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When it comes to Republicans' intra-party fissures, some conflicts are easier to understand than others. I can appreciate, for example, why the right is sometimes frustrated with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R). I understood why folks like Charlie Crist and Arlen Specter drove the GOP's base batty before they gave up and became Democrats.
But if Virginia Gov. Bob "Ultrasound" McDonnell (R) is the new poster child for Republicans In Name Only, the party is even further gone than I'd realized.
Four years ago, when he was elected governor of Virginia, Bob McDonnell was a golden boy of the Republican Party, and to liberals he was a villain who hated gays and unwed mothers and thwarted equal-pay measures. A year later, he was his party's choice to rebut Obama's 2010 State of the Union address. And in 2012 he became a card-carrying member of the GOP's unofficial anti-woman caucus by supporting a bill to mandate "transvaginal ultrasounds" before abortions, backing off only after he and the state were ridiculed nationally.
Now, suddenly, McDonnell is a centrist, having made "frenemies" with Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley, a Democrat, over a mammoth transportation deal that was settled late last week. The deal provoked outrage from the Wall Street Journal editorial page ("There's one thing uglier than a Democratic tax-and-spend spree. A Republican one.") and from Ken Cuccinelli, Virginia's Republican attorney general and the party's presumptive nominee for governor this year, who opposed the plan and tried to derail it by questioning its legality.
Not only has the Wall Street Journal editorial page now ruled out the possibility of McDonnell seeking national office, Erick Erickson, a Fox News contributor and prominent far-right blogger, dismissed the governor as an "unprincipled fake conservative" and "a perfect example of the worst kind of Republican."
Molly Redden's piece added, "If McDonnell -- who cut billions from the budget, tried to exempt his state from Obamacare, and expanded concealed-carry gun laws -- has been cut from the ranks of bona fide conservatives, then who can possibly please the right?"
That's an excellent question.
Keep in mind, McDonnell, according to the right, effectively committed one sin: he struck a deal with the legislature on a transportation bill that includes a wholesale tax on motor fuels and a slight increase in the sales tax on nonfood merchandise. That's it. That's the deal-breaker.
McDonnell said he wouldn't raise taxes, he accepted a tax concession to get a larger win, and he immediately became "a perfect example of the worst kind of Republican." Do the merits of the legislation matter? No. Do the concessions he forced from Democrats matter? No. Does the rest of the governor's far-right record matter? No.
It's a binary, pass-fail test -- Republicans are increasingly a mindless, anti-tax party, and even modest dissents will not be tolerated.
Indeed, the furious reaction to McDonnell from the right is probably only partially about McDonnell himself. The rest of the pushback is about sending a signal to other Republican policymakers -- in governors' offices, in Congress, et al -- that compromising to solve problems and address policy needs is simply unacceptable in 2013.
Even if serious attempts at governing are effectively impossible, it's a small price to pay, the right insists, for slightly lower tax revenues. Disagree? Then you're a centrist of no use to the party. (And if the governor of Virginia is now a "moderate," I'm in the running to be the next pope.)
Rachel talked a bit on the show last night about the GOP and its ideological "purges." That Bob McDonnell is on conservatives' chopping block reinforces the larger thesis that the party wants to be smaller, more rigid, and more ideologically pure, electoral consequences be damned.
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Not to mention the fact that, well, new transportation revenue has been sorely needed in Virginia for years. The gas tax hasn't gone up since 1987. Roads are crumbling, and the state barely generates enough revenue for maintaining the roads it currently has, much less building new roads to accommodate growing demand.
This "movement" to the right began with Reagan and what should be understood is that the radical right fringe he one time represented is not radical because radicals have some end state in mind. The lunatic fringe that has risen to dominate the GOP is insatiable in their desire to elevate the power of self over the power of others. As a thought experiment, consider an American where the every policy the radical rights state they desired were in place today. Do we believe that the Limbaughs and Savages would be silent and extolling the virtues of the new found utopia? Does anyone believe they would not be just as angry and frustrated at the status quo whatever it is?
No- they would be agitating for even deeper "reform", where the meaning of "reform" is further dismantling of any collective power of government to have meaningful power over their lives.
The irony is that the far right is labelled ideological but the only ones offering a semblance of a coherent ideology are the libertarians. We don't have to look much further than the unpopularity of Ron Paul's candidacy to understand that ideology is not driving this. If a steadfast belief in the principle of individualism were behind this, then it would be sensible to end the drug war and legalize drugs as Ron Paul advocated.
So what is the state that rugged individualists find appealing so that they can do whatever it is that they want to do, but are hostile to the idea of people doing whatever they want to do if it disagrees with their point of view of what is proper?
It's called anarchism. They will never be content with any intermediate state until America has descended to the level of heavily armed anarchism. And it will not end there because their desire for "freedom" has been satisfied, but because their frustrations have no other institutions left to target and destroy.
In 1857, William Seward had business that took him to Richmond, Virginia, and allowed a bit of a tour of Old Dixie. He was amazed at how primitive the place was, in comparison with his native New York , in terms of development like roads and other public works. It was his introduction to the world of "Southernomics" as described four years later by Confederate Vice President and Traitor #2 Alexander Stephens in "The Cornerstone Speech," in which he described the wonders of the new Confederate Constitution (emphasis mine):
"Allow me briefly to allude to some of these improvements. The question of building up class interests, or fostering one branch of industry to the prejudice of another under the exercise of the revenue power, which gave us so much trouble under the old constitution, is put at rest forever under the new. We allow the imposition of no duty with a view of giving advantage to one class of persons, in any trade or business, over those of another. All, under our system, stand upon the same broad principles of perfect equality. Honest labor and enterprise are left free and unrestricted in whatever pursuit they may be engaged. This old thorn of the tariff, which was the cause of so much irritation in the old body politic, is removed forever from the new.
"Again, the subject of internal improvements, under the power of Congress to regulate commerce, is put at rest under our system. The power, claimed by construction under the old constitution, was at least a doubtful one; it rested solely upon construction. We of the South, generally apart from considerations of constitutional principles, opposed its exercise upon grounds of its inexpediency and injustice. Notwithstanding this opposition, millions of money, from the common treasury had been drawn for such purposes. Our opposition sprang from no hostility to commerce, or to all necessary aids for facilitating it. With us it was simply a question upon whom the burden should fall. In Georgia, for instance, we have done as much for the cause of internal improvements as any other portion of the country, according to population and means. We have stretched out lines of railroads from the seaboard to the mountains; dug down the hills, and filled up the valleys at a cost of not less than $25,000,000. All this was done to open an outlet for our products of the interior, and those to the west of us, to reach the marts of the world. No State was in greater need of such facilities than Georgia, but we did not ask that these works should be made by appropriations out of the common treasury. The cost of the grading, the superstructure, and the equipment of our roads was borne by those who had entered into the enterprise. Nay, more not only the cost of the iron no small item in the aggregate cost was borne in the same way, but we were compelled to pay into the common treasury several millions of dollars for the privilege of importing the iron, after the price was paid for it abroad. What justice was there in taking this money, which our people paid into the common treasury on the importation of our iron, and applying it to the improvement of rivers and harbors elsewhere? The true principle is to subject the commerce of every locality, to whatever burdens may be necessary to facilitate it. If Charleston harbor needs improvement, let the commerce of Charleston bear the burden. If the mouth of the Savannah river has to be cleared out, let the sea-going navigation which is benefited by it, bear the burden. So with the mouths of the Alabama and Mississippi river. Just as the products of the interior, our cotton, wheat, corn, and other articles, have to bear the necessary rates of freight over our railroads to reach the seas. This is again the broad principle of perfect equality and justice, and it is especially set forth and established in our new constitution."
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Once again proving that the "movement conservatives" of today are the Unreconstructed Confederate Traitors of 150 years ago. The South is the South, always has been, always will be - a nation within a nation, with its head up its ass.
I've often said that the current conservative policies can only be brought to two conclusions: anarchy or fascism.
They are seditious traitors and there should be no quarter given in the political field. Obama used his first term attempting to break their fever.
Enough.
It is time for Johnson type tactics of political combat. If the GOP does not wish to comply, their districts will suffer the most base closures, and feel the loss of sequester funds the hardest.
It's time to play rough. This is within the discretion of the executive. If the electorate in those districts don't like sequestration, they can express their opinion to their T Party representatives opposing any compromise on revenues.
If Erick Erickson dismisses you, then you're actually doing something right.
That shrill, self-important hack is the inverse measurement of good policy. Have you ever read his stuff? It's pretty nuts. And his writing skills suck.
I was going to say the same thing . An Erick Erickson endorsement is the political kiss of death and of course the corollary that you stated.
Yes, but I give Erickson credit for calling out Woodward for the bogus "threat". Erickson is more honest than your normal right winger, but still a pathological liar...
If he were truly honest, then he would allow for dissenting opinions on his sad little blog of angry old white men, the way this blog allows nuts to come in here and shoot off their delusional, FOX-fed conspiracies... like some kind of... um, shooter.
You're right. To hold Erik Erickson up as any kind of example except a short sighted goober lacking in any kind of good judgment or insight...an intellectual gnat who buzzes around trying to run into a story he can pound his chest with. He depends on low information and angry people who are just looking for someone to blame while he points the finger. He is the kiss of pettiness. It's a name match and that is all the recognition it deserves.
The next step for the Republicans? Brown-shirted thugs and marching songs!
... waving ultrasound wands
Good! Let the last man standing in the right-wing-Hauptquartier turn off the lights after he dismissed the second last as RINO!
I could make a joke about who the tea Party actually wants to lead them and "The boys from Brazil" but the sad part is I don't think I would be far off.
I hate to say it but when you start seeing this level of anti-government paranoia and social closure it usually quickly turns into something very very ugly with rising influence of hate organizations.
It has happened several times in our national History and each time it has reached a saturation point and snapped back to something approaching sanity but I am not sure that we have reached that point yet...or at least there is no obvious catalyst for change that I can see.
I'm reading The Paranoid Style in American Politics again. The ascendance of reactionary paranoid political groups is definitely cyclical. This time they have captured a party and they aren't goign to let go until the last possible moment, even if it means turning the party into a regional and demographic rump.
Since the election of a black Democrat to the presidency of the US, they have been "joking" about longing for the "SMOD."* It's only partially a joke that they would prefer the extinction of all life on earth to living in an America that doesn't comport with their worldview.
*"Sweet meteor of death"
Every time I see a reference to RINO I think of Eugene Inesco (sp.?), a French absurdist play wright and his play Rhinosceros (Sp?). Inesco was at one of Hitler's rallies and was appalled when everyone began chanting Hail Hitler. He wrote this play as an allegory of mob hysteria. In the play one person turns into a rhinoceros and then everyone starts immitating him. Soon everyone except the hero, who I think was a journalist, turns into a rhinoceros. At the end the hero is sitting on his desk saying: Je me defendra, je me defendra. (I will defend myself, I will defend myself.) (I apologize if I have misspelled these names and the French. It has been a good 50 years since I have read this play or studied French.)
Yes, bflynch, I saw that play at Berkeley Rep about 10 years ago. Wonderful, and you've got the summary just right. It's great political satire.
As to spelling, I'll let you in on my little trick. Since we're all online, it's oh-so-easy to open a tab to Google (or any search engine) and start typing the word you're not sure of in the search box. Before you know it, the corrected spelling comes up, and voila, you look really smart. Ten seconds and you're on your way.
(Spelling is Eugene Ionesco and rhinoceros, BTW.)
JL: thanks for the tip. Can I open Google from the blog "Enter your comment" box? When I wrote the post above this morning the spell checker for the blog, the little red line, was not working, and I had to resort to the dictionary. Spelling has never been my long suit.
[For people who are adept at using the Internet, you can skip this. It's an answer to bflynch about navigating to Google for easy reference.]
You'll probably be able to open a new tab. To the right of the URL (it contains http://xxxxx), there's at least one tab open to your current Web page. Click the square to the right of that tab at the top, and you'll get a fresh Web page. Type google.com in the address line, and after you find what you want, you can click back and forth from the MaddowBlog tab to the Google tab. You can open as many tabs as you want, although they'll get so small after five or six that you can't read read the labels. Hope this helps.
JL: thanks. I'll try it. Most of the time I simply use the dictionary, but I could not use that for a Foreign name and phrase. I probably will not have to quote French again.
A prostitute with a diaper bag. Or so I've heard. Apparently that kind of spending is just fine.
Eric is right about one thing: Transvaginal Bob is unprincipled
As long as there ARE electoral consequences FOR the GOP party vs. just visiting the (negative) consequences of the GOP's drive to the bottom UPON the electorate...
Right. What's troubling to me is that the GOP lost in the last election. We have a Democrat President and majority in the Senate, plus receiving more votes for the House of Representatives, with gains in number of seats. And yet, as the minority, Republicans are still effectively running the agenda through filibuster and refusing to compromise in any meaningful way.
How is that possible? And why aren't people angrier about it? They lost and they're legislating as if they'd won. Neat trick.
Oh, JL, didn't you know? Reid and McConnell had a gentlemens' agreement in regards to the filibuster.
Funny how that worked out.
All Chris Christie said was that the President did his job when it came to it, and he's been lampooned for it.
Touch a Democrat, catch cooties.
What are you? 5 years old?
Dulutian: turn your Snark-o-meter on.
...who can possibly please the right?
Among governors, Mike '2nd stupidest person on the face of this planet' Pence from Indiana and Brown
shirtback of Kansas.You forgot the guy in Mississippi who doesn't know what he's talking about.
Well, going forward there is an alternative to raising gas taxes to pay for needed roads. It is called development fees.
If new construction paid fees commensurate with the cost impacts associated with the development growth would pay for itself. It would come to about $50,000 per single family home or its equivalent in a built-up area (such as northern Virginia).
Instead, we have chamber of commerce cliques that wants zero development fees and no taxes for infrastructure, then demand private toll roads to get them away from the masses.
Don't remind me. I live in VA. Hoping Bolling will split the Republican vote and we'll get McAuliffe. Not that I am a McAuliffe fan...
I almost feel like this is some bizarre Kurt Vonnegut-is-not-satire attempt to make the Democratic Party - and by extension, the country - more right wing by the GOP, by shunning anyone who isn't 100% ideologically pure so they have no place to go but the Democratic Party where no matter how left they might lurch, it won't counteract the rightward lurch the Party makes by including them or at least be willing to work with them.
It's like the GOP elders are willing to sacrifice their own party, reduce it to a lunatic fringe that exists solely for mockery - if they can actually use the Dems to get more of their agenda passed whilst simultaneously demonizing those same Dems to appease the base that keeps them in donor funds.
The destruction of the repub party was set in motion when they embraced the Southern Strategy, and began courting the evangelical Christian vote. It accelerated when they welcomed the Tea Party into the fold. Each stage was a cynical attempt to gain power, rather than an actual willingness to address the issues near and dear to those constituencies. Each was like a parasite, slowly eating away at the host, making it sicker and sicker. Of course, parasites can eventually kill the host, and that is what is happening to the repub party now. The question then becomes, what happens to those parasites once the host is dead? They aren't numerous enough to be a politically viable force nationally, so what happens when a bunch of angry, disaffected people see a nation that doesn't share their values?
What happened with the GOP Southern Strategy was they made the mistake of thinking it would work the way it had with the Democrats for the previous 170 years.
Traditionally, there have been two national parties: the national conservative party and the national progressive party, fairly evenly balanced. The regional Southernist party saw its path to power as allying with the one that would allow the continuance of the South's "peculiar institutions." The only time before the 1960s that was breached was when the slaveowners attempted to take over the national Democratic party in the period 1856-60 to impose slavery throughout the Western territories. They came back to the Democrats after the War of Southern Treason and allowed a certain amount of national progressivism (so long as it was limited to white people after they got their white supremacist candidate Woodrow Wilson in office to impose national Jim Crow through the federal government) and so long as the New Deal delivered things like the Tennessee Valley Authority and the maximum number of military bases during World War 2.
After the Democrats' "treason" over civil rights in the 1960s, the Southernists determined that the next time they would not ally, but take over the new host, which they have done ever since Nixon allowed them into the Republican Party in the mistaken belief he could contain them the way Roosevelt had.
What we are seeing now is what happens whenever the parasite attempts to take over its host and control it - both host and parasite die. Politics does indeed follow life.
When are the moderate Republicans going to break off and create a third party?
They're still operating under the delusion that the Southernists are "conservatives" and not the far right radical revolutionaries they are. As an old German friend once explained, "Hitler wasn't elected by the Nazis, he was elected by the conservatives who believed him when he said he was one of them, a lie they discovered too late."
"Republicans are increasingly a mindless, anti-tax party, and even modest dissents will not be tolerated."
Unless it's the payroll tax, because that doesn't affect the rich much.
This article misses a few very important things going on right now that are helping drive this. As a resident of VA (commie pinko NOVA to be exact) let me catch you up to speed.
The GOP here is in a full out civil war. Because of how our primaries (or to be specific, lack of them for the GOP) and conventions work, only Republicans are involved and the system is rigged to nominate the most bug @!$%# crazy guy they have. So the moderate Republican, Bolling, isn't even bothering to run because there is no way he can beat the Cooch. The Cooch is crazy, like Ted Cruz level nuts, maybe even worse.
Now the problem with that is it won't win state wide. Because outside of the crazy part of Virginia, most Republicans here are McCain ex military types around Hampton, or David Brooks types up here in NOVA. They don't want their taxes to go up, and they are pro business and love them some military spending, but that Tea Party nonsense doesn't sell. To say nothing of the "blue areas" here. Which aren't really liberal (richest two counties in the US) as you'd think about it. We're socially liberal but military hawks and economically neoliberal (ie keep our taxes down and screw those @!$%#s in SOVA that don't make six figures, they are lazy slackers).
So all in all, it's a centrist state that doesn't like to rock the boat and just wants the money train to keep going. Which means crap like "destroy government spending, and ban birth control" doesn't fly at all. You can't win state wide office.
This is has caused McDonnel (aka Sodomy Bob in these parts) and the local business leaders to go into full on panic. They're trying to force the Cooch out of running and Bolling is threatening to run as an independent. And given that our "local business leaders" are people like Boeing, Lochheed, BAE, these are important people with a lot of money. They're trying to get rid of the Tea Party crazies before they break everything.
So a lot of the lashing out at McDonnel over this, is just part of that whole proxy war. They're trying to take McDonnel out because Sodomy Bob is frantically working with the business community to get rid of the Cooch. So there is a giant circular firing squad about "real Republicans" and "electable Republicans" going on right now with people freaking out over the most minimal crap.
Thanks for an on-the-ground explanation of Virginia politics.
Wait, they're even hounding Governer LadyParts? Now that's extreme!!
If the transportation deal includes the transvaginal highway will they welcome him back?
Any Republican who tries to block transportation improvements in Virginia will have a very difficult time winning elections. I fully expect a Democrat to win the governor's race, assuming the Democratic party is smart enough to push a decent candidate.
This depends on where in VA. In NOVA and Hampton, yeah, that won't work. But in redneck land they are always screaming about how NOVA is wasting money on trains, subways, and all of that jazz. Keep in mind that NOVA and the greater DC area is like Chicago or Sanfran in it's temperment and attitude. A good portion of the state is like Alabama though who just want cheap gas.
Don't estimate the Democratic parties ability to screw things up here though. Terry Mc might be nominated which would turn into a royal mess. He's hated.
If Bolling does run as an independent he could very will win. The crazies would vote for the Cooch and the Democrats (more like centrists) that make up the rest of the state might side with the moderates and elect him. The Democrats here have a terrible habit of nominating poor candidates or actual progressives who scare the crap out of the well off liberals who think their wallets will shrink.
Neoliberal business types like Warner are what wins. If it was for term limits we probably would have crowned him king.
SinDC, as someone who lives near Richmond, I agree with your assessment 100%!
I know this is giving the conservative Republicans FAR too much credit, but let me suggest a theory.
Could it be that the folks who run CPAC, knowing how far to the right the party base has moved (and how toxic the Republican brand is becoming), decided to exclude people like Christie and McDonnell in order to make them seem more moderate--thereby enhancing their future electability?
That's being pretty Machiavellian, but it is possible.
I posted the same sentiment the other day , but then I heard all the right wing talkies condemning Christie, and Levine actually called for Cantor to resign, and I realized that the base would never play ball in that type of scheme, they are too stupid.
Whatever will keep Transvaginal Bob out of national office is good by me.
Conservatives still have Michele Bachmann. They'll always have Michele Bachmann. Really, who else would take her?