increase in American history and as a result federal employment increased, but facts are lost when mired in mysticism and superstition. Although some republicans are trying to distant themselves from this fringe most of them are just going along and fanning the flames.
As for the window. This was staged by one of Cantor’s gun buddy, good try at being a victim but I don’t buy it, next.
Mark E. Smith:
i am inclined to believe you. Obama has done everything in his power to alienate the left. I would have been happy with a vigorous expansion cum reform of medicaid. I could not bring myself to vote for Obama, and ultimately cast my vote for Nader out of disgust with his warmongering
(I would have gone for Brian Moore but he lacked ballot access in my state). Hopefully if any good comes of this it will be that both grassroots will have vigorous third party challengers.
Steve:
At the risk of sounding like a hypocrite. And as much as I hate to argue formalities, I must disagree with the premise of this link you have posted. These sound like trivial issues but
1) there were actual plots against Obama. White supremacists actually were going to kill him at one point.
2) No one has showed up with a gun at an anti-bush rally
3) Dave Neiwart showed that the violence is still worse on the right (again hate to be arguing lesser-evilism)
http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/20...-unhonest.html
4) These people hate Barack Obama not for what he has done (continue what 90% of bush admin policies), but because of paranoid fears that he will attempt to implement some type of socialism that exists only in the minds of Bircherites.
5)The right has ACTUAL elected officials, and pundits sympathizing with the extremists, and rationalizing their behavior. Michelle Bachmann, Scott Brown (a supposed moderate), and Glenn Beck of course. Can you imagine if Obama had even a few kind words for Bill Ayers, the shitstorm!!??
6) The left never had anything approaching the Tea Parties, Militias, and Oath Keepers….since the late sixties early seventies…although truthfully I’m rapidly becoming ambivalent about such a thing
I don’t want to excuse threats of death against Bush or Obama, both are not acceptable (even worse, most of these protesters probably oppose the Death Penalty, completely missing the damn point), but I think to glibly compare the two of them, and say, “oh both sides have their lunatics”, well, it’s a little like comparing the lies the neocons collectively told, with say…some of the crazy stuff the Revolutionary communist party put out.
It’s sort of this fallacy of balance that infects our society.
But thank you for the link though. It was very informative and eye-opening.
Oh….and that last part was not sarcasm. can’t really do inflection or intonation online :/
I agree, they got in bed with hate. They didn’t even SAY the words “health care” from 2000 to 2008, let alone get the issue out in front of everyone for an entire year. That’s going forward, not staying the same or going backwards. Yeah, it’s not what I wanted, I want single payer. But I think this is the beginning of getting single payer. Doing nothing was not the beginning of getting single payer or affordable universal coverage.
Remember that guy threw a shoe at Bush? I think he was an Iraqi. How come no one brings that up? Why aren’t the Republicans bringing that up?
#1 and #3
What a couple of fantastic posts.
Just chiming my agreement.
Isn’t it odd that in much of Western Europe, manacled socialists that they are, routinely are in the streets demanding for the replacement of this useless, corrupt bugger or that, and in some cases governments? I mean, Italy – what have they had, 43 governments since the end of the war? It’s not necessarily the most effective way to manage a nation, but it sure as shit ain’t worse than the horse traders we end up with all the time! And often, the power of the people is the power to make real change happen. I don’t know if the Western Europeans are on a grand scale any more or less enslaved than we, but they certainly seem to have more political freedom in terms of representation and access, and tend to be happier with their education system, healthcare systems (and not all are single-payer, but they are all heavily regulated) – regardless of what our corporate healthcare owned media tells us, have a higher standard of living, live longer and are healthier as a physical body, have less violent crime, have stronger economies, the list goes on.
Odd, yes. You’d think all of that would be more apt to happen here, what with us being the bestest country in the history of the world, and being that our God will kick their God’s ass (two hits buddy!)
Yet we eat dreck daily, and cling tighter to the dwindling sack of things to be thankful for in America.
If the Democrats keep their majority in November, it’ll be through fear of allowing the teabaggers more of a voice in our government, not as a result of any meritorious acheivement.
The Democrats will win by forcing us to eat less of a pile of turds than the Republicans would (at least that is their claim). And we will thank them for it.
No way to run a country.
Both Dems and Reps should be thrown out of office, for lack of ability to think beyond an election cycle, for promising more than they were going to enact (dems) or enacting much more than they promised (reps). Even if the country has not shifted right, the political elites (as well as the media insiders) have shifted right. No one in Washington seems to want a revival of the left, so throw them all out (politicians and the media).
Here’s an article lambasting the media by the “Father of Reagonomics”:
Truth Has Fallen and Has Taken Liberty With It
That makes two such articles I’ve seen in two days. Are some of those responsible for destroying our economy just waking up to the fact that we no longer have one? The fault wasn’t solely with the Republicans, of course, and with regard to Haiti, Bill Clinton has remarked that his free trade policies were wrong and destroyed the Haitian economy by allowing us to dump rice there and force small farmers off their land.
Some of the violence on the right might just be due to the fact that many fascists are incapable of ever admitting that they’re wrong. But it was both the far right (Republicans) and center right (Democrats) who were wrong. Both political parties serve our oligarchy and neither one wishes to cede power to a democratic form of government. If only the third parties were opposing our Constitutional oligarchy rather than seeking power within it, there might be some small hope for change.
Asimov said it best in Foundation:
“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.“
Our friend Patterico is already trying to downplay it by bringing up someone harrassing palin and Eric Cantor’s lie about being targeted.
Mark @10
Thanks for the link, good article but this guy is a climate change denier which reduces his credibility in my eyes. There has not been an alternative theory that explains the observations made of our changing climate and there are mountains of evidence supporting the leading theory.
Are Republicans just blatantly pissing on us now? wtf? Do they do ANYTHING for us?
Once again, a stubborn Senate Republican is blocking speedy passage of a stopgap bill to extend jobless benefits, saying its $9 billion cost should not be added to the national debt.
This time it’s Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/2010...yment_benefits
Not to mention the hold they’re placing on extending military benefits. They have no shame
John J,
I am not in 100% agreement with Paul Craig Roberts, but he comes closer to telling the truth (including re 9/11) then most of my fellow lefties. I was put off by his mention of climate change as well, but I think his objections are with Cap and Trade. As the following link points out “the devil is in the details”: http://www.storyofstuff.com/capandtrade/
This bill isn’t the greatest, I’ll admit. But we sure as hell arent going to get single payer universal coverage, or any kind of decent health care from the Republicants. So what choice do you have in November? Got to back Obamas play. He seems to be catching on to how totaly insane the GOPers have become with the mixing of religion and politics.
Ever play chess? At the advanced levels, it’s a matter of a series of moves that eventually puts you in a NO-WIN position where you have to make a choice, and neither choice is any good.
Modern American politics is that way. The Corporate Party (99.9% of the Rethuglicans and 95% of the Democrats) make moves and positional plays that eventually put American voters in a position where they have to make a choice they don’t like.
And there is “Health Care Reform” that we are asked to support, because if we don’t, then THE REPUBLICANS WILL WIN, and they are “evil,” so we must support the turd that is HCR. But what we are supporting is also evil, with its mandates and no public option or single payer or limits on premiums or fast-enacting controls.
We’ve been played.
The people that I know that identify with Republicans certainly won’t be backing any of this. They’re conservative, not nuts. It’s a fringe movement that will soon end badly because they always do.
I do not know when the republican party turned into a mob of hysterical teabaggers, but, it is sad to watch.
Their lawmakers, who should be the adults, are just as reckless and irresponsible as the mob of teabaggers.
They have egged on the behavior. For all their talk of personal responsibility, they never take their own. They blame others and refuse to own up to things.
Or do anything to turn it around.
I think back to my childhood and remember when republicans did right by the people. They took the lead in the Watergate investigation. They knew it was important for the good of the country.
They were responsible adults back then. And while I have always been a democrat, I would not feel such disgust for them as I do today, simply because of this behavior.
If something violent happens, the republicans will not change. They will blame others and they will be in denial of their own actions.
They are like drug addicts who cannot accept their addiction.
I do not know what will become of the party but, it is either going to cease or it will spin off into some other parties if they do not get a grip soon.
How’s that ‘Hooked on Phonics’ thing working out for you right-wingers?
oh and btw – SHUT UP YOU REGRESSIVES, We are moving FORWARD into the 21st Century, not the 19th!
New Rule: You Can’t Use “There Will Be No Cooperation for the Rest of the Year” as a Threat If There Was No Cooperation in the First Half of the Year
Bill Maher – Host of HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher”
Posted: March 26, 2010 05:36 PM
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/b..._b_515354.html
Watch the video here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxwTc-9kJWA
Obama announces 15 recess appointments, scolds GOP
By BEN FELLER, Associated Press Writer
(03-27) 22:29 PDT WASHINGTON (AP) — Fed up with waiting, President Barack Obama announced Saturday he would bypass a vacationing Senate and name 15 people to key administration jobs, wielding for the first time the…
Read Full Story
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/a...#ixzz0jRlUDWr1
The Republicans need to get right with God! First the Republicans wanted to give Obama his Waterloo defeat over healthcare but instead they gave themselves their own Waterloo defeat by not participating in the debate of ideas and by becoming the party of obstructionist. Waterloo defeat refers of course to the defeat at Waterloo put an end to Napoleon’s rule as Emperor of the French and was the culminating battle of the Waterloo Campaign and Napoleon’s last. Republicans get right with God or get ready for future losses and Rush Limbaugh I real hope you enjoy your new home Costa Rica!
Answer to your question is yes, its in their nature, just like it was for republican Senator Larry Craig (ID) and republican Senator Roy Ashburn (CA) to act out their nature.