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We talked late last week about the Kansas Republican Party, led by Gov. Sam Brownback (R), making a concerted effort to purge GOP moderates from the state legislature. The far-right governor had a fair amount of success pushing an extremely conservative policy agenda in his first two years, but moderate lawmakers from his own party kept getting in the way.
By way of a follow-up, it's worth noting that Brownback's efforts paid off: several moderate Republicans lost in GOP primaries this week, including state Senate President Steve Morris. Brownback provided the political support for the far-right candidates, the Kansas Chamber of Commerce PAC and the Koch brothers provided the finances, and the result is a more rigid and ideologically pure party.
Team Brownback won. Morris lost by 4 percentage points, 4,969 to 4,635 votes, to state Rep. Larry Powell. A total of nine Republicans lost -- nearly one-third of the GOP caucus. State Sen. Jean Schordof was a pretty typical victim. She was challenged by Witchita city councilman Michael O'Donnell, who told reporter Dion Leftler that the incumbent "doesn't want to do anything to stop Obamacare."
The Washington Post added, "[M]oderates in other states might start worrying for their own futures."
That's really the important takeaway here. In Kansas, Brownback will now have a radicalized Republican caucus controlling the legislature and signing off on every extremist scheme the governor can cook up. The state will suffer (though the Romney campaign would probably just urge those folks to move to Massachusetts).
But the larger trend is that moderate Republicans, in Kansas and elsewhere, keep receiving an unmistakable signal: either move sharply to the right or your career in public service will be over.
Political science models typical suggest this kind of radicalization inevitably backfires -- a party becomes so radicalized that mainstream voters balk, the party loses, and has no choice but to moderate in order to recover electorally.
Republicans in the 21st century are putting this model to the test. At this point, if the GOP is even the slightest bit worried about blowback, they're hiding it well.
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I'm getting to the point where I'm coming to the conclusion that these conservative extremists in red states are only giving the people there what they want. It would not be possible to threaten the moderates if voters didn't apparently yearn to be disenfranchised, used and abused by those who deploy the ideology of the far right. It should be the other way around - with extremists feeling threatened - but red state voters can't seem to get enough of having a boot on their throats. The irony is that the blue states - where moderate Republicans can still thrive - are subsidizing these conservative wastelands with our tax dollars.
June Day's comments are a recitation from "What's the Matter with Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America" by Thomas Frank. This book was published in April, 2005. Thus standing the test of time, I guess.
History tells Tea Party folks that moderates compromising yields changes in American culture for the worse and governmental overspending that will sooner or later result in large and destructive inflation. They are not dumb or masochistic. They want change and simply see no other viable alternatives.
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Jared, I'm familiar with the title and concept of that book; the comments are strictly my own.
History tells me it is conservative methodology to create circumstances where extreme hardship becomes the new normal, thereby allowing an environment where conservatives are able to push through their more extreme ideas, selling them through fear-mongering and brainwashing.
It's difficult to believe those who gravitate to the Tea Party can recognize what's in their own best interests - they may be frustrated, but the likes of Dick Armey, the Koch Bros. and Karl Rove point them in exactly the wrong direction. An example that comes to mind are the Tea Partiers chanting "We will not comply!" upon hearing the Supreme Court decision on the ACA. To not "comply," would mean they were planning to immediately drop their health insurance and burn their Medicare cards in order to deliberately walk around for the rest of their lives without health insurance. Because of conservative brainwashing, these folks had no idea that protections for them in their health insurance had just gotten stronger, and that to not "comply" meant they were actually chanting "We will cut off our noses to spite our faces!"
Professional conservatives feast on that kind of ignorance.
Never imagined how far hating on a black man could take these pathetic people...the party might have to move back toward center to recover, but the instigators of this radical swing won't be moved.
I think they really believe that there's no such thing as too extreme, and that there is no failure that can't be explained as not having been extreme enough.
As a Kansas native and a registered Dem, I feel so hopeless. It's as if I should've changed to unaffiliated to cast a vote for the moderate Republican candidates instead of throwing my vote away on Democrats that have no chance. The lies overshadow the truth here so the majority doesn't even seem to understand what they are voting for. Despair spiral....
Cheer up. Get comfortable in your recliner with a glass of wine and read a good book. I recommend The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.
This Democrat who used to vote for Republicans and Democrats before the republicans went totally nuts years ago, would suggest reading, "It's Even Worse Than It Looks", by Thomas E. Mann & Norman J. Ornstein, as the book you should invest in. But, be advised, you may want a bottle of Jack Daniels instead of glass of wine! It's not too thick and goes down, smooth! I mean the book!
I used to feel bad for some of the good people living in "red states", yet with every vote against their own interests they continue to put nails in that coffin. Many of these people voting against their own best economic interests are the very people that have been laid off due to off-shoring, receive public assistance, are living in poverty, or are 1 or 2 checks away from extremely harder times - and yet they seem oblivious to what the reality of their own disenfranchisement.
The mind is a terrible thing to waste, yet the GOTP have me convinced that they're just completely wasted!
GOPers have no problem comparing Democrats and liberals to Hitler, Stalin, and Mao, and yet here they are conducting their own (albeit less bloody) version of the Night of the Long Knives, the Great Purge, and the Cultural Revolution on their own people.
The next logical step when you have a powerful voting block, with radical views that increasingly prevent enticing a majority share, is to move away from a 2 party system.
I wouldn't be surprised if 12 years the republican party determines the only way it can be relevant is in a coalition government.
"Dogmatic ideological parties tend to splinter the political and social fabric of a nation, lead to governmental crises and deadlocks, and stymie the compromises so often necessary to preserve freedom and achieve progress."
Republican Gov. George Romney - 1964 responding to the Goldwater wing.
I doubt he would be welcomed to the GOP convention this year by this collection of plutocrats. Mitt: Not his father's Romney.